Do you know how hard it was to book a whole restaurant like Per Se on a day’s notice? We’re talking 3 fucking Michelin stars.

Not easy, that much I can tell you. But after last night’s game, my name carries some weight in New York. I just had to pull a few strings and now here I am, the whole dining room to myself.

It’s five to eight, so Fiona should be here soon. I don’t know what came over me to ask her out like that yesterday, but that’s just how I do things. I can be impulsive. If something feels right, I do it without a second thought.

It’s funny, though; I have models and actresses dying for a few minutes of my time, and I don’t really care for them and their fake plastic tits. Sure, you know, it feels good for a fucking night … but that’s it.

Now, with Fiona I’m even wearing my best suit. My lucky suit, in fact, the one I was wearing when the Nailers picked me in the draft. I even bought a rose on the way here, and I never do stuff like that. I don’t think most women deserve to be treated like princesses, to be honest—at least the ones I know. Most of them are just pampered socialites looking for a free ride, trying to leech off my success. But this Fiona … she’s just a regular girl, and I want to do this right. Okay, fuck, I’ll admit it; she also looks hot as hell, and that helps. But I’m not saying I’m going to fuck her, okay? I just want to do something nice for a change.

I look at my watch; it’s eight o’clock sharp, and then I turn my gaze toward the entrance. And there she is—and fuck, she looks completely stunning. She’s wearing a tight dress that makes her look even hotter than she looked back at the stadium, and her straight blonde hair looks perfect for grabbing when I bend her over and—fuck, I need to chill out.

She’s talking on the phone, peeking at the dining area and, when her eyes meet mine, her whole face brightens. She places the phone in her purse and walks inside the restaurant, elegantly swaying her hips in a way that makes my cock twitch with a kind of raw instinct.

I take a deep breath as I hear her heels clicking across the floor, and I go up to my feet before she reaches our table.

“Glad you could make it,” I say, and her cheeks grow red before I’ve even finished speaking. I pull her chair back, acting like a true gentleman (no matter what the newspapers say, I can act like one), and then go back to my seat.

“I don’t think you’ve left me another choice, you know? After you asked me out on live TV, I think I’d end up looking like an idiot if I turned you down,” she tells me with a confident smile. I can tell that she’s feigning her confidence; she’s trying hard not to look me in the eyes, and that tells me she’s a nervous wreck right now.

“Who cares?” I shrug. “Looking good, looking bad… It’s all the same, Fiona. I don’t live my life according to what the media expects of me, and you shouldn’t either.”

“Yeah,” she agrees, finally looking straight at me. Her eyes are of a clear blue, a little piece of heaven hidden in her iris, and I almost forget that I’m on a date with her. I just prop my elbows up on the table and lose myself in how beautiful she looks. Forget about all these top models; they have nothing on this girl.

“I hope that asking me out wasn’t just a marketing stunt or something like that,” she says with a smile, slowly looking more confident with each passing second.

“Do you see any reporters around?” I ask her, waving my hand at the empty restaurant. “If I wanted to make a show out of this, I’d have wanted this place packed… But it’s not. And if I did all this for show, I wouldn’t have brought you this,” I grab the rose in front of me and hand it to her, the tip of my fingers brushing against the palm of her small hands as I do it, “where nobody can see me do it.”

“Thank you,” she smiles, looking me straight in the eyes and finally feeling at ease. I’m used to girls being intimidated by me; I’m rich, world famous, and I look better than fucking Adonis himself. Not to mention the baseball bat I have dangling between my legs, but now's not the time to be bragging about stuff like that, is it?

“Don’t mention it,” I tell her as the sole waiter in the restaurant comes up to us. I order the tasting menu, not even knowing what half of the stuff in there really is, and a bottle of French red wine.

After we get the formalities out of the way—she’s a law student, I’m a quarterback, shit like that—and after we order a second bottle of red, her mood seems to improve considerably. While she started the evening as a shy girl completely star-struck by me, she’s now acting more confidently than most women I know.

“You like to show off,” she teases me, talking about last night’s game. “Most of the stuff you do on the field is completely for show, isn’t it? Like, did you really have to somersault over that guy?”

“Did you see his size? It was either that or be carried off to a graveyard after being hit by him.”

“Don’t be so dramatic,” she continues, taking a long gulp out of her wine. “I bet that a guy your size could handle a tackle like that.”

“A guy my size?” I ask her, arching one eyebrow and realizing that we’re changing gears in this conversation. For a petite girl she looks like she’s in control of the whole conversation. Which is good, for once in my life I can act like a fucking regular human being, instead of a cardboard star athlete. I know I shouldn’t be complaining about this (after all, most guys would kill to be in a situation such as mine), but being used by women as a human dildo gets old pretty quickly. Sure, most of them also try to put a collar on me, hell bent on parading me around like some kind of big prize, but I never allowed that to happen. I might earn a living like an athlete, but that doesn’t mean I’m dumb. Far from it, in fact: before playing in the League, I graduated with honors from Wharton. Don’t act all surprised, babe; I’m much more than just a piece of meat.

“A guy your size,” she repeats, the grin on her face telling me she’s talking about more than just my height.

“You know nothing about my size.” I finish my glass of wine and then just stare at her, allowing that electric feeling to settle around us. Fuck, remember when I told you that I wasn’t thinking about fucking her? Yeah, forget about that. Right now I want nothing more than to get her naked.

“But I’m going to find out all about your size, aren't I?”

“You were the one saying you’d fuck me if you had the chance,” I say, my grin widening as my heart starts pumping boiling blood to my cock. If this conversation keeps going in this direction, soon enough I’m going to have an erection so massive that I’m going to overturn the table.

“A deal is a deal,” she shoots back.

Touchdown, it seems.

“Check, please!” I tell the waiter.

Time to get out of here.