That's how many minutes I pray in relief that we have a bye week during the week after the loss to the Stepbrothers when this video comes out. At the time, I'm so happy that we'll be able to work this out and then focus on the upcoming game.
Fourteen.
That's how many points the Nailers lose to in the game the next week against the Detroit Dom's. They wipe the field clean. Colt gets sacked three times and each time my heart catches in my throat. Not just because I worry about him as a player, but because I'm starting to worry about him as an individual as well. Colt and Ethan, both. I shudder as Ethan gets knocked off the field and immediately the flash bulb of 90,000 cameras is trained on him as the world watches his reaction. He keeps calm, but I can tell the constant media exposure is eating away at him.
Ten thousand and counting.
That's how many pieces of hate mail I've received from all over the world. Mail telling me that I'm destroying the purity of the football game. That I corrupted two of the best players in the NFL. That's I'm some sort of Jezebel and wicked woman who seduced these players as a way to get back at the team that fired my dad. I've received death threats and considered hiring a bodyguard.
But I refuse to give in and hide in fear. Someone has a problem with me? I relish the thought of meeting them face to face as they try to take me on.
Twenty-one.
That's how many consecutive days AJ Ledoux has written a column attacking either me, Ethan, or Colt in his sports column. He's torn into us with the voraciousness of someone who never played sports because he didn't have the talent and is now taking out his jealousy and frustrations on better men.
He attacks me because he knows that no matter how much he may lust over me, the closest he'll ever get to touching me will be touching the screen on his mobile device as he streams the tapes of me on endless loop. How do I know this? Remember at the very beginning when I went on the field to see Ethan and Colt and get them to run scrimmages I told you about a sports columnist who hit on me when I first bought the team?
Who do you think was the first man to come over to Nailers Stadium and congratulate me in person after I bought the team? Who do you think fawned over my every word in my office before inviting me to dinner?
That’s right. AJ Ledoux.
I saw right through that asshole. I let him down gently, but for a man like AJ - who thinks he has power over masses but all has is an illusion, my turning him down did a lot to pierce his bubble.
He’s ignored me after that. He pretended I didn’t exist at the ESPY’s. And he’s tried to question me in every single column, intimating that I’m unfit. AJ is the kind of man who can only dream of fucking me - I understand that's where his frustration is coming from.
Three.
That's the number of weeks since the final sex tape of the three of us was released. Like I said, we had a bye, and then lost one game. We're going into a matchup with the Pittsburgh Pimps with a team that's in disarray. With the central players of our team hounded by the media day and night - there are some days that Coach Karl simply cancels practice or tells Ethan and Colt not to come. In instances like those, the team doesn't have proper cohesion and nothing gets done. The hopes for taking this once bankrupt team and winning the Super Bowl this season are pretty much in the process of becoming pipe dreams.
Fifteen.
This part I can't believe, but it's true. That the number of people I've been with in the past that are coming forward to say that they've slept with me. Not only that, but they're selling lurid details in to the highest bidder amongst the tabloid press. You remember, Barry, or Bill? Whoever it was that I brought home one night that I sent away from my apartment the day I met Col
t and Ethan? AJ had the Times of New York just buy his story. I read the whole thing - 5,000 words- where Barry basically stated my favorite sexual positions. He told the world how I liked being on top. According to him, I “desperate shuck myself like some whore on a man until I achieve my orgasm”. And then afterwards, how much I liked it doggiestyle. And as he was about to cum, how badly I wanted him to cum on my lower back. I admit, I love it when guys cum on the small of my back. Your body is very sensitive to the feelings of warm cum right there. Try it sometime after this. Have someone shoot their cum on you right there. It's heavenly. I didn't know that always - my friend Suzy had to teach me.
Seventeen.
That's how many times Colt has tried to contact me. He texts me. I don't answer. He calls. I don't answer. He sends me emails and I don't answer. But the more and more I think about it, I realize that not answering is a defense mechanism. But for the first time in my life, I feel lonely without him. And incomplete without Ethan. I need them. I need them both. I resolve today that I'll do better than answer. I'll go see him.
Five.
That's how many minutes long the phone call with Commissioner Horton was today. He just called. For the first time, I felt fear.
"Julianna," he said, breathing deeply. Despite everything that's happened, he's been patient. "Fix this."
"I'm trying, Bo," I said, thinking of all the different ways I could do it.
"Well, try better. You and those two fuck-ups are becoming all anyone talks about when they say NFL," he told me. "I'm going to put you in touch with a lawyer - J. Henry Edgar - he'll help you navigate through this."
I'll take anything at this point, but I don't need his lawyer. I know what the lawyer will advise me to do. Throw Ethan or Colt - or both of them - under the bus, cut my losses, and preserve my own reputation. I can't do that to the two men I care about. The two men I love. I tell him that I can manage on my own.
"I'm giving you two weeks to fix this, Julianna," Commissioner Horton tells me as he gets ready to hang up. "Before I come in with my steamroller and decide to fire everyone and start over."
Two weeks to fix a problem that won't go away. That is staying because it's being perpetuated by a man who hates seeing powerful women succeed.
I need to think of something. And I need to think of that something really fast.
21