“No, it doesn’t. And I think that’s what scares me the most about it, Sam. Is this even real?”
I stared out the window at the indoor practice field. “It’s real for me. I’ve never asked someone to move in with me before. I want you here.” I could feel the tension gripping in my neck.
“I want to be there too, but I think we should try things like this for a while. Can we do that? Plan weekends? I’ll come see you next time. Or we can meet in the middle?”
“The middle? There’s nothing in the middle.” I was pissed, and my voice was getting louder.
“Okay, as soon as you left I started looking up some places and I found these cute cottages on Canyon Lake. We could rent one and no one would see us and we could spend time together.”
I huffed. “This is a fucking first.”
“Excuse me?”
“Most women want to be photographed and seen with me and you’re the exact opposite.”
“Sam, I tried to explain to you how important it is that I do this on my own. I don’t want a handout. If you can’t respect that I don’t want your money, then maybe this isn’t even worth trying.”
I closed my eyes. I didn’t want to fight with her. I didn’t want to push her away.
“I’m sorry, Natalia. I’m tired and it was a long meeting. I didn’t mean it like that. I’m sorry.”
There was silence on the other end.
“Nata
lia?”
“Yeah. I was thinking.” Her voice was soft. “I’ll let you go and we can talk after our games tomorrow. Just think about it, Sam. I want to see you again, but if you can’t handle me staying on the dance team, then you need to let me know. I made a commitment to the Goddesses and I’m going to keep it.”
I saw Wes walking toward me. This was the last thing I wanted him to hear.
“Right. Right. Yeah, let’s talk tomorrow.” I hung up to face the quarterback.
“You ran out of there like your ass was on fire.” He eyed me.
“Something back home,” I lied. “What’s up?”
“I wanted to talk to you about a couple of the plays we have lined up for tomorrow. Howell, as usual, is a dumbass.”
I scratched the back of my head. I wasn’t going to get in the middle of Coach and Wes’s on-going argument about who should decide the game plays. Some teams were dependent on the quarterback and some relied on a team of coordinators to decide. Coach Howell liked to be the one in charge and so did Wes.
“What are you thinking?” I asked.
“What I think is, we use the same shit we did against the Warriors. Start off with an even rotation and then I go to you straight every time.”
My face lit up. “I like how you think.” There was nothing Coach could do if I ran the route that was called to me on the field. At that point I was only doing my job.
“Good. Then expect to make a lot of catches and let’s run that score up.”
I laughed. “Fuck, yeah. Let’s do it all afternoon.”
My argument with Natalia didn’t seem as important. I remembered I was here to win football games and collect a two-million dollar bonus in a few months.
I walked down the hall for the elevator when I heard Cavan calling my name.
“Hey, you didn’t call me about the playbook.” He stopped me at the elevator.
“Right. It’s in my car if you want it.”