RHINO: A Bad Boy Sports Romance (With FREE Bonus Novel OFFSIDE!) Read online

  “You started the moment you tripped out of my helicopter.”

  “Don’t hold that against me.”

  “Besides which, we might not get another opportunity.”

  “Why, are you sick of me already?”

  “Quite the opposite actually, especially after your revelation last night.”

  I fucking knew he’d bring this up.

  “Yeah, about that. You know I was joking, right?”

  “I still have the valentine’s cards.”

  You have got to be fucking kidding me.

  “Don’t look like that, I’m only joking.”

  The croissant tastes so good, I take another.

  “You don’t eat?”

  “I already did.”

  “So, back to the point. All that stuff from last night, let’s just start afresh, ok?”

  “My bet still stands.”

  Alex pours himself coffee and I’m distracted momentarily by the way the tattoo reacts to the muscle movement in his arm. It makes me imagine myself wrapped inside it and it makes me hesitate for a second over what I’m about to say. I think Alex notices it too, even though he doesn’t say.

  “On this, what exactly is it you want?”

  “Honesty.”

  “You’re not retiring?”

  Alex shakes his head. “Hadn’t even considered it.” Then there’s that wry fucking smile as though he’s hiding the truth. I decide to leave it. If he wants to play coy, he can. We get out of this as much as he puts in, and it’s no skin off my nose if he wants to hold back. For whatever purpose, I’ll write what’s appropriate at the very end of this weird experience.

  “Then?”

  “Like I said before, I need someone to write something about me, the real me, for the first time.”

  “Why?”

  Alex shrugs. “Because it’s never been done before.”

  “And that’s it?”

  “That’s it.”

  “No ulterior motive?”

  “No ulterior motive.”

  “Your team know?”

  “No.”

  “You don’t think you should tell them?”

  “Football players give interviews all the time, it’s nothing unusual.”

  “Not this one.”

  “No.”

  “Why is that?”

  Alex pauses briefly to sip his coffee. It’s a tell. It tells me he doesn’t like the question, but that’s not my problem.

  “I told you already.”

  “Tell me again.”

  “I could tell you about the boat instead.”

  “This isn’t going to work-.”

  Alex looks away and then back again. “If someone held up a piece of fruit to you when you were a kid and said, this is an apple, and you’d never seen that piece of fruit before, what would you think it was?”

  “An apple.”

  “Now imagine that throughout your life, people kept telling you that that very same fruit was an apple until one day someone said it wasn’t an apple, it was a pear and you’d been lied to all of your life.”

  “Go on.”

  “It would be difficult to change your opinion, right?”

  “Why have I been lied to in the first place? That’s my question.”

  Alex smiles. When he does so, his whole face lights up and it’s a smile that reminds me of innocence, of lost days as a child, of finding treasures, of eating cookies.

  “See, that’s the reporter inside you. Always concerned with the question.”

  “You’re not the person people think you are?”

  “I got tired of it.”

  “And now you want to set the record straight?”

  “I’ve realized that being silent means I can’t even defend myself.”

  “Not everyone hates you.”

  “But nobody knows the truth about me.”

  “Which is what?”

  “I’m sensitive, considerate, humble.”

  “I’m looking for the end game.”

  “This time, I don’t have one.”

  His eyes tell a different story entirely. “I don’t believe that for a minute. Alex Vann Haden without an end game?”

  He leans forward. “I’m going to answer your next question now.”

  “I haven’t even finished on the first.”

  “That’s why you’re here for a week. Sure, I could have gone to anyone, sat in front of a TV camera and spoken sincerely to the world, but that’s not me either.”

  “And here, you are you?”

  “I’m me on the field and I’m me, here, away from it.”

  “Boxing gloves and banquet breakfasts?”

  “You wait until you see the rest.”

  “I want to see what’s not put on. Don’t tell me this is the same every morning. Or maybe it is, with a different girl.”

  “I meant what I said last night.”

  “Come on, let’s not do that again.”

  “I mean it, Lucy. I regret not reaching out to you when I could.”

  I still can’t tell whether he’s bullshitting or not. Whatever the case, that moment has passed and I’m definitely not that naive now. The only thing that’s the same is that I’m still that nerdy bookworm and he’s still that arrogant quarterback and it wouldn’t work now just as much as it didn’t work then. Long distance relationships don’t work, period.

  “You said you didn’t bring me here to hit on me.”

  “I didn’t and I’m not. I’m just reminiscing, that’s all.”

  “You’ll have to do better than that to convince me.”

  That smile again, that secret fucking twinkle in the eyes that says I could have you anytime I wanted just because.

  “Anyway, I know you don’t do relationships. You didn’t then and you don’t now.”

  “Yeah, well, that’s the old me.”

  “The old you? When was the last time you had a long term relationship?”

  “Never, but that’s not the point.”

  “Ok, when was the last time you fucked someone?”

  “Have you always been this direct?”

  “I’ve been refined into it.”

  “Last year.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “I’m serious.”

  “And now?”

  “Open to suggestions.”

  “You know, the world would turn around on its axis if it heard that Alex Vann Haden was looking for a serious relationship.”

  “And if he was in one already?”

  “Are you?”

  “I was thinking about the future.”

  “Then we’d have to wait and see.”

  “I guess we will.”

  “The truth is a lot more believable when it’s carried out, you know?”

  “Then I guess I’ll have to find someone who’s available.”

  “Interested might help too.”

  “It might make it last longer.”

  I push my plate away and reach for the coffee pot. I rarely get to eat breakfast outside so this is an absolute luxury.

  “Why do you want to give this up anyway?”

  “This?”

  “Relationships are overrated, everyone says so.”

  “I used to think that, and then I realized that the people saying that were the people who were single and unhappy.”

  I dive straight into it like a dentist taking the drill to a rotten tooth.

  “Are you unhappy?”

  “Are you?”

  “This isn’t about me.”

  “I can see you are, without you even needing to tell me. I can see you’re lonely. I could see that at college and I wish I’d been brave enough to change that.”

  “Alright, drop the act, Alex. I get you want me to sing your praises so the general public change their opinion of you, you don’t need to invent some story in order for me to do it. I’m not going to sleep with you so you can get some kind of weird kick out of it.”

  “You see how difficult it
is, all your life someone telling you it’s an apple.”

  Alex suddenly looks sad and I wonder if I’ve misunderstood him. I let the moment pass. I’m usually good at reading people, you kind of get good at it in my job, but with Alex it’s proving pretty fucking difficult.

  “Someone tells you often enough you begin convincing yourself, right?”

  Alex thinks over this for a while before changing the subject.

  “There’s a storm coming in, I didn’t expect it until the following week, but the Atlantic winds have changed and they’re pushing it right over us.”

  The sky is blue and the sun is hovering above us shimmering in the haze like a flat yellow frisbee. A storm seems like a million years away.

  “If we want to go out in the boat, we might not get another chance. Also, if you want to leave before the end of the week, you might have to do it today.”

  “You’re serious.”

  “I’m always serious, Lucy. You’ll know when I’m not.”

  “So, either I leave today or I’m stuck here, indefinitely.”

  “Or until the storm passes. Whichever comes first.”

  “Are we safe?”

  “Of course.”

  “I don’t have a story yet.”

  Alex smiles. “Then you’ll have to stay.”

  “This isn’t some ruse is it? Some weird psychosexual flirting game and you’re going to fuck me and then cook me and then eat me. You’re not going to do that are you?”

  “Not unless you want me to.”

  “I’m not that kinky.”

  “You always looked it.”

  “I said I wasn’t that kinky.”

  “Now it sounds like you’re flirting with me.”

  I’m not, I can’t be, I wouldn’t allow myself to. Maybe I should go, just to avoid the possible. Just to avoid the ego and what could happen here if I let it. And by that, I mean my absolute embarrassment when I ultimately fall for all this bullshit and let him get to me only to push me away again when he’s done what he wanted. This is a game isn’t it? It must be. This is Alex getting what he probably never even wanted first time around. If I let him in, he’s bound to either just laugh at me for being an idiot and believing he was genuine, or we’ll sleep together and then he’ll usher me out of his life like everyone else. Not going to happen. Can’t let it happen. Not even once. Not even just to see what it’s like. Not even to finally get my hands on The Rhino’s horn.

  “You’d know if I was flirting with you.”

  “Don’t tell me, your nose would be buried in a book for four years.”

  “You know that didn’t work the first time around.”

  “I thought you said that wasn’t true.”

  “You weren’t the only guy at school you know.”

  “I was the only one you wanted to be with.”

  I’m trying so hard to not, but I think I’m going red.

  “You’re going red.”

  Thanks, Alex, very fucking subtle. “Too much sun.”

  “Then we should get on the boat.”

  “Maybe I should just get in the helicopter.”

  “You said you haven’t got your story yet.”

  “Maybe there’s less of one than I thought.”

  “And maybe there’s more and you’re just too scared to find out what it is.”

  I lean in but I don’t know what to say. Leaning is all I have. Leaning and undressing what few clothes he still has on with my eyes and hating myself for it. Why the fuck do I have to be attracted to Alex Vann Haden? Someone normal, someone nice would have done, someone that’s going to treat me well, that’s not going to dump me when the next best thing comes along, someone that wants more than just a fuck, but no, I have to crave him, this object of perfection in front of me.

  “Fear is good, it helps protect us.”

  “That’s what I thought for a long time. You know what I realize it does now?”

  “What?”

  “Takes the things away from us that we should have.”

  “And what do you want?”

  Alex’s eyes twinkle as though I’ve asked the key question.

  “The same as everyone else. The same as you.”

  “I’m not answering that question for you.”

  “I want to find my place.”

  “That sounds way too philosophical for a man that got a 1.6 GPA.”

  “I was misunderstood.”

  “Clearly.”

  “Why do you dislike me so much?”

  “I don’t dislike you, I just don’t like you.”

  “There’s a difference?”

  “Of course. In order to dislike you, I have to have liked you first.”

  “That sounds about right for a girl with a 4.0 GPA.”

  “I was clearly very well understood.”

  Alex leans back in his chair to contemplate me. Any bluer, those eyes would pass as gemstones. Hundreds of years ago, people would think this man was a God, I suppose not much has changed. God’s are often arrogant, aloof people, and they are often not liked at all.

  I fold my arms and Alex folds his in a gesture that looks anything but natural. I tilt my head, he tilts his, I raise my eyebrows, he raises his. An impasse.

  “Are you sure you still want to place that bet?”

  “I want to raise it.”

  “This ought to be good.”

  “You will not only have changed your opinion of me, you’ll have slept with me.”

  I can hardly believe what I’m hearing. Just when I thought he couldn’t get any more arrogant. My mouth hangs open in genuine shock.

  “I already told you I don’t like overly confident men.”

  “It’s a good job I’m meek then.”

  Another head tilt. An unfold and refold of our arms.

  “I don’t mix business with pleasure.”

  “That’s why I told you not to bring the notepad.”

  “You’re unbelievable.”

  “Thank you.”

  I can’t help but laugh. Shake my head and laugh.

  “Boat or helicopter?”

  Is this the beginning of the worst decision of my life. If he can convince me he’s a good person, or even a person of any substance at all, It’ll be like trying to convince me the world is flat. That money is as good as mine. Even if I sleep with him, there is no chance he’ll be able to make me change my opinion of him. Zero chance. Nada. Nil. Zip. Zilcheramo.

  “I hope you’ve got your checkbook here.”

  “I haven’t told you my stake yet.”

  “Does it matter?”

  “You might begin to realize I’m serious.”

  “Go on, humor me.”

  “You win, I retire.”

  “Being right means that much to you?”

  Alex shakes his head. “Finding my place.”

  “You’re awfully convinced of yourself.”

  “Confident.”

  “A fool rushes in.”

  “Now you have your headline.”

  I have to pause before I respond. I have to think carefully, divide the emotional from the sensible, the rational from the irrational. I have to weigh it all up in the blink of a pair of one-in-a-million gemstone eyes. Fuck it. I’m not that rosy cheeked undergrad anymore. I’m not that college virgin with big brown eyes and a heavy heart because a certain someone wouldn’t look her way, and I’m not going to make the same mistake twice.

  I let my eyes find his and I take care to form the words without faltering.

  “So, let’s go and find that story.”

  Alex

  It takes two hours for Lucy to get ready. That’s two hours to pack a bag, prepare herself for the next few hours, prepare herself mentally, perhaps, for me, and come back to where I’ve been sat, calmly waiting for her.

  I’m calm because I know I’ve won. Lucy looks anything but calm as she looks at the boat, looks at the sea beyond and then looks at me.

  “I thought you had a yacht.”


  “I never told you I had a yacht.”

  “It’s much smaller than I expected, Alex. I have to say, I’m a little disappointed.”

  “Just wait until you feel it.”

  She’s watching it bob up and down as the waves lilt against the rock at the side of the island, carried there by the late morning breeze.

  “Is it safe?”

  “Come on, Lucy. I know you’re a city girl, but you must have been on a boat before.”

  “You’ve got the real one moored up on some deserted beach island right?”

  “You’re changing your mind.”

  Lucy shakes her head, too stubborn to refuse now that there’s a chance she might have to show weakness. I like that about her, it means she’s not going to give up easily.

  “So, where are you taking me?”

  “Get in and I’ll show you.”

  It makes us both laugh watching Lucy take tentative steps towards the edge of the wooden jetty, before stepping carefully onto the boat, stumbling a little before holding on, righting herself and finally sitting down.

  “You’re a natural.”

  “Born to sail.”

  I watch her sit there for a while, a vest top on to let her shoulders breathe, glowing lightly in the hazy sun.

  “What?”

  “This is supposed to be relaxing.”

  “I am relaxed.”

  “You look about as relaxed as a death row inmate.”

  “It’s my natural disposition.”

  “You like to be cautious?”

  “You can never be too careful.”

  “Is this a sensible idea then? The middle of nowhere with a complete stranger?”

  “I was hoping you might know the way.”

  “I already told you I’m a little bit lost.”

  “Then maybe we ought to get back to steadier ground.”

  “I knew you’d come around.”

  She eyes me suspiciously as I get aboard.

  “Do you ever wear clothes?”

  “You can ask me that again when you’ve got a better idea.”

  “I told you that isn’t going to happen.”

  “We’ll see.”

  The boat isn’t small at all, Lucy’s just joking around to goad me. It’s a beast of a machine I bought new that has two decks, a covered area underneath with a kitchen and space to chill out and sleep in, and a space up top for sunbathing. It’s capable of hitting top speeds of 90mph, but I rarely open it up. I take it out from time to time to shallow waters near some of the smaller rocky outcrops that surround the island, and let it drift and bob about under the sun, or I take it to the secret beach about twenty minutes cruising time from here, that cost me almost as much as the island I’ve built my home on. I haven’t decided what we’ll do today, but I’ve been saving that beach for someone special, so if Lucy comes around, and she allows herself to get lucky, that’s exactly where we’ll be heading. No point in jacking it to the max straight away, though, I’ve got to let her work for it a little bit first, especially now I know she’s definitely interested.