Pinned Down: A Triple Threat Sports Romance (4 page)

Kendra

We pulled up to a quiet little hole in the wall. We parked around the corner, and Lucky opened the door to let me out of the car. He put an arm around my shoulders and held me close while we walked, keeping me protectively under his arm as we rounded the corner and walked to the door of the diner.

The front of the diner was narrow. There was the glass door and a window on each side of it looking into the place. I could see a row of booths along one wall with a counter dividing the kitchen and register from the dining room along the other, leaving just enough room so that people standing at the counter wouldn’t be standing right on top of the people eating in the booths behind them.

In the back, the dining room opened up. Booths still lined the wall, but small round tables with stools fixed in place around them filled the center of the room. For someone with Lucky’s reputation, I was really impressed with his knowledge of less than upscale places to eat around town. He certainly knew how to escape the limelight when he needed to.

I relaxed as soon as we walked in. There wasn’t a crowd. The place was nearly empty. There weren’t any photographers or reporters waiting to hound us. And the staff was really polite.

“Go ahead and have a seat. I’ll be by to take your order in just a moment,” the lady behind the counter told us as we entered.

“I think around in the back will be best. What do you think?” Lucky asked me.

“Yeah, not a bad idea.” I didn’t want to risk being followed or spotted. We sat in a booth along the wall adjacent to the kitchen, as far out of sight as possible.

“Usually when we’re not busy we let our guests seat themselves before we take their orders,” the lady from the counter said as she approached the table.

“We certainly appreciate it tonight,” Lucky said gratefully.

“Well, do you know what you want, or do you need a menu?” she asked.

“Menus would be nice,” I told her. “Sorry, it’s my first time here.”

“No problem, dear. What can I get you two to drink first?”

“Just water for me,” I said.

“Same,” Lucky added.

“Now, if I get you a menu, you’re going to order something, right?” our waitress asked as she reached over the counter to grab a couple of menus for us.

“Definitely. I just need some water,” I told her, fighting back the urge to stutter as my anxiety tried to build up again.

“We’re both pretty hungry. We missed out on dinner tonight,” Lucky chimed in, grabbing my hands across the table and smiling at me.

“Okay, you’ve got me. Here are your menus, and my name is Julie. If you need anything, just call for me. Don’t worry about being rude.” She smiled and walked off, leaving the menus on the table.

“So, what was that all about back there?” Lucky asked.

“It’s a long, long story,” I told him, sighing.

“I’ve got all night,” he said, encouraging me to talk. “I mean, you knew what you were getting into, right?”

“More than you realize, Lucky. My parents are famous musicians. Growing up, I had to deal with that all the time. Well, to varying degrees depending on who they were playing for at the time,” I explained.

He furrowed his brow. “I don’t remember any famous musicians named Boles when I was younger,” he said.

“That’s because that wasn’t their name. Boles is my mother’s maiden name. You probably wouldn’t recognize their names anyway. They weren’t members of a famous band or anything like that. They were very successful touring and studio musicians. The only time they really got a taste of the fame was when they played for someone like Sting or a member of the Jackson family,” I explained. I was careful not to give him my real last name. I didn’t want him connecting any dots. That part of my life was behind me. I was doing everything on my own now, without them.

“So, what kept you from following in their footsteps?” he asked me, ignoring the issue of their names.

“I just wanted to do my own thing. I didn’t like all the attention they got. It was horrifying and stressful,” I explained quickly. I was thankful that he was interested in listening to me, but that didn’t mean I wanted to talk about it.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know,” he apologized.

“It’s fine. I agreed to do this with you without thinking about exactly how much you have to deal with all of that. I wasn’t prepared. I thought I was, but I wasn’t. I’m the one who should be apologizing, not you.”

“Hey, at least we’re talking about it, right? That’s good, isn’t it?” he asked suddenly, a big smile playing across his face.

“Yeah, I guess so. Communication is good, or that’s what they say,” I agreed.

“That is definitely what they say. But seriously, anytime something like this is bothering you, feel free to tell me. We’re a team, even if we’re not really dating, okay?” He leaned across the table and cocked an eyebrow to make sure I was paying attention.

“Got it. Now, can we order?”

“Yeah, definitely.” He raised a hand and beckoned for Julie to come back over.

“Now, don’t forget, we serve breakfast all day,” she said when we told her we were ready to order.

“Oh, hold the phone,” I cried out. “This changes my order. You go ahead. I’ll figure it out while you’re ordering,” I told Lucky.

He ordered cube steak with gravy and mashed potatoes. I was surprised they were able to prepare that in the little bitty kitchen they had, but if they said they could, I’d believe it.

“Okay, I’d like two eggs over easy with toast and sausage, please,” I told her.

“Is that all for you, dear?” she asked.

“That’ll be all. I mean, it’s breakfast for dinner. Who doesn’t love that?”

“Right you are. I’m glad I brought it up.” She took our menus and turned the order over to the cook, who started working on our dishes right away.

So far, no one had brought up who Lucky was, or that we were together. We were just two people eating together at a diner late at night after a failed attempt at going out somewhere else first. It was quiet, reserved, and inexpensive.

“You seem to be feeling better now,” Lucky observed.

“I am. I’m sorry I ruined the date you planned for us,” I told him.

“Don’t be. This is fine. Sitting at a quiet table, enjoying good food, and talking—who could ask for more?” He took my hand in his. His strong fingers gripped mine and squeezed gently. I wanted more than breakfast for dinner. I wanted Lucky, but I knew we couldn’t do it. We were together on business only, and it needed to stay that way.

“So, tell me about what happened to get you here,” I said, realizing he knew more about me than I did about him at that moment. I wasn’t sure why I had told him about my parents without trying to get anything else out of him.

“Someone I knew got in trouble, and I was somehow connected to it. The team didn’t want to be associated with that, so they traded me,” he answered. I was impressed with how open he was with me. He didn’t have any trouble telling me what I wanted to know about him.

“Were you involved in what they got in trouble over?” I asked him.

“No way. They were just always trying to cause trouble for me. That’s all.” He dismissed the idea with a wave of his hand.

I was having a hard time putting the man in front of me together with the reputation he had. He seemed so nice and mild-mannered. It was hard to see him as a playboy, leaving a trail of heartbroken women behind as he went from city to city during football season. Maybe that was part of his charm, though. He was disarming, and that was dangerous. Still, it felt genuine, and he was being completely honest with me about it. It seemed to me that he wouldn’t have been so honest about it all if he wanted me to be one of those women. That could’ve been a problem, too. He probably wasn’t attracted to me, allowing him to be completely honest with me because he wasn’t trying to get me in bed.

“So, I have to ask, why Older Brothers?” Lucky asked, bringing me out of my head and back to the moment.

“This isn’t my first charity,” I told him. “I grew up privileged. My parents made a lot of money. Of course, that also meant moving around a lot, which brought its own problems, but I never felt disadvantaged or anything. I finished school with no problems, graduated college without going into debt. I had it easy, but I know a lot of people out there don’t. So, instead of continuing to ride my parents’ coat tails, I broke away and started trying to help people who don’t have it as easy as I did,” I explained, realizing I was opening up to him again.

“That comes with a certain amount of recognition, doesn’t it?” he asked.

“Not as much as you’d think. I get to fly below the radar a lot of times. I’m good at PR. I’m a project manager at heart, so handling operations for charity organizations came naturally for me. Older Brothers in particular is a pretty big challenge.” Again, I was just laying it all out onto the table for him.

“How so?” He didn’t seem to mind that I was telling him my life’s story. He leaned forward and listened intently.

“Well, you heard about the scandal, right?”

He shook his head. “I don’t really follow charities. I just occasionally donate to them.” He shrugged like it was no big deal. And it really wasn’t a big deal. A lot of athletes and other celebrities didn’t really follow charities other than their favorites, at most.

“After most of the money they had raised went missing, the previous director was taken out of the office in handcuffs and brought up on charges. I saw that the position was open, saw that there was a lot of work to do to bring this particular organization back up to snuff, and I decided to go for it. If anyone can do it, I can, right?” I asked him.

“I guess so,” Lucky said, nodding. He definitely seemed impressed by me, and I liked that.

I also liked the way my body responded to him while we talked. His deep, calm voice just rubbed my flesh all over while I listened to him. I enjoyed the way our little pretend date felt almost real. That was very nice indeed.

We continued talking while we ate, and our conversation eventually left all the serious stuff like work behind. We started joking and laughing with each other, returning to a more playful kind of conversation.

I realized I had made a good decision by agreeing to work with him on his image in order to help me with Older Brothers. I wasn’t comfortable being under the spotlight with him, but I figured we could continue to see each other on the side while he worked with a Younger Brother. A Younger Brother might appreciate the spotlight a little better than I did.

I just hoped Lucky would be able to teach him how to handle it before it went to his head. So many successful young people didn’t know how to handle success. They blew it on drugs, alcohol, and women. While Lucky seemed to enjoy spending money, and he damn sure enjoyed women, he was also able to keep his wits about him.

Maybe a Younger Brother would be enough to distract him so I could get in and win him over, I thought.

Lucky

Before the official start of the season, Mr. Stevens decided to have the team and staff over at his house for a barbeque. It was a very different atmosphere from what I was used to. This new team was more of a family than my previous team. We had all been out there on the field for ourselves. It worked for us. We had championships and everything. These guys had championships, too, but they approached their team building a little differently. They played for each other, not just for themselves.

Luckily, I was just the kicker. I didn’t have to do a whole lot of working with the rest of the guys. I just showed up when they needed me. Of course, off the field was a different story. I was still expected to participate in all of the family-oriented things they did.

I figured it was a good time to show Kendra off to the rest of the team, especially the owner. He’d been the one pushing me to have a steady girlfriend. I wanted to show him that I had one. She wasn’t really my girlfriend, but he never said she had to be.

The tabloids had tried to make a scandal out of our relationship at first, but it was starting to mellow out. We’d been seen doing little things around town, from the night out to simple stuff like grabbing a cup of coffee in the middle of the day. In fact, running out of the club that night had worked out in our favor. According to the papers and tabloids, she wasn’t having a panic attack from being bombarded by the paparazzi. Instead, I was trying to keep our relationship private. One of them had even mentioned trying to find where we went, but we had disappeared.

I hated to admit it, but there was something to the whole steady girlfriend thing, something I had missed out on by running around from girl to girl. There were things that I just didn’t get to do with the other girls. It was all focused on sex, so we didn’t do things together. We just did each other. While it hadn’t seemed boring at the time, it was definitely boring in comparison to how much I’d done with this beautiful woman I wasn’t sleeping with.

Of course, we were the only two people who knew we weren’t sleeping together. When we arrived at the owner’s mansion for the barbeque, everyone looked at us like they just
knew
we were fucking. I couldn’t deny that it would have been nice to bag the woman on my arm.

She wore a light blouse over a white tank top and shorts that showed off her long, thin legs with sandals over her petite feet. I could tell when we got there that she was worried she might have underdressed for the occasion, but the other women in attendance had all worn different degrees of casual clothes.

Kendra was the only girlfriend. I was shocked. The other guys were married. Talk about culture shock! I missed Harley and the trouble we would get into together, even after losing Jake to a happy marriage. I was hanging out with a bunch of goody-goodies, and I didn’t know how to take it.

I stood back with a glass of champagne while the other guys crowded together on one side of Mr. Stevens’ pool. I watched both groups, the players and the wives. Mr. Stevens worked over the grill, cooking up hotdogs, hamburgers, and barbeque chicken. He had a couple of the younger staff members standing around. I couldn’t tell if they were helping or if he was trying to teach them how to grill.

The wives accepted Kendra right into their group. The guys eyed me suspiciously. They were probably right to. They probably knew I was faking it for the owner. I wondered how obvious I was. I figured I must have been pretty obvious. They all had that look on their faces.

“Lucky!” Coach Anglin came over and grabbed me by the shoulder. He was carrying a red plastic cup. He was the only person I saw with something to drink besides champagne.

“Where’d you get the other drink?” I asked him right away. I felt a little strange drinking champagne at a cook-out.

“By all means, son, follow me. I’ll get you fixed right up,” he said in a jovial tone, but as soon as we were out of earshot he dropped the act. He was stone sober. “Yeah, Mr. Stevens likes for everyone to drink champagne when they’re here. No way, man. We may be a pretty successful team, and the owner may be filthy rich, but I still like my cheap light beer, man.”

He walked me into the house where he had a cooler behind Mr. Stevens’ bar. I felt like we were connecting, bonding, on some rebellious level.

“He lets me bring my own beer and stash it back here. Also, if you want something stronger, he’s got damn near anything you can imagine back here at his bar,” Coach said as he opened the cooler and pulled out a tall boy. He grabbed a cup and some ice.

“I’m fine with just a beer,” I told him.

He cracked open the can and started to pour. “Good man. I see you brought the lady from Older Brothers with you. Again, good job, kid. I’d like to take a swing at that. Damn, Lucky.”

I laughed. I felt a little more comfortable talking candidly with Coach Anglin. “That’s how I got my name, Coach, getting lucky with the unlikeliest ones. Where’s Mrs. Anglin?”

“Not for me, kid,” he said, sliding the cup to me across the bar. “I just keep all of mine quiet and out of the picture.”

I sighed. I envied him right then, but at the same time, I wasn’t so sure anymore. I could see through the windows looking out onto the patio that Kendra was having a good time with the wives. I wanted to tell him he was missing out, but I was sure he would have seen it differently.

“You got it bad, man. Come on, let’s get you out here with the guys before you get too far stuck up your old lady’s ass.” He grabbed me and pulled me with him, forcing me to hang out with the rest of the team.

After a few sips of the crisp, cold light beer, it was easier to approach the team with their suspicious, accusing stares. I was the new guy, the scandalous outsider. I didn’t fit the mold, but I had made an impression on the coach, and possibly the owner as well, so I stood a chance at getting in with the guys, I thought.

It was the oddest team cook-out or get-together I’d been to. No one got plastered. No one even entered the pool. It never really fell into full-on party mode. It was very calm and reserved. By the time we left, I felt a little more comfortable around the guys. I knew what was expected of me.

I also knew I wanted to go home and get out of this good guy boot camp. I wanted a team where even if I was married, I could still raise a little hell at parties. We said our goodbyes and hit the road when it was all said and done.

“How’d it go?” Kendra asked, smiling from ear to ear.

“Not nearly as well as it did for you, I see.”

“You didn’t have a good time?”

“My god, Kendra, these guys are dull,” I groaned.

“Not their wives. Wow.”

“What did you talk about?” I asked her.

“Girl stuff. You probably don’t want to know,” she answered, shaking her head.

“You’re right, but I’m glad you had a good time.” I reached over and grabbed her hand while we drove back to her place. Her touch was electric, and I wanted nothing more than to go upstairs to her apartment for the rest of the evening. We didn’t even have to sleep together or anything. I just wanted to spend time with someone I could talk to.

The guys had talked about sports, but they talked about it from a more analytical standpoint. They didn’t talk about it the way players and fans would have. They talked like they were all future coaches, managers, and owners. And maybe that was what Mr. Stevens wanted, to create a culture of ownership and entrepreneurship among his players. I wasn’t interested.

Kendra and I parted ways at her door. I thanked her for coming out. She thanked me for having her there, and I could tell she meant it. I told her I’d call her when it was time to get together again. She said she couldn’t wait.

After dropping her off, I thought about calling one of my girls from before on the way home. I wasn’t ready to go home alone and not get laid. There was Cherry. She lived nearby. When I was back home, we’d come through this town a couple of times, and I’d nailed that little piece to the wall once or twice. It would have been nice to reconnect with her.

A strange thought suddenly occurred to me. What if I tried to take this arrangement with Kendra to that level? It would have been better than possibly stirring up some drama by calling up one of my old girls. I decided to wait and see what I could make happen with Kendra before calling anyone from before.

I went home and fell into my routine over the next few days. Kendra and I spoke here and there, checking on each other, keeping in touch just enough to keep the ball rolling. With the official start of the season just a week away, we ramped up our practice schedule. We had fewer meetings and ran more drills, leaving less time for goofing around in between sessions. The tabloids started asking if we were breaking up, falling apart, or just fizzling out. From what I could tell, we were both ignoring them and focusing on our lives.

We were running some pretty serious drills. Things were getting more and more intense. I was surprised these guys hadn’t walked away with a Super Bowl win every year. They trained like some kind of military Special Forces. It was ridiculous, but it was good. It was definitely a confidence boost and a team building exercise to be out there on the field with these guys every day trying to break our bodies.

Then, something did give. It didn’t break, but it twisted, and I was out for the day. My ankle was done for a while, and just a few days before the game. We had a backup kicker who would be subbing for me until I could literally get back on my feet. The team physicians put me on crutches right there in the practice facility. I couldn’t even walk.

It was my right foot, so I couldn’t even drive. Someone had to take me home. I hoped I could make a speedy recovery and get back to doing things for myself pretty quickly.

I didn’t know who else to call once I got home from practice that day, so I called Kendra. I had to vent to somebody. I certainly didn’t want to let Jake or Harley know that shit wasn’t working out on the new team. And I wasn’t in a position to shoot the breeze with any of the other guys yet. Kendra was the only person I knew, and certainly the only person I felt comfortable talking to.

“Are you okay? Do you need anything?” she asked after I told her what had happened.

“Yeah, I’m fine. I think. I’ll be able to manage. It’s not my first injury, but it sucks, you know. It’s tough. I’m over here trying to prove that Mr. Stevens and Coach Anglin made the right choice by giving me a chance, and if I’m not screwing up off the field, I’m getting screwed on the field.” I shook my head. I couldn’t believe I was opening myself the way I was to someone who was almost a complete stranger to me.

“You know what? I’m getting out of here early today. Let me run by the store and grab a few things. I’ll cook you dinner tonight.” Kendra went into protective, caring girlfriend mode right away, like it was nothing.

As embarrassing as it was, I accepted her offer to help.  It wasn’t often that I was willing to admit that I needed help.

“Damn, Lucky,” she said, laughing a little. “I’m sorry, it’s not funny. It’s just your name.”

“Yeah, yeah, laugh it up. I’m not feeling very lucky right now.” Or maybe I was. Maybe I was feeling very lucky indeed.

Despite hobbling around on crutches, hearing Kendra’s caring attitude towards me made me feel like I was definitely going to get lucky with her. I was going to try to take our arrangement to the next level, and I knew it would be best to try it at the height of her sympathy for me.

When we hung up, I sat and waited with a cunning grin on my face. I was about to have my cake and eat it, too. And Kendra was about to get all the Lucky she wanted.