“I’ve been fucking dying to get in on some of this action,” I say and give my best confident smirk that I have as I walk up the room towards the podium and past the press. They’re staring at me like I’m some kind of a god, and, quite frankly, I feel like one.

I am QB 1 of the New York Nailers and I’m fucking the most beautiful woman alive on the fucking planet. I’m actually doing more than fucking her, actually.

I’m in fucking love with her. She makes me feel ways that I never even knew fucking existed. But it’s not just how she makes me feel when I’m around her. It’s how I feel when I’m thinking about her.

Julianna makes me a different person by her presence in my life. But she hasn’t been alone in causing my metamorphosis. There’s one other person I fucking love.

I’m in love with Ethan Blake.

That goddamn asshole couldn't leave well enough alone. It wasn't good enough for him to try and one-up me everywhere I went. He had to really go stick it to me and make me fall in love with him.

I know for a fact I’m not gay. I don't get turned by seeing dudes left and right. But when I look at Ethan, I almost have this feeling that there’s something about that dude that feels right. That feels like we fucking belong together. Like we’re two pieces of a puzzle. And Julianna is the third.

That’s right. We’re three parts of a fucking love puzzle.

It’s probably taken you a while to read all that but in that time I’ve already walked up to Julianna. She looks at me with one-part relief that I’m here. She was really getting beaten down up there. But the other part of her is looking at me like she’s fucking upset. I guess I can understand that. She doesn’t want me to come in and steal her thunder.

Julianna takes a few steps away from the podium and comes up to me, “What are you doing here?” she whispers furiously. “They’re out for blood!” She’s gesturing to the press folks who are still in an uproar over my surprise entrance.

“Relax, babe,” I say and she winches momentarily. “I got this.”

“Be careful, Colt,” Julianna replies back. “I don’t want to see anything happen to you.”

Fucking Christ. Could that look of anger from Julianna that she was shooting at me, could that actually be because she was upset that she thought I was placing myself in danger? That she wasn't upset that I was going to steal the thunder, but she was more worried?

If that’s the case, then she’s gotta be feeling the same thing for me that’s been going through my brain for her.

That alone brings a smile to my lips. Even as AJ Ledoux – that fucker from the News of the Times – shouts his question, “Colt Stackford, were you coerced into having sexual relations with Julianna Heaton?”

I seriously want to throttle that man. And considering his mousy features, his fucking skinny as shit body except for his potbelly, his beady fucking eyes, and his oily fucking skin, I could do it in one hand while asleep. But standing there, reporters looking to me to answer his question, and I realize this is his field. I’m just here as a guest.

“I was not forced into having sexual relations with that woman,” I say pointing towards Julianna and doing my best Bill Clinton imitation. I actually get a few laughs but AJ doesn’t stop.

“With all due respect, Colt,” AJ continues. “I think you’re being intimidated into covering up for what’s been done to you, and what you’ve been forced to do.”

Now I’ve really started to have enough. It’s bad enough that this guy is going after Julianna but now he’s standing there and literally telling me what I should be thinking. Who the fuck does he think he is?

“Oh yeah?” I sneer and I feel Julianna place a hand on my shoulder. But I don’t stop. “Why don’t you tell me what the fuck is going on then?”

All eyes are on AJ. Good. That motherfucker can stand there and make accusation after accusation but I’ve put him on the spot now. Now he’s actually gotta figure out something with all this shit.

That’s when I feel Julianna’s hand squeeze my shoulder and her face take on a worried frown.

It’s only when AJ starts to speak that I realize the mistake I’ve made.

“I think,” AJ says and pauses, as if relishing the spotlight. There must be at least 100 million Americans watching and with the newspaper and fucking internet coverage, not a single person in America is going to not know what happened here today. Probably biggest fucking audience this motherfucker has ever had. “I think you and Ethan Blake were coerced by Julianna Heaton into engaging in depraved sexual relations with her,” he says in one quick sentence and the room goes fucking crazy.

Somehow it quiets down and AJ continues, “I also think that using the power of securing your contract due to salary cap requirements, you were then further coerced into sexually assaulting Ethan Blake in the locker room.”

Fucking Christ. Is this shit for real?

“I think that you’re still being coerced by keeping silent. I think your latent homosexual tendencies have been flared up by that woman,” AJ says, pointing at Julianna. “And I think that it’s because of her that you’ve become unworthy to play in the league – just the same as she’s become unworthy of managing a team.”

Jesus Christ. I’m about to cuss him out when out of the corner of my eye I see the Commissioner. He seems very, very interested in what I have to say. I can't believe people are taking this shit so seriously.

“That is categorically untrue,” Julianna says. “It’s nothing but a pack of speculation wrapped in conjecture that’s then presented on a foundation of lies.”

“Oh yeah?” AJ says with a malicious fucking smile. “Prove it?”

“I don’t think it’s on us to prove anything, AJ,” I snarl back at him. “We’re not the ones accusing you.”

“And neither are you the ones dropping press releases in my lap stating that the New York Nailers have a culture of sexual pay for play, are you?” AJ asks.

That takes me short. What the fuck.

“Oh, no,” Julianna whispers and I look over. Her face is frozen and she looks like she’s about to pass the fuck out. “He didn't,” she mumbles.

She actually understands a bit faster than I do what's going on.

It takes me till AJ actually spells it out, “I have a statement from Larry Summers, who is now representing Ethan Blake,” AJ says, “He tells me that Ethan Blake was coerced into giving sexual favors with Colt Stackford to Julianna Heaton in order to maintain his position as defensive end with the New York Nailers.”

This is fucking insane! How could Ethan do that to us? AJ continues, “And then when he expressed misgivings about the matter, he was sexually assaulted by Colt Stackford in the New York Nailers locker room.”

Motherfucker. Did he just go on ahead and throw Julianna and me under the bus? I look over at the Commissioner. He’s frowning. Looking directly at us and frowning.

Fuck.

I’m never going to play for the NFL. Ever. Again.

Julianna is probably going to lose the fucking team. If she doesn't go to jail.

“That’s complete bullshit,” I say into the microphone. I should be more forceful, but what Ethan’s done has just hit me like a fucking rock. He hasn’t ever liked me, but I thought we’d been able to move past that. I thought at Bull and Bear we actually made some fucking headway. I thought…

“Let me ask you something, Commissioner,” AJ says, taking complete control of the press conference at this point. “What’s more realistic?”

There is a deadly silence in the room at this point.

“That two of the best players in the NFL that have had a storied rivalry that I’ve covered, who have even gotten into a fight on national television, all of a sudden fall in love with the same woman who just happens to be the owner of the team they play for, and while they do that, end up finding out that they have feelings for one another in one of the most unconventional relationships that the league has ever seen – even entering into a relationship that could get them thrown out of the league. Or…” AJ pauses again, as people hang on his every fucking word. “That two players who hated each other were traded to the New York Nailers, where Julianna Heaton exercised her deep antipathy and hatred for men by coercing both players to engage in a sexual relationship with her, telling them that their careers were on the line. And when one of them refused, she coerced the other to sexually assault him and bring him back into line.”

Holy shit.

People aren’t going to believe us for a second.

We’re fucking finished.

AJ looks over in absolute fucking triumph. “I told everyone from the beginning that she was unfit to own a team, and then this happened.”

Cameras go off, and people are talking. They’re on the phone calling into tomorrow’s major fucking headline. It’s going to be carried all over the country. Fuck, all over the world.

How could I let this happen to Julianna? I look over to her. Her face is steely – as if someone’s kicked her in the stomach. She’s strong. She’s not going to break down on national television – even if she is staring the end of her career in the face.

“Do you have anything, anything at all to say for yourselves, you despicable human beings?” AJ says, his killing stroke now released. He’s probably counting the dollars that this book deal and paid TV spots this is going to generate. Fuck.

“If they don't, AJ, I’d like to get in a few words,” a voice calls out from behind the swarm.

In a second time in an hour, the entire room turns their heads back to the door. I try to look over, but with so many people standing now, it’s hard.

That’s when I hear Julianna gasp and grab my arm.

It’s Ethan fucking Blake. And he’s walking up the room – almost same route I took when I got here.

“What?” Ethan asks the room. “You all had a party and didn’t invite me?”

Motherfucker.