Chapter 2

Brady

VVVVRRRRRRRRR…VVVVVVRRRRRR...VVVVRRRRRRRR!

I crack my eyes to the sunlight streaming in through the wall of windows in my penthouse apartment.

“Fuck, that’s bright,” I groan, bringing my hand up to shield my vision and rub my face. I blink my eyes and try to remember what woke me up. Then I hear it again.

VVVRRRRRR…VVVVRRRRR…

My phone. My phone. Where the fuck is my phone?

I find it under a pile of hastily discarded clothes. It just stopped vibrating.

It’s a little after ten in the morning, and my missed call log is up to thirty. I flip through and see they’re almost all from my agent.

The phone starts buzzing again, AGENT flashing across the screen. I slide my feet to the floor and sit up on the side of my bed, stretching, my muscles bunching and flexing beneath my skin.

I look down and notice a few scratches on my chest and a bite mark on my bicep. What—or should I say, who—did I do last night? The phone stops buzzing and then immediately starts again.

Oh, well. No sense putting it off.

I huff a sigh and swipe my finger across the screen. “Yeah?”

“Open your goddamn door!”

“Well, good morning to you, too, Rudy. Have a nice night?”

“Brady,” he bites out. I can practically see him clenching his jaw. “Open your motherfucking door!”

“All right, all right, man. Calm your tits,” I say, but he’s already hung up.

I get up and reach into the pile of discarded clothes, tossing away panties and bras, looking for my boxer briefs. I snag them and grab some sweat pants and a discarded t-shirt from a chair.

On my way out of my room, I almost trip over a blonde and a redhead sleeping curled up together under a blanket on the floor.

Ah. So that’s what I did.

Some people might think I’m a dick for making them sleep on the floor when I have a California king-sized bed.

And they’d be right. I am. But those are my rules:

I’ll fuck a girl any way she wants, all night long. But I sleep by myself.

I make my way out of the bedroom and into the giant living room with its panoramic view of New York City.

God, I love this place. Life here is on an entirely different level. It’s non-stop, perpetual motion—like me.

It can fuck you up, but it can fuck you right, too. There is no place else I’d want to be.

My peaceful moment of reflection is interrupted by a pounding knock on my door.

Through the solid wood comes a muffled shriek. “Open the fuck up, Brady!”

I don’t even use the peephole. I know exactly who it is.

I open the fucking door.

“It’s my daughter’s bat mitvah tomorrow, asshole—”

“Good morning to you, too, Rudy.”

Rudy Goldstern, my agent, busts into my apartment with a briefcase and what appears to be a hastily packed overnight bag. He continues as if I didn’t say a word.

“—and do you know what I’m doing right now? Instead of helping my wife with the caterers and insuring that everything goes right and that the DJ has the correct set list—because heaven forbid he play something ‘lame’ in the eyes of a bunch of prepubescent boys and girls—”

“No, Rudy.” I smirk. “What’s that?”

He drops his bags on the floor, and makes his way to my refrigerator to pop open a diet coke. I notice his suit is rumpled, like he slept in it, and his eyes are bloodshot.

“I am here with you, you ungrateful fuckwad, having just flown across the goddamn country on a five-and-a-half-hour red-eye flight, to find myself cooling my heels while you decided today would be a great day to not answer your fucking phone and sleep in!”

He finishes, chest heaving slightly, as he chugs the diet Coke as if his life depends on it. He finishes it in seconds, wipes his mouth on his sleeve, and collapses on my couch, head in his hands.

“God, sometimes I really miss cocaine,” he sighs.

Uh-oh. Rudy only gets nostalgic about coke when something’s really bad. I sit down in the leather club chair opposite him and wait.

Rudy’s hands move from his face to rub his bleary eyes and massage his temples. Then they start running back and forth over his shaved head.

We have a running joke that I owe him hair implants. He said he finally just decided to shave it all off, since he started losing it in clumps ever since he signed me. I sent him a head buffing kit last year for Christmas.

He wasn’t amused.

I’m just about to ask him to just tell me when he asks me.

“Why’d you do it?”

His voice is laced with exhaustion. He sounds defeated.

I look at him as if I have no idea what he’s talking about, because I don’t. I’ve done a lot of things.

I lean back and cross my arms over my chest.

“You’ll have to be more specific,” I smirk, eyebrow cocked up in question.

He glares at me.

“Why,” he enunciates crisply, “did you decide it was a good idea to take Bob Odom’s yacht out for a pleasure cruise with a bunch of rookies, a dozen strippers—at least I hope they were just strippers—four members of the micro wrestling federation, and a lesser Saudi Arabian Prince!”

“It was harmless,” I scoff.

Rudy no longer looks tired. He looks furious. In fact, I’m afraid he’s about to have an apoplectic fit.

I pull out my phone, just in case I need to dial 9-1-1.

“IT WAS NOT FUCKING HARMLESS!” he screams.

Suddenly, remembering the girls asleep on the floor in my bedroom, I put my finger to my lips. “Ssshhhh.”

“Do you have a girl here?” he demands incredulously.

I shrug my shoulders, and he immediately jumps up and runs to my bedroom. Then I hear a thud and a pair of screams.

“My apologies, ladies, I didn’t see you there,” I hear Rudy say in the distance. “Right, yes, I’m Mr. Thomas’s agent, and we need to discuss some business. So, if you wouldn’t mind getting dressed—I believe these belong to you, and here’s yours—I’ll get you some money for a cab, you’ll sign this non-disclosure agreement, and you can be on your way.”

By the time Rudy has hustled the girls out the door, I am almost on the floor from laughing so hard.

“You think this is funny?” Rudy glowers down at me, which is not a usual occurrence since I’m 6’5” and he’s barely 5’9” on a good day.

Picking myself up off the floor, I sit back in my chair, wiping the tears of mirth from my eyes.

Rudy sighs.

“Listen, kid, you’re in the shit now. You took a joy ride in the team owner’s private yacht, and then you crashed it. You had to be rescued by the fucking Coast Guard. You put not only your life in jeopardy, but the lives of everyone on that boat. Do you have any idea how quickly this almost became an international incident?”

“Key word there is almost,” I say. “Prince Yasin was fine. Hell, he even thanked me for the good time.”

“But his parents did not,” Rudy argues, pacing back and forth.

Finally, he sits back down and gives me a look, like he’s about to tell me my dog died.

Except I don’t have a dog. Too much responsibility.

“Brady,” he sighs again. I’m really getting fucking sick of his sighs. “Your actions have consequences.”

“So, what are they going to do? Dock my pay? Make me sit out the first couple of games? Good luck to that. I am this team.”

Rudy snorts, and then begins to laugh in a defeated and delirious manner. He shakes his head.

“No, Brady, nothing like that,” he says. Relief washes over me—and confusion. What else could they do?

“You’ve been traded,” he says.

WHAT?!

“What did you just say?” I demand. He couldn’t possibly have said what I think he did.

“I said, ‘you’ve been traded’. You’re no longer the starting quarterback for the New York Bulls. So, start packing, because you’re out.” He jerks his thumb to the side like a baseball umpire.

I don’t believe it. I just signed that new contract at the end of last season! What the fuck?

Fuck, I can hardly breathe.

“Where?” is all I’m able to get out.

This time, there’s pity in his eyes when he says, “San Antonio.”

Texas? Fuck, no.

“No,” I say, my voice flat. “Do something. Fix it. This is what I pay you for. You’re the best at what you do, so fucking do something.”

“I’m sorry, Brady, but this is the best I could do.” At least he actually sounds like he feels bad about it.

“What do you mean, this is the best you could do? Call L.A.! Call fucking St. Paul! I can deal with snow. Call one of the dozens of teams that have been sniffing around me like I’m a bitch in heat.” I’m almost shouting now.

And I’m getting even more irate because Rudy-fucking-Goldstern is just sitting on my couch, shaking his head.

“I’m sorry, buddy, I am. But I tried. After the yacht fiasco, no team wants to touch you with a fifty-yard pole. San Antonio is the best I could do. They’re the only team that wanted you.”

My heart is pounding in my chest, and I feel like I’m going to be sick. I got the hell out of that state in college, and I never looked back. Well, maybe once, but that doesn’t matter now.

I fucking hate Texas. The roar of blood in my ears is so loud, I can barely make out the rest of what Rudy is saying.

“...one year contract, with the option to sign a more substantial, long-term contract at the end of the season, permitting you do well, and don’t find yourself in breach of the morality clause.”

“The what now?” I squint at him, again unsure of what he’s talking about.

“They’re taking you, but you have to sign a morality clause. I’m just waiting on our lawyers to review it, but from what I’ve seen, it’s pretty standard. No illicit behavior, curfews before games, that sort of thing. We’ll work it out, don’t you worry about it.”

The slick, self-assured man I hired is back, now that the bad news is delivered.

I put my head in my hands, disbelief still clogging my brain.

A morality clause? FUCK.

I fucking hate Texas.