Super Big Game - An Enemies to Lovers Sports Romance

“He pretty much told me that, as he was strangling me,” Stacy says, rubbing her throat. “He also said that now he has to kill me, because I’m a nosy bitch who wouldn’t stop snooping around.”

“Yes,” I say, nodding, because all of this lines up with what Joseph was able to read in the texts. He had hacked into Kirsten’s phone. “I found out he was coming here today, but Kirsten must have somehow found out your address and gotten it to him some way other than text, because there was no address in the thread.”

“Oh, yeah,” she says, putting a hand to her head as if she should have thought of this before. “There’s a registry of reporters. Monica has one that she hangs above her desk. It has all our contact information on it, including home address. It actually would have been pretty easy for Kirsten to find online and email to this guy, or something.”

“Yeah, my friend was working on hacking into their emails but I got all the information I needed.”

I look down at the intruder and say, “Okay, time to call the cops on this asshole.”

“Okay,” she agrees, but she looks hesitant. “What ever happened to Mo? I mean, we all tried to get the story but you guys kept that hush hush.”

I look at her and wonder if I should tell her. It’s a juicy story that could help her career, but she wouldn’t be allowed to share it.

“Off the record, of course,” she quickly says. “I’m just wondering about how to deal with this problem here…”

“Yeah,” I tell her, deciding I can trust her to keep a secret. “He had a mental breakdown and tried to steal from the team. Luckily, he wasn’t competent enough to get any important information or money, but Coach K had noticed that he was trying to. And he got away with some team memorabilia. It was a bad idea to have kept him around, so obviously Coach K doesn’t want the news to spread.”

“Yeah, that’s what I’m wondering,” she says. “If we call the cops, everyone will want to know about the connections and why this happened. It won’t be good for the Leviathans tomorrow, and Coach K said not to let anything happen to jeopardize the team’s performance at the Superbowl…”

“Shhhh,” I say, putting a finger over her lips. “Don’t worry about that. I let this idiot get away once, and we protected him because we didn’t want any trouble for the team. But now I’m not worried about any of that, and I don’t want it to happen again. Whatever will be, will be, when it comes to the Superbowl. For now, we’re getting this guy off the streets, so there is no possibility he’ll ever hurt you again.

“Thank you,” she says, as her lips meet mine. “You take such good care of me.”

“I can’t help it,” I tell her, deciding to take a leap of faith. I had wanted to take faith with me onto the field, and here was my chance. “Because I love you.”

“I love you, too,” she says, and as we kiss, my fingers start to dial 9-1-1.

Chapter 19

Elias

“Fuck yeah, we did it!” I shout, as our team makes the field goal that wins us the Superbowl.

“We sure did!” Coach Kramer shouts, running out onto the field. “It was a tough fight, and a close call, but we won! We’re the Superbowl champions!”

Everyone is exhilarated and a bit shocked – I don’t know that anyone else knew we could pull it off, because we’d had a tough season, what with all the Mo Bradley stuff and now the Stacy and Kirsten stuff.

Not to mention that we had worked hard in practice and games but each one seemed to be nearly a tossup. I think I was the only one who had faith that we could win, and maybe that really did show up out on the field.

There are so many people rushing onto the field. I’m bumping chests with so many of them that I’m worried I might knock myself out. The chests I’m bumping might belong to our rival team or to fans, for all I know. I don’t care. I’m elated, on top of the world.

All my teammates are out here on the field celebrating with me, of course. I’m giving my friend Justin a high five, and my other buddy Calvin a hug. There are tons of fist bumps all around too, of course.

But the one person I want to be with is Stacy. I can’t believe that after everything she and I have been through, it has all turned out okay. We really had some good luck on our side – and faith, of course.

After we talked, we had called the cops on the intruder and Kirsten. I showed them the evidence I had. They weren’t exactly happy with how I had obtained it, and since I wouldn’t mention Joseph’s name, they don’t know if it will be admissible at trial, but they clearly had a good reason to arrest the creep, so they did.