Chapter One - Erica
I have been chasing news stories for the past year. Nobody thought I could do it – a girl trying to make it big as a sports journalist? But I was determined to prove them all wrong, especially my dad, who always wanted a son but got me instead.
So when I was called into my editor’s office the other day, you can imagine how on edge I was. The worst thing that could happen was my being demoted to write fluff human interest stories without a byline. The best thing that could happen was that I got to cover the next NFL game.
What ended up happening was that my editor gave me an assignment that was so good that I hadn’t even dreamt of it. Kyle Murphy. I was supposed to interview Kyle Murphy.
Before anything else, I should let you in on who Kyle Murphy is. As you can predict, he is an NFL superstar. Why else would I even be interested? He was being touted as the next big thing. He might have been only twenty-four years old, but he wasn’t green to the game. He had been picked up, touted at the tender age of eighteen and he had been making a splash ever since. Teams had fought over him, and he obviously took up the most pricy offer. Because that is who Kyle Murphy was.
I hadn’t ever met him in person, but I had formed a pretty accurate impression of him. I had interviewed and hung around enough footballers to know exactly how much the fame got to their heads. But with Kyle Murphy, it was a completely different level.
The guy looked like a Greek God, for starters. His body was pure muscle. It was hard to miss the layers of chiseled and well-sculpted sinew under his jersey while he played. His face was sharp, his jaw square, his eyes a piercing emerald green, and his lips flawlessly pink and juicy. His hair was dark, and he kept it short in a buzz cut so that it never interfered with his game.
So, Kyle Murphy’s stardom wasn’t all just about his prowess on the field. It was also about how irresistibly gorgeous he looked. This contributed to all the media attention he got. He was never seen without a beautiful model or film star hanging from his arm and he always left them heartbroken. Kyle Murphy was known as a serial non-committer and I could never understand why these women kept trying. It was like they couldn’t help themselves.
Men wanted to be like him and women wanted to tame him. That was the legend of Kyle Murphy. I had always watched from the sidelines, interested in his success story. Never before did I have the opportunity to actually meet him in person, interview him. He was larger than life – too high profile for me to actually meet. But, finally, here I was. For some reason my editor had thought I was ready to report on him and I was sure not going to mess it up.
So, during the game I stood in the middle of the hallway near the locker room. I could watch on the large screen TV that had been fixed at the entrance, so I wasn’t really missing out on the action. My plan was to intercept him on his way back to the locker room after the game. Kyle Murphy was notorious for not keeping his word with reporters for interviews. He could very well change his mind. Then what was I supposed to do? Become a failure? I was determined to get this interview. It was my job and I was going to do it well.
But the whole time I stood watching the game, my brain was split in half. I could see him on the screen, taking his team to victory. He moved swiftly on the field, the cameras always remained focused on him. Even with his helmet on, even when he was being tackled, Kyle Murphy had an obnoxious smile on his face. The cameras captured the sparkle in his eye, the way his body cut through the wind as he ran.
I was watching him. That is to say, I was watching the team win. I couldn’t help but think about my dad and the look of sheer surprise he would have on his face when my interview was printed the next morning. He’d see my name, my official mugshot at the top above the article and the realization would sink in: his daughter had interviewed Kyle Murphy, the model son he wished he had. He would be in disbelief for the first few minutes that it was actually his daughter, and then he might regret all the words he had thrown at me. He might regret the passive aggressiveness he had tortured my mother with, blaming her for not presenting him with a son, for not being able to have any more children after me.
Kyle Murphy represented more than just a lucky break for me. He was going to give me the opportunity to prove to my dad that I was capable of anything. That even though I was a girl, I was way closer to the NFL than any son of his might have ever gotten.
The game had come to an end, and I could see Kyle Murphy on the screen being lauded by the crowd. Some of his teammates had lifted him up on their shoulders. He had yanked the helmet off his face, smiling and laughing for the camera. Kyle Murphy was celebrating and I was silently celebrating too, hoping that he wouldn’t forget that he had an interview to give.