Chapter 33

Carmina watched the final minutes of the game on the monitor in the players’ lounge next to the locker room. She had a bad feeling in the pit of her stomach. It reminded her of the way she’d felt in Afghanistan. She’d always had a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. Sam took her under his wing and Richie would make jokes, cracking her up, until she forgot to be nervous and scared. But Tom and Danny and Sam were on the field and there was no one to settle her nerves now. As a matter of fact, Melody Ann was only making it worse.

“Okay, I got the screengrab. What do you think?” she asked. She was working on her laptop at the table in the corner while Carmina stared at the TV. Carmina walked over and looked down at the screen. It was a picture of the guys piled on Cass as he screamed at Peltz. But Peltz wasn’t in the picture.

“I don’t know,” Carmina said skeptically. “Why are you posting this? I mean, it doesn’t look good.”

“Because everyone is going to be posting it and speculating about it,” Melody Ann said. “It’s best if we start it. That way we can tailor the narrative and the tone of the reactions on social media. If we let the Rough Riders do it, then who’s the bad guy? We need to make sure that label is squarely on Peltz.”

“Okay,” Carmina said. “That makes sense.” She looked at Danny’s face in the picture. It was obvious he didn’t want to hold Cass back, but he was doing it anyway, because he knew it was the right thing to do. If she wasn’t in love with him already, she fell then for sure. She knew how much he hated Peltz and how much he wanted to get revenge, but he still put his friends first and protected both Cass and Marian. Even though Tom was holding Cass in the picture, and everyone else’s focus was on Cass, Tom was looking at Danny. Most people wouldn’t see anything in that look, but Carmina did. She knew that for Tom it was all about Danny. And she could see in his face that he was proud of Danny for doing the right thing. She knew Tom loved Danny. He wasn’t very good at hiding his emotions. Well, actually, he didn’t even try to hide them, which was pretty refreshing. She hated what was happening out there on the field. But she loved them for it, too.

“Caption suggestions?” Melody Ann asked.

“Teammates have to make the hard choices,” Carmina said immediately.

“Oh, that’s great,” Melody Ann said enthusiastically. “How did you come up with it so fast?” #team, #Rebels, #gotyourback, Melody Ann added to the caption.

“Look at Danny and Tom, and Beau, too. None of them want to hold Cass back, but they’re doing it anyway. If they let him go, he’d be in trouble, right?”

“Oh, yeah,” Melody Ann said. “Big trouble. Fines. Suspension. All that shit. And that’s if he didn’t kill him.”

“Exactly.” Carmina sat down and watched Melody Ann post the photo. Melody Ann’s phone rang almost immediately.

“Hello?” she said. “Yes, sir, I did. We had to. Someone was going to do it. It needed to be us.” She made a face at Carmina and got up, walking over to the other side of the room as she explained her strategy.

Carmina watched the notifications as comments came in on the photo. Most of them were positive, and the ones that weren’t generally said they should have let Cass kill Peltz. A few Rough Rider fans fought back, but were shot down. She had an idea, and clicked on the video, taking another screenshot. This time it was Danny helping Cass to his feet while everyone else looked on. Friendship won today, she captioned it. She waved at Melody Ann, who came over and looked at it while she was still talking. She gave Carmina the thumbs-up and mouthed, “Post it.”

After she posted, she searched for more commentary on the incident from other social media accounts. There was a lot of it. But many of them were reposts of the Rebels. Melody Ann had been right. They were controlling the narrative. The focus wasn’t on Peltz or what he’d said, but on the Rebels and their support of Cass, and the positive message of friendship and forgiveness. Carmina wanted to keep Marian’s name out of it if she could.

She glanced over at the TV. There were only about fifty seconds left in the fourth quarter. An eternity in a football game. Danny caught another great pass and ran it out of bounds. The camera was on his face, and he looked incredibly intense, even for Danny. He wanted another touchdown. She knew it. She knew him. He was so in command out there on the field, so intense and dominant. It was hard to reconcile that player with the submissive, generous lover she’d come to know. But watching him today made her want to drag him into the bedroom, tie him down, and do unbearably erotic things to him until he begged to be fucked. It was weird, because with Tom she got off on letting him tell her what to do. But with Danny she got off on being the one in charge of his pleasure. When she and Tom double-teamed Danny she totally got off on it. Although Tom was still in charge then, too. She shivered, remembering Tom holding Danny down and kissing him while she fucked him. Danny went crazy when she played with his ass. She couldn’t wait to watch Tom fuck him. She knew without a doubt it was going to happen and she was going to have a front-row seat. She squirmed in arousal just thinking about it. Her life had definitely taken a turn to the unbelievable. Carmina de la Cruz, sexpot. She looked down at her black dress pants and flats and her no-nonsense light-blue blouse and laughed.

Danny had run out of bounds on the Rough Riders’ sideline, and suddenly Peltz was there next him. Carmina tensed up as she watched the two confront one another. “Melody Ann,” she called out in a panic.

“I see it, I see it,” Melody Ann said, rushing over to the TV. “I’ll call you back,” she said into the phone.

“Don’t do it,” Carmina said under her breath. Even without hearing what was being said, it was obvious Peltz was trying to start something. From what Danny had told her, she was sure whatever he was saying was pretty bad. The cameras had zoomed in on the two of them and the announcers were speculating about the bad blood between the two players.

“It seems as if Peltz has issues with half the Rebels’ roster,” one announcer said, laughter in his voice. “It’s a well-known fact that he and Smith don’t get along, stemming from something that happened back in college, when they both played for Rufus Sedgeway at Southern State.”

“Isn’t Marian Treadwell Sedgeway’s daughter?” the other announcer asked. “She doesn’t broadcast it, but speculation is that’s how she got the job with the Rebels.”

“Well, the whole incident with Zielinski started when Peltz said something about her,” the first announcer responded. “She and Zielinski are involved in a rather unusual relationship with tight end Beau Perez that has garnered a lot of media attention this season.” On the TV, Danny turned his back on Peltz with a dismissive gesture and started to walk away, heading onto the field toward the line of scrimmage.

“It’s too bad the sensationalism of that relationship has overshadowed what a stupendous job she’s done with the offensive line. Treadwell, quarterback coach Brian Mason, and head offensive coach Mike Richards have really turned this Rebels offense around. The stellar play of backup quarterback Marlon Parris today is a testament to that. The Rebels have dominated this game even without Tyler Oakes and Kitt Doyle, two of their strongest players this season, both out with injuries.”

Carmina was glad when the talk turned away from the drama onscreen and back to the Rebels’ play. But just as she started to relax, Peltz shoved Danny from behind hard enough to knock him down. Danny rolled over, but before he could get up, Peltz jumped on him and ripped Danny’s helmet off. He got in a couple of good hits before Danny pushed him off. Suddenly players from both teams were running onto the field and when they met there was a brawl that made it look more like a hockey game than a football game.

“Oh my God,” Melody Ann said from beside her. “Shit!”

Carmina couldn’t tell who was who in the melee. She thought she saw Cass grab Peltz from behind, but then he was pulled off by someone, maybe a Rough Rider? Or it could have been Beau. Where was Danny? Tom was dodging Vegas players, trying to get to the spot where Danny went down. Suddenly King and Sam were next to him, shoving players out of his way. Tom fell to his knees, and that was when Carmina realized that Danny was still on the ground. She grabbed Melody Ann’s hand and held on tight.

“He’s fine,” Melody Ann said soothingly. Carmina’s fear must have shown on her face. “He was protecting his head. I think he just couldn’t get up in the middle of all that.”

Carmina had lost her words. She could only stare in horror at the screen. Would Danny be penalized? He hadn’t done anything. What about Tom? And Sam and King were going to get in trouble for sure, since they’d been on the Rebels’ sideline and had no business out there on the field. Tom pulled Danny to his feet, but Danny wobbled a little and Tom wrapped his arm around him, helping him walk, while King kept everyone away. Carmina winced when she saw Sam dodge a punch, then put a Vegas player in an arm hold before slamming him to the ground. That was just stupid of the Vegas guy. You don’t attack someone trained in hand-to-hand combat. Seriously.

“Danny’s walking,” Melody Ann said, relief in her voice. “Tom’s getting him off the field.” By now the fight was dying down as the referees waded in with the coaches and pulled players off of each other, sending them to the sidelines.

“…is going to be a while figuring out how to officiate that mess.” The announcer’s voice suddenly penetrated Carmina’s panic. “It looked like Darren Peltz started it, of course. He’ll get thrown out of the game for sure. But the players who cleared the benches are the question here. If I were the officials, I’d assign personal foul and unnecessary roughness penalties to both teams, give the Rebels a first down, and let the NFL figure out what else they’re going to do about this egregious misconduct.”

Peltz wasn’t done. He broke away from the Vegas coach who was holding him and ran at Marian, who was on the field with Marlon and a few others, watching it all go down. It looked like they were making sure to keep Parris out of it. They couldn’t afford to lose another quarterback. Peltz’s behavior was so shocking and unexpected that none of the men had time to get in between him and Marian. Melody Ann gasped as Peltz grabbed Marian by the arm and yanked her away from the others. Without warning, Marian let him have it with a solid right hook. Peltz jerked away, grabbing his nose. By then, people were pulling him away from her.

“What on earth is going on?” one of the announcers exclaimed. “Did Peltz just attack a Rebels coach? And did Marian Treadwell just punch a player on the field?” He was laughing incredulously. “This game is going to go down in the annals of NFL history, I’m telling you. How do you officiate that?”

“Well, it looked like she was defending herself,” the other announcer responded, shock in his voice. “What was Peltz thinking? I’m going on record as saying this is in no way her fault.”

“There are people who’ve been griping all season a woman has no business out there with NFL players,” the first announcer said. “This is going to add fuel to the fire. You get these enormous guys out there, adrenaline and whatever pumping through them, and you’ve got a dangerous situation.”

“Which she handled,” the other announcer argued. “In the same way a man would have. Good for her.”

“This could affect the Rebels’ playoff hopes,” the first announcer said. “If they’ve got half the team suspended or out with injuries, I don’t know how they can beat the Texans in the first round.”

“Fuck the Texans,” Melody Ann said. She turned, wide-eyed, to Carmina. “How am I going to spin this?”

“Screenshot the punch, right now,” Carmina said. “Lead with that. Marian is fierce.” And maybe she’d gotten a little revenge with that punch, Carmina thought to herself. Good for her.

“She sure is,” Melody Ann said with a laugh, running for her computer. “And that’s the caption, too. You’re good at this.”

The offhand compliment pleased Carmina. This was her job, after all. She checked to make sure Tom and Danny made it to the sidelines. Danny was sitting and shaking his head at a trainer, sipping some water. He looked rattled as he dabbed his bleeding mouth with a towel. Once she was assured he was okay, she turned away and grabbed another laptop. She and Melody Ann were going to be busy for a while.