RHINO: A Bad Boy Sports Romance (With FREE Bonus Novel OFFSIDE!) Page 17

  I go on. “Frumpy and mousy looking, this snap of these two out to dinner shows just how much she’s punching above her weight, which seems to be increasing by the way. Just look at the dress she’s chosen. I could go on.”

  Lucy narrow her eyes. “It’s meant to be inflammatory, it’s an opinion piece”, she says.

  “That’s why we need to do an opinion piece of our own.”

  “Maybe I am punching above my own weight.”

  “Yeah but you’re definitely not mousy looking, I mean that’s just insulting.”

  Lucy smiles at me and I take her by the shoulders. “It’s only a couple of hours”, I say.

  “I hate reporters.”

  “Then you’ll be careful what to say.”

  “You shouldn’t get bothered by this kind of stuff, you know? You seem more bothered than I am about this, which makes me worry that you’re embarrassed about me being described that way, as though the mighty Alex Vann Haden wouldn’t dare to be with someone ordinary.”

  I give her my death stare. “You really think I’m mighty.”

  “Alex, I’m serious.”

  “I’m just sick of everyone making stuff up, especially after what’s happened so far this month.”

  “Yeah, well, we’ll never be able to change that I’m afraid.”

  “This could be good for you”, I say.

  “I don’t like being the center of attention.”

  “Alright, I’ll call it off. I just thought-.” I go back to the magazine. “Making ends meet at lowbrow magazine Endzone, where Lucy spends all of her time interviewing college football players, and utilizing her basic degree in English to write articles that lack passion and integrity. Come on Alex, this doesn’t sound like the girl for you.”

  “It doesn’t say that.”

  “It says it.”

  I show her the magazine, my thumb highlighting the word basic.

  “What do they mean by basic? How do you even get a basic degree?”

  “I guess they mean it’s easy, you know, I don’t know-.” I’m getting those eyes again. “I don’t think your degree is basic”, I say.

  “It’s not basic. It’s the same as every else’s. It was damn difficult.”

  “I know that honey, you know that, but everyone reading this magazine now thinks the opposite.”

  “They can think what they like.” She’s shaking her head. “Basic.”

  “Shall I get the car ready?”

  It doesn’t take much more to convince her. With magazine clutched in her hand, we take to the car, where Lucy spends most of the journey reading things out from the article and shaking her head in maddening disbelief.

  For a long time I didn’t read what got written about me, but since that bullshit scandal broke, I’ve been much more careful about keeping tabs on what goes on in press and social media and what gets printed about me. It’s an ongoing war to stay on top, but I figure that if I do the work now and set the foundations, I’ll have to do much less later on.

  Lucy was the same as me, which is why she’s never bothered to do anything about it before. What they say about her doesn’t affect the way I feel about her, but I do know that if there is an opportunity for us to print the truth, then we might as well take advantage of it.

  The idea isn’t to challenge something that has already been written, more to show the side of Lucy that hasn’t been shown before. It’s almost exactly the kind of thing I wanted her to do for me when I asked her to the island before the season started. If they don’t know the truth, magazines and newspapers will print conjecture and conjecture is much more appealing if it’s designed to be provocative.

  “I’ve never done an interview before”, she says.

  I look over at her suspiciously. “You’re kidding right?”

  “Not this way around. I’ve done plenty the other way around, but none this way around. What if they don’t like me? I am boring, you know? I’m not a superstar like you. I haven’t got the stories, I’m just going to come across as boring.”

  I put my hand on her knee. “Believe me, Lucy, you are not boring.”

  “I’m not a supermodel, I’m not an actress, I’m not a celebrity, I don’t come from a rich family, I don’t have a title, what am I going to talk about?”

  “Just let your natural charm shine through.”

  “Sleepy, adaptable and timid?”

  “Just be yourself. Tell them one of your jokes. You could talk about your dad.”

  I get angry rolled eyes for that, and I have to apologize for being inappropriate, even though I think it’s a good idea.

  Lucy’s in two minds all the way to the studio. It’s an interview for Sports Illustrated our PR team plan to sell on to Reader’s Digest in a slightly different format, and she’s concerned that whatever she says will reinforce an opinion current media already has about her. I think it’s a great idea to project ourselves onto the American press as the perfect couple, and reinforce my position as a completely reformed bad boy everywhere but our bedroom.

  For someone that loves her job so much, it makes me smile to see Lucy looking so awkward on the other side of the table for once. It makes me think back to the island and how confident she was at trying to get underneath my skin and rat me out for who she was convinced I was. Right now, Lucy looks like a rabbit caught in the headlights of a huge approaching Cadillac.

  The interview is with us both, and I want the focus to be our relationship - which, by the way, we have now officially labeled in the way I always wanted us to - and, of course, Lucy’s sparkling personality. I don’t mind it touching on important themes, although Lucy may still be reluctant to open up about her father. I can do the critical, tragic shit and she can do the strong woman in the shadows routine if need be, because I know for a fact it’ll be impossible for her to come across as anything other than charming. As long as she understands her role as the interviewee and not the interviewer, we’ll be absolutely fine.

  We do the introductions, chat for a couple of minutes and get right into it, that is, after Lucy has made sure that nothing she says is going to be used out of context, that we are provided a copy of the article before it goes live and that if there are questions she doesn’t feel like answering they get scratched off completely.

  “I should have looked at the questions in advance”, she says.

  “That’s kind of not how this really works, at least not how I like to do it anyway. I much prefer a kind of conversational style, but like I say, if there is anything you don’t want me to add, or you don’t want to answer, we’ll stop the tape and erase it.”

  Our interviewer is Randall Buck, a veteran of almost forty years in the trade, extremely well respected both by readers and fellow professionals, well organized and extremely laid back. I’ve been interviewed by him a number of times before and I’ve always liked his approach, even though he hasn’t always had the nicest things to say about me.

  “So, tell me how you guys met, and what your first impressions were of each other”, Randall says.

  Lucy and I look at each other and smile. “You want to go first?” she says.

  Randall chips in. “Let’s hear your version first, Lucy. Afterward, we can find out what Alex thought.”

  “First impressions?”

  “Sure.”

  Her eyes go to me again. “We kind of got two goes at that”, she says.

  “Well, this sounds interesting already.”

  “Professionally speaking, Alex Vann Haden was the best football player I had ever seen. I grew up with football, it’s been a lifelong passion of mine and I eventually managed to make a career out of it in a slightly different way to Alex, but even at that age, he was doing stuff on the field I’d never seen before. He was an absolute animal. The problem was he was an animal off it too. Personally speaking, Alex was as arrogant as they came, and that opinion didn’t really change until we met again for the second time a couple of months ago.”

  “So you didn’t reall
y get along?” Randall asks.

  “We didn’t actually ever meet.”

  “You spent three years together at LSU?”

  “That’s right.”

  “And you spent all of those three years writing for the college magazine?”

  “That’s also right.”

  “You didn’t interview the college football star?”

  Lucy’s eyes come to mine and I feel the need to jump in. “She tried. To be fair, she tried. I didn’t do interviews back then. I got the request over campus email and I just ignored it, not because I wanted to either, because, she was right. I was arrogant, but I was hiding something else, I liked her, like, a lot, and she wasn’t the kind of girl back then a guy like me was meant to be interested in.”

  “So you have a different first impression?” Randall asks me.

  “I remember seeing Lucy for the first time in the crowd at one of our training sessions on a freezing day in November and thinking I’ve never seen anyone as beautiful. I goofed the ball a number of times that day because I couldn’t stop looking at her.”

  “He didn’t look at me once”, Lucy says.

  “I was looking, she just couldn’t believe it.”

  Randall takes control again. “So you were smitten, but you didn’t do anything about it?”

  “No. I mean, I couldn’t because something happened to me that didn’t happen with any other girl at college. I thought about the possibility of getting rejected”, I say.

  “That sounds serious.”

  “It was. It was frightening. Completely debilitating.”

  “And how about you, Lucy. Do you remember that game?” Randall asks.

  “I remember every single game I watched, every single play, every single thrown ball or goofed ball or intercepted ball, I felt every sack, mourned every loss, felt every win just as hard. I was obsessed.”

  “And what was it about Alex that got you obsessed?”

  She looks at me again with that deepness that has settled so beautifully into our relationship, and I put my hand on her thigh to give it a squeeze.

  “At the beginning, I had no idea. I kind of thought he was a jerk. I wasn’t the most outgoing person at college but even so, Alex was definitely not my type”, she says.

  “A case of opposites attract?”

  “A case of the mysteries of love more like it. Alex did absolutely everything in his power to make me dislike him, and it worked. I hated him. I wrote about how good he was, and secretly hated him, and then realized I couldn’t stop thinking about him. I was obsessed, but it took a long while to realize, or at least to admit to myself that I was falling in love.”

  “From afar?” Randall asks, his eyes lighting up.

  “From the stands, and the corridors and out of classroom windows, I was falling hard.”

  “And then college was over, before you two even shared a word?”

  “I remember a party we both went to, I’m not sure if Alex will because he was wasted, and I thought, even though we were there with a whole bunch of different people from two completely different college worlds, I thought, this is the moment, this is when our paths are going to collide, this is where fate makes its mark.”

  “Do you remember this Alex?”

  Embarrassingly I don’t. “No”, I say.

  “There’s nothing much to remember. Nothing happened. There was this one moment where we almost bumped into each other moving from one room to the next and I kept saying to myself now, now, now, but you didn’t even look up”, Lucy says, sad eyes all over me.

  “You didn’t have the courage to ask him?” Randall asks her.

  “Me? No way. Alex didn’t date people like me. I was a book nerd he was a jock. That doesn’t work.”

  “It does now”, I say.

  “So, tell me how that happened”, Randall says.

  “After college, I went to work for Endzone magazine, a small scale football publication with a dedicated fan base, and pretty much the only job I was offered in a place I was interested in living. It was enough for me to continue doing what I was passionate about, live in a fun city and be close to home. At the time I was offered the job, I would have preferred to work on something much more top end, but after almost six years there, I’m satisfied with where I am and what I’ve managed to achieve over the years. It isn’t Sports Illustrated, but I get to see talent before anyone else does, I get to interview the kind of guys that have the chance to make it big and I get full editorial control over what I write. It’s enough, and I’ve never looked back, even when Alex Vann Haden decided to finally get in touch.”

  “You called the magazine?” Randall asks me.

  “I sent a request that couldn’t be refused”, I say.

  “You got over your fear of rejection? Actually, your fear of the press?”

  I let Lucy continue for me. “He asked for me specifically and I had no idea whether he remembered me from college or not.”

  “So wait, you hear from this guy you had a secret crush on for four years at college, and suddenly out of the blue, after, what five and a bit years, he invites you to his private island to conduct a series of interviews. Not just any guy either, arguably the most influential and least well liked of all modern sports stars.”

  “You forgot best”, I’m quick to add.

  “How did that make you feel?” Randall continues.

  “Well, kind of confused actually, a bit annoyed, excited again. I don’t know, a real mix.”

  I get those narrow eyes again and I love how now I know how to read them properly.

  “He wanted me for a week, that was the deal”, Lucy says. “No laptop, no dictaphone, no cell phone, although I snuck that in and I’m glad that I did because if I hadn't, I wouldn’t have found out about Dad, no notepaper, pens, nothing, just me.”

  “For a week?” Randall asks.

  “For a week.”

  “Alex?”

  “What can I say. I wanted to make sure she had enough time to fall in love with me.”

  Randall’s eyes go back to Lucy. “And was it enough time?” he says.

  “Actually, it only took two days”, I say before she has a chance to answer herself.

  Lucy thumps me on the leg and I subsequently bang it against the table.

  “I was worn down.”

  Randall has a laugh at that. “How so?”

  “Alex took me out on his boat for a romantic lunch in the middle of nowhere, promptly forgetting to check the gasoline level in the tank, or take reserve gasoline with him.”

  I shrug. “I’m a football player”, I say.

  “So, in the middle of the Caribbean sea, with a storm forcing us inside and no way of escaping, me, literally thinking I’m going to die, Alex thinks it’s the perfect moment of any other opportunity at any other point in our lives to lean in and kiss me.”

  I jump in at that. “Hang on a second. You kissed me”, I say.

  She rolls her eyes from me to Randall. “He kissed me”, she says quietly but full of conviction.

  “With a storm swirling around in the background? It sounds like something out of a romance film”, Randall says, clearly excited by the story.

  “It was a weird moment. I really did think I was going to die”, Lucy says.

  “So, a case of your last chance before you regretted it?” Randall proposes.

  “We weren’t going to die, it was only a little storm”, I say.

  Lucy looks at me and then back to Randall. “The boat nearly tipped over.”

  “It’s a solid boat. German built. Solid.”

  I still don’t think she’s forgiven me for that day, even though she can joke around about it now.

  “But that wasn’t it was it? There were more complications to overcome before you both ended up together, am I right?”

  I take the lead on this one. “Circumstances forced Lucy to leave the island before the end of the week was up, and the last I saw of her for the next two months was that helicopter ride away fr
om the island. That was an awful day. A storm was coming in I thought she was going to get caught up in, which stuck around for much longer than I expected. After the connection we had shared I thought she’d come straight back to me, and when she didn’t, I just expected the worst. I had completely given up hope until she showed up that day, coming out of the shadows of the car lot like some kind of deadbeat stalker.”

  “You couldn’t stay away?” Randall asks her.

  “Evidently”, Lucy confirms.

  “But two months? Had Alex not lived up to expectation?”

  She laughs at that and I’m not entirely sure why. “Alex, expectation? No, he exceeded my expectations. I was-. Let me put it like this, I was like a little girl in the candy store inside the Patriots stadium.”

  “That good?”

  “I’m a reporter, I have to be critical. It’s my job to give a fair estimation and a balanced report. No complaints in that department whatsoever. When I saw him again after all those years, I just found myself wanting him more. He wasn’t as much of a dick as he had been, he was still arrogant of course, but we’re working on that, he was charming, considerate, intelligent, interesting, interested in me and even better looking than I remembered. I wanted him, but I didn’t want to admit it. I mean, I lasted two days. That’s probably a record around him.”

  “Too much of a good thing then?”

  “You know what happened? I got the same shit as I always get, those niggling doubts at the back of my head. I had a lot of stuff to sort out because of what had happened with Dad, and when I finally worked out where I was and who I was a month had already passed and I sincerely thought I’d left it too long. I didn’t want to find out that Alex had already moved onto the next girl, because that’s exactly what I saw him doing in college. I couldn’t cope with it after the month I’d had.”

  “But then you did decide to contact him”, Randall says.

  “Yes, I did. I missed him-.”

  Lucy pauses to interlock her fingers with mine. “I’d been to the game, in fact, I went specifically to see him.”

  “To seduce me”, I say.

  She squeezes my hand a little tighter than is comfortable. “To see him. I didn’t know what was going to happen after. I knew by that point he wasn’t seeing anyone else and I didn’t want to miss my opportunity again.”