Chapter Three
NATHAN
Fuck off.
Fuck off, that was what the dark haired girl with the pale skin had spat at me last night before she ran off into the darkness, leaving me alone in the middle of the street. It was the second time she had taken off on me without any kind of warning and it was starting to piss me off.
I was used to women running toward me. But running away from me? That was a first.
I mean, who the fuck did she think she was? Talking to me like that? There were thousands of girls at Michigan State and I could fuck every one of them seven ways to Texas if I wanted to. Hannah should have been the last thing on my mind, especially a full morning later.
Still, there was something about her.
It was more than just her body, even though she clearly didn’t know what she had. She moved like she had something to be ashamed of; as if she had nothing to feel sexy about. She was thicker than the girls I was used to, thick thighs and an ass so full the tight dress she was wearing last night could barely cover it.
It was a real body.
A body only a real man would know what to do with.
And me? Well, fuck. I was definitely all man.
It was more the look on her face when I was touching her, though. Her brown eyes had barely been able to stay open they were so shocked. Her body shook under me it was so fucking turned on. Almost like no one else had ever touched her before. The thought alone thrilled me.
It was a feeling I hadn’t had in a while.
She was pure.
She was a challenge.
And I loved to fucking play.
“Nathan, are you even listening to me?”
I pushed the thoughts of Hannah out of my head and turned to my father. The last thing I needed to be doing was thinking about some chick that had gotten my dick hard for twenty seconds last night. Even if I had enjoyed the feeling of making her feel something for once in her boring life, Hannah wasn’t my problem. The idea of getting caught up in anything resembling a relationship was horrifying to me. Especially, with a girl like Hannah, who I’d met once and was already a total pain in my ass.
I pushed my fingers tighter into the football in my hands and pulled my arm back, arching it perfectly and sending it flying over my shoulder into the end zone with little effort. The feeling wasn’t the same at 6 AM with my father breathing over my neck as it was when I did it with thousands of fans screaming my name under bright lights but it was still pretty fucking cool.
“Not really,” I admitted, grabbing another football off the standing shelf next to me.
“I said,” my father seethed, trying not to show me how frustrated he was with my lack of focus. “I think you’re losing speed. I was watching the game tape back from last weeks game and you looked like a snail going across the field.”
“Losing speed? That’s impossible.” I scoffed.
“Still,” my dad said sternly. “You should pick your training schedule up again. The NFL isn’t going to take you seriously if you don’t give them a reason to.” He let his dark eyes land on the football in my hands again. “How long were you in the weight room before I got here this morning?”
I sighed and tossed the ball onto the ground. “Not that it’s not always a pleasure, dad,” I said sarcastically. “But is there a reason you showed up at my morning work out at the crack of dawn?”
“Can’t a father just visit his son? I was in the neighborhood.”
“In the neighborhood 500 miles from home? Right.” I crossed my arms over my chest. “What do you want, dad? The sooner you tell me, the sooner you can get out of here and I can work on my… speed.” I smirked.
His tone was clipped for half a second but he recovered quickly, putting his hand on my shoulder and pushing me off the field toward the sideline. “Well, now that you mention it, I did need to talk to you about something.”
“Shocker.”
“Richard had a shareholder meeting last night.”
Richard, my grandfather. He was the majority owner of the sports drink and energy bar franchise his father had started from the ground up when he was just a college kid. Probably never imagining it would go on to be worth more than 500 million dollars. I winced at the mention of my grandfather’s name, my families business was the last thing I wanted to talk about, especially when every time it came up all it did was cause fucking drama.
“So? He has shareholder meetings all the time,” I told him, already bored.
“This one was about you,” my father announced eagerly.
I froze, already dreading where he was going with this. “How do you know?”
“I know,” he told me, waving off the question. “Apparently, your grandfather is finally ready to move forward with his retirement, he’s finally ready to draw up the papers and put a time frame on this whole mess.” He crossed his arms over his broad chest and chuckled, eyes identical to mine trained on my face. “About time, the old bag can barely get around anymore.”
I looked away from him and glanced out at the empty bleachers that seemed to stretch out in front of me for miles. “How long?” I found myself asking the question even though I knew the answer wasn’t going to satisfy me no matter what it was. I felt like it was a death sentence rather than the chance of a lifetime.
“Four years.”
I snapped my head around. “I’ll still be in the NFL.”
My father frowned like that wasn’t an issue. “Um, so what?”
Of course, it wasn’t an issue to my father. What the fuck did he care what I was doing when my grandfather decided it was time for me to take over his company? As far as he was concerned I wouldn’t own it for more than a month anyway. The plan had been in place since I was 13, play the part of the perfect grandson, get the company in my grips and then completely blindside my grandfather by signing it right over to my father once it was mine, leaving him in control.
My grandfather had always hated my father, or at least that was what he told me. It was easy to believe when I was younger but now that I was older the stories were becoming more and more confusing. After my mom passed my dad had blown through the money she left behind quickly and we had both been living on the trust my grandfather gave me since. But it wasn’t enough, my father wanted more, he wanted the power and satisfaction of taking what he thought belonged to him.
It was easy to get on board when I was just a kid but now that it was getting closer disgust had been starting to creep into my bones about it. The truth was that I could care less about the money, and it was probably easy for me to say that since I had it, but lately the only thing that made me happy was throwing that ball down the field every Saturday night. That was what I wanted my life to me; that was who I wanted to be.
Sometimes I just wished I had a normal family along for the ride.
“This is what we have been waiting for your whole life.” My father grinned.
No, it’s what you’ve been waiting for.
“Dad, can we talk about this later?” Like never. “Four years is a long time.”
My father’s teeth chattered slightly. “That’s the thing. Um, the meeting was a little more than just a formality. Apparently, some of the shareholders are worried about your image.”
I rolled my eyes. “What fucking image?”
“That image,” my father growled at my dirty mouth. “There’s a new picture of you in the newspaper every week, Nathan, each time with a different skinny blonde plastered to your lips.”
“You do realize I’m a football player, right? And that I’m in college.” I gestured toward the sideline to where a group of girls were giggling and waving at me. “There are groupies everywhere, I can’t exactly help it.” I shot the girls a wink and they erupted into another fit of laughter.
It was almost too easy.
“I know, I get it, Nate, trust me.” He followed my gaze and sighed. “I just think it would be a good idea for you to tone it down a little bit, just until the end of the season when your grandfather signs the papers. Once we have it in writing and it’s legalized we won't have anything to worry about.”
He said it like shaking off sports groupies was a walk in the park.
“Anything else? Want me to cure world hunger while I’m at it?”
His jaw tensed. “It’s a month or so, Nate, I hardly think it’s a lot to ask of you considering everything I’ve done.” He moved closer to me, putting his hand on my shoulder and getting a look of control in his eyes.
My body stilled immediately and I traced my eyes on his. Was he really bringing it up? Really going there? We never brought it up, never talked about it. It was a skeleton buried deep in my closet that we had silently agreed a long time ago to leave there without acknowledgment.
And, damn me, if I didn’t feel tears forming behind my eyes like a fucking pussy.
I pushed them back and shook him off. “Whatever, I’ll put some ice on it.” He paused, an unsure look on his face and I sighed, knowing that there was something else he wasn’t telling me. “What?”
“I think it would be a good idea if you got into a relationship.”
"Jesus, dad," I started choking on the water I had just downed. “You want me to do what?”
“We have to prove to the media and to the shareholders that you have what it takes to be serious.” He bit down on his lip. “It’ll just be for a few weeks. You can start off as friends and then something can bubble over and turn into a relationship. Once things are settled with the paperwork you can announce a mutual split. What can go wrong?”
What can go wrong? Only fucking everything.
“Sure, let me just pull a girlfriend out of thin air, dad. Easy.”
My father glanced at the sidelines again. “Are you joking? It will take you five seconds. Any girl here would be thrilled at the idea. Just… don’t make her your usual type, Nate. She has to be naïve, almost… pure. The media loves that kind of shit. The all-star with the girl next door, the press will eat it up like moths to a fucking flame.” He nudged into me, pleased with himself.
“Dad, I don’t want a fucking girlfriend. Not now. Not ever.”
“It’s only temporary, Nate.” He started to back away before I had a chance to say anything else. “Oh,” he paused. “Have you heard about The Westfield Times thing yet?”
I froze under the stadium light, the girl from last night flashing into my mind again. “The Westfield Times thing?” I tried to play dumb but my stomach was starting to rage underneath me.
“Get this. Some loser English teacher is assigning research papers to members of your school and getting The Westfield Times to have a look at it. My contact over there called me right away and I made sure yours was one of the names on the ballot.” He winked like he had done me a huge favor. “I just wonder whose name they will pick.”
He laughed wildly and I felt my hands shift into tight fists.
“Anyway, when the bookworm who got your name comes up to you with a release just sign it and get her out of your hair.”
Hannah’s face crept into my mind and a sense of annoyance immediately came over me. No way in hell was I giving her the gift of writing an article about me after the way she had talked to me last night. The girl had the mouth of a trucker, which was surprising considering how pure she seemed otherwise.
Pure, the words rang through my mind over and over again.
“I don’t need any more press,” I growled. “I get plenty.”
“Hey, all press is good press, son.” He kept backing away from me, barely paying attention to where he was walking. “Just sign the release. I have this whole thing all set up, you’ll see.”
And then he was gone, leaving me in complete turmoil, the way he always did when he was in my presence. I kicked the basket of footballs next to me over with a swift swing. I hated the way he made me feel, despised the uneasy feeling he left me with all the fucking time.
But I didn’t really have a choice. I had to do what he told me to.
Because my father had something on me.
Something so dark that I had forced it out of my mind long ago, letting it turn my entire existence to black. Something so deep and devil like that it had forced any good in me bad years ago.
And if it ever got out, it would ruin my entire existence.