“He’ll deny it, I’m sure. Such a humble man.”
A humble man?
Sean Donovan?
Seriously?
I realized at that moment that I didn’t know Sean Donovan at all. I knew the Sean Donovan I’d watched on the football field, and the Sean Donovan that I had read about online and in magazines, and the Sean Donovan I’d see in viral sex videos.
Oh, and the Sean Donovan that made me cum on the dancefloor. But the man I was watching now was a new Sean Donovan, one I had never seen or heard about before.
I couldn’t help but wonder if this was the real Sean Donovan, or just another side to a man I hardly knew.
* * *
I used a napkin to wipe ketchup from my lips and picked up the chocolate shake and gave the straw a good tug. Sean was attacking the double cheeseburger like a man who hadn’t eaten in days. He barely took time to breath between bites. He caught me looking at him and smiled.
“Good, huh,” he grunted, chewing with his cheeks full. He swept his eyes around the little hole-in-the-wall burger joint he’d brought me to and smiled. “Ernie makes the best burgers in the city. Make sure you give him a plug in your article.”
“I definitely will,” I said, munching on the end of a French fry. “Can I ask you something?”
“It’s your interview,” he said, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand.
“Why did you take me to the children’s hospital?”
He leaned back and probed his cheek with his tongue for a moment. “Let me ask you a question. Have you ever read anything about me passing out toys to sick kids before?”
“No, I haven’t,” I said, shaking my head.
“Do you know how many writers I’ve taken with me to that hospital?” I shook my head and he held up one hand with his fingers splayed. “At least five. Probably more. Writers from Sports Illustrated, ESPN, USA Today… And do you know how many of those writers mentioned my time with those kids?”
“Zero,” I said quietly.
“Zero,” he repeated, rolling his fingers into a fist. “I’ve had writers shadow me at children’s hospitals, homeless shelters, soup kitchens… And do you know why those writers never write about that stuff?”
“Why?” I bit my lip and fixed my eyes on his. I could see a look of hurt in his eyes as he spoke.
“Because Sean Donovan at a children’s hospital doesn’t sell as many magazines or get as many online hits as Sean Donovan drunk in a club with a stripper on his lap.” He picked up his vanilla shake and brought the straw to his lips. “People don’t care about that stuff, Katie. They just want the dirt. What’s that old Don Henley song, Dirty Laundry? Look up the lyrics online. You’ll get what I’m saying.”
“The nurse told me you’d donated a lot of money to the cancer center over the years,” I said. “Care to confirm the amount?”
He picked up a french fry and swirled it around the ketchup on his plate. He shook his head. “I honestly don’t know the amount. And please don’t think I took you there so you can write a puff piece about how caring and giving I am. I really don’t give a shit what the public thinks of me. And I’m not trying to get anyone’s sympathy.”
“Why did you take me there?” I asked warily.
He bit the end off the fry and let his shoulders go up and down. “Honestly, I don’t know. I guess I’m just trying to make you see that, yes, I’m a hard partier, but I’m also a human being. There are more sides to me than you see on TMZ. The public just doesn’t give a flying fuck about those other sides.”
“And you’re hoping I can make the public see that there’s more to Sean Donovan than just the famous bad boy?”
He looked me in the eye and shook his head. “No. I’m hoping you can see that for yourself.” He pushed the plate back and gave me a smile. “You wanna see who the real Sean Donovan is? Come with me.”
Kate
We left Ernie’s just after three o’clock, and maneuvered our way onto Interstate-95 headed north out of New York City. Sean wouldn’t tell me where we were going. He would only give me a sly smile and say, “You’ll see.”
We chatted like old friends for a couple of hours. I learned everything there was to know about him, from his childhood days in upstate New York to his college days at Clemson to the years he’d spent with the Kings. I grilled him on old girl friends and lost loves, then he turned the tables and started grilling me.
Only he wasn’t grilling Kate Asher