First and Tension (Summersweet Island 4)

“I’m going with you,” I mutter while Tyler continues to yell and complain to poor Julie, the words flying out of my mouth before I can stop them.

Stalking over to the row of hooks nailed into one wall, I grab my blue-and-red drawstring bag with the Sharks’s logo on it from the middle hook, shoving my towel and water bottle inside before cinching it closed and throwing it over one shoulder.

“The hell you are!” Tyler shouts after me, his phone still pressed to his ear as he jogs behind me. I walk quickly through the home gym, nodding and fist-bumping my teammates as I move past them, heading to the separate entrance door that leads out to the driveway so a bunch of sweaty, smelly football players don’t have to go traipsing through Patrick’s house and annoy his family. “You don’t need that kind of publicity on top of all this. Could you even imagine what the gossip rags would say if they caught wind you were visiting your secret girlfriend? They’d have you married and on your honeymoon by tomorrow morning.”

My feet falter a little when I think about how I jokingly proposed to her that night and how, for just a few seconds out in my backyard, I crazily almost wanted to. Aggressively pushing open the gym door and stepping out into the bright sunshine, I reach into my bag to grab my sunglasses and slide them on my face.

“Seriously, you’re not going—”

The muffled ringing of my cell phone from the bottom of my bag cuts off Tyler’s order, and we both stop in the middle of Patrick’s driveway as I dig around inside and pull it out.

“Oh fuck,” Tyler mutters when he sees the screen of my phone and who’s calling.

I’m not gonna lie; I almost shit my pants when I see the name too, but I keep it together as I quickly answer it, not wanting to piss this woman off at all by making her wait more than two rings.

“Jeanie! I was just thinking about—”

“No, you weren’t just thinking about calling me, Quinn, or you would have done it before I called you,” Jeanie Bidwell, the owner of the Virginia Beach Sharks, speaks in a cool voice that instantly makes me feel chilly in the warm sunlight.

In her mid-sixties, Jeanie made her millions as a successful marketing executive who invested her money very wisely. She bought her husband the Sharks ten years ago when he retired from teaching and was bored to death. He spent the next ten years having no earthy idea how to run a football team, hiring the wrong coaches and making all the wrong draft picks, until Jeanie told him in the nicest way possible that he was fired. She took over, cleaned house, and fired everyone else who was a problem. And spent a lot of money and put a lot of faith in all the promises I made her when my contract was signed. She is a badass businesswoman, who knows a hell of a lot about football. I respect and admire her—almost as much as I fear her.

I just got to this team, and I already can’t imagine playing anywhere else, even if the team currently has the shittiest record in the league. Not to mention the monthly family dinners I’ve finally been able to attend in person and all the good, quality family time I was missing out on for far too many years. I refuse to let anything screw this up for me, when I’m finally where I’m meant to be.

“I trust you’re going to take care of this little issue that seems to have arisen in the press?” Jeanie continues, and I can hear her clacking away on her computer through the phone, her ability to multitask just as awe-inspiring as Tyler’s.

“Yep! I mean, yes… absolutely yes, ma’am, I am actually on my way right now to take care of the problem,” I reassure her as Tyler curses under his breath, hangs up on Julie, and then makes another call as he starts pacing in the driveway a few feet away from me.

“Good, very good. That’s what I like to hear from my star quarterback, That he’s taking things seriously and getting the job done,” Jeanie replies, making me regret all the times over the last week I told Tyler to just ignore everything and it would eventually blow over, which I’m sure got back to Jeanie.

It’s not blowing over; it’s blowing up, and it’s time I take care of this shit myself.

“I’ll call and check in soon. Make sure you’ve got everything handled.”

Before I can give her another promise I hope to God I can keep, Jeanie has already hung up on me, and I may have actually shit my pants for real.

“A car will pick us up after dark tonight and take us to the… ferry dock, so no one sees us,” Tyler informs me, having a hard time spitting that last part out. “We’re getting in, getting this shit taken care of before anyone notices we’re there, and then we’re getting the last ride out on that disgusting form of public transportation. Got it?”