Most Likely to Score

The sadness in his blue irises hooks into me, and tugs on my heart. “Were your parents allergic?”

He shakes his head. “Nope. Honestly, we didn’t have the money. My parents were strapped for cash my entire childhood. They said they wanted to get a dog for the four of us, but they couldn’t afford another mouth to feed, and that was that. I always told myself that I’d adopt a dog once I was drafted, but then I didn’t want to bring home one that I couldn’t take care of, being on the road so much. It wasn’t until Trevor moved to the city that I knew I could finally get a pet. Plus, obviously, I was helpless to resist Cletus. Once I met him while I was helping out at the shelter, I had to take him home.” He holds his arms out wide. “He gave me no choice.”

“Cletus is the very picture of irresistibility. I can see why you were powerless against his charms.”

“He gave me a puppy dog face, and that was that.” Jones bats his eyes, imitating Cletus it seems, then tips his chin at me. “What about you? Did you want a dog?”

My feet sink into the sand as we traverse the beach and memories of my childhood wishes return. “I wanted everything when I was a kid. I was an only child, so I was convinced I needed a four-legged friend since I didn’t have a brother or sister. I’d have taken anything. Dog, cat, hamster, bunny. I even tried to get a hedgehog once.”

“A hedgehog? Those are pretty damn cute.”

“I know. But I had no luck, either. My mom was allergic to everything, so we never had any pets. The ironic thing is my dad finally got a dog a few years ago after my mom died.”

Jones stops in his tracks, reaching for my arm. “I didn’t realize your mom had passed.”

Sometimes, I think I know him well. I work with him, share his stats and performance with the media, and I sit down with reporters when they interview him. But that’s superficial. There’s so much we haven’t talked about. So many conversations we haven’t had. “She had a heart attack four years ago,” I say, doing my best to keep my tone even and ignoring the lump in my throat that forms inevitably when I talk about her.

“I’m really sorry.”

“Me, too,” I say softly. “She wasn’t that young, though. Not that that makes it easier necessarily. But she was sixty-five. She was over forty when she adopted me. My parents were both a little older. They didn’t have any luck trying to have a child the old-fashioned way. Ergo, I’m their kid.”

He wraps an arm around my shoulder and gives me a squeeze. “I’m sorry you lost your mom, Jillian. I would be devastated.”

“I was, but my dad was the one who took it the hardest. I was worried about him for the longest time. I still worry about him, but he’s doing so much better.” I reflect on the shifts I’ve seen in him recently. He laughs more, smiles more, and spends time with friends. He’s healing. “I think that’s why the dog helps so much. It gives him something to focus on, someone to love. And I try to visit him as often as I can.”

“That’s what you should do,” he says, squeezing my shoulder once more.

My eyes drift to his fingers, spread over my shoulder. For a moment, I flash back to dinner, to my dirty fantasies of his hands.

I never expected the first time he’d have them on me for so long, it would be like this, borne of some kind of comfort.

Or that I would like it this much.

Especially since he doesn’t take his hand off me for the rest of the walk.

9

Jones

“Dude, how much weight did you put on in the off-season?”

The smart aleck comment comes courtesy of Cooper Armstrong as we round the far end of the practice field at our training facility two days later.

“You’re slower than a Pop Warner lineman today,” our kicker Rick goads, climbing on the insult train.

From behind my shades, I raise my eyes to their backs. The two of them are several feet ahead of me. Harlan’s running in front of them.

Huh.

Truth is, I may have been running slower than usual because my mind drifted back to yesterday and the second photo shoot Jillian set up. The shot she planned was golden, as in . . . everything. The dog was a golden retriever mix, and the photog snapped a sweet image at the edge of Sausalito with the Golden Gate Bridge rising majestically. The pooch put his paw on my leg as we sat on a rock, the gorgeous blue waters of the bay behind us.

Afterward, Jillian and I grabbed lunch at a place on the water and chatted about our top fantasy baseball picks as a Giants game played on the flat-screen in the background. Turns out the chick has a wickedly good eye for fantasy sports, and her baseball team is leading in her league. “Confession: I get very ornery if I lose,” she’d admitted.

“Confession: I get pretty damn annoyed if I lose the Super Bowl.”

She’d laughed. “Yeah, that does seem to be a bit of a bigger deal.”

It’s funny how I’ve had my eye on her for the last few years, but I’m only recently learning all these fascinating details about her, from her family to her fantasy addiction.

But now I’m dragging at laps since my mind is on the woman, and that won’t do.

I pick up the pace. “The only weight I put on in the off-season is all this muscle.” I peel off my T-shirt and throw it straight at Rick. He dodges it, naturally, and I run past Rick and Cooper, flexing my biceps.

As I speed up, I turn around, running backward so I can fully enjoy flipping the double bird to my teammates. “And I will see you fuckers downfield. If you ever wondered who was the fastest on this team, you’re about to be schooled.”

Spinning around, I take off. Sunglasses on, I sprint the final lap as if I’m racing to catch a football, sweeping past Harlan, too. And he’s a fast bastard. But I’m faster.

That’s the point of these feet, this heart, this body that I try to keep finely-tuned every day. You don’t get a job as a wide receiver for one of the best NFL teams in the country if you can’t move your feet like Hermes.

I earned a 4.3 in the forty-yard dash at the combine. That’s the fastest on the team.

When I reach the goalpost, I slap it, then rest my elbow against it and adopt an oh-so-casual Road Runner waiting for Wile E. Coyote pose until the guys catch up with me.

Cooper holds up his hand to high-five. “That’s what I want to see every goddamn Sunday on the field.”

“And that’s what you get.”

“I know it. I love it.”

Rick is the last one, joining us at an easy pace. “Nobody cares how fast I run. I save all my energy for my golden foot.”

“And it is golden indeed,” Cooper says, and we head for the first row in the stands, where I left a water bottle and a little good luck treat for my guys.

After I down half the bottle, since we’ve been working out for two hours this morning, I reach into a red mesh bag—a bag of pomelos. I bought a few more after I worked my way through the gift Jillian gave me. No lie. Jillian was right. Pomelos are delicious and now I have a new favorite fruit.

“Gentlemen, this may become our new good luck ritual for the season. Turns out this fruit is mighty tasty, and a harbinger of all good things to come.”

Harlan grabs one, rips at the thick rind, and asks in his familiar southern drawl. “Does this mean the cherry pie worked?”

I shoot him a quizzical look. “What does one have to do with the other?”