Play Maker(5)

“Well, then you already know that I’ve been on the phone with all the other tabloids. They all want to know who this one is.” He cocked an eyebrow at me. “Do you even know who this one is?”

I nodded towards Rick, who was showing the magazine off to the other players. Ethan was one of the few people who knew about our arrangement. He had gone on record several times saying that he was against it. Then again, it was his job to be against anything that could be construed as fun.

“Another one of his,” I informed him.

Ethan ran a hand through his hair, still looking a bit jetlagged. “His taste is not improving,” he noted, looking down at the magazine.

“She’s not bad looking,” I argued, as if my own taste in women was being questioned.

“No, she’s a fine piece,” Ethan agreed. “But does he have to get caught outside of strip clubs so often?”

“He’s a man of specific tastes.” I yanked on my cleats.

“Which makes you a man of the same tastes.”

I pretended to be offended. “Are you protecting my honor now?”

“Just trying to help your brand,” Ethan told me.

I grimaced. “I hate that term and you know it. I’m just a bloke that can kick a ball.”

“And bed every woman in Britain.” Ethan waved the magazine again. “And now the States.”

“So that’s my brand.” I flashed him a grin. “A damn lucky bloke.”

“A right underserving one,” Ethan shot back, though he was only joking.

I snatched the tabloid out of his hand. “Besides, what’s that they say about there being no such thing as bad press?”

But Ethan had sobered. “Do you know how many times your mum has called?”

My heart sank at that one. My poor mum. I couldn’t deny that Rick’s taste in women – and his lax attitude in hiding his extracurricular activities – was becoming too much for her. I was beginning to come off like a real sleazeball, and she had started dropping disapproving hints about my overactive, and highly publicized, sex life.

“What kind of woman is going to marry a man who dips his wick every chance he gets?” she kept asking me. “No nice girl is going to have you.”

“I don’t like nice girls,” I kept telling her. Because I didn’t. Nice girls were exhausting, honestly. You couldn’t be yourself around nice girls. All my married teammates – Rick included before the divorce – had found a nice girl and look where it led them. Hiding their true nature in late night trips to strip clubs and bars. I didn’t want to marry someone I had to lie to. Nice girls deserved nice boys. They didn’t deserve me – a bad boy, who liked being a bad boy. Loved it, in fact. Which is why I never planned to get married. Not that I could ever tell my mum that. She still had dreams about my future wife and all my little offspring running around somewhere. I didn’t have the heart to tell her to stop waiting for that dream of hers to come true.

Besides, I liked bad girls. Girls who knew how to have a good time. Who didn’t care if you called. Who enjoyed sex and saw it for what it was – fun. Girls who wanted to f*ck, not make love and definitely didn’t want to cuddle at the end of it. We understood each other. We didn’t lie about what we wanted and who we were.

Luckily for me, I usually didn’t have any problem finding girls like that. Lately, though, I’d had a few close calls – women that revealed their true intent after the fact. Women who thought they could trap me into marriage by claiming I had gotten them pregnant. I thanked God every day that I had decided to get a vasectomy when I joined Manchester. Another thing I couldn’t tell my mum. Most of my friends thought I was nuts, that I’d change my mind, but in the last six years, I’d never had a moment of regret.

Lots of moments of fun, though. Damn, I loved women. Loved every f*cking inch of them. Loved exploring each inch as well, nice and slow. All night long if I could. But lately I had been a little more cautious about the women I slept with, and my one night stands weren’t turning out to be as fun as they used to be. Which was a damn shame.

But, judging from those tabloid photos, Rick wasn’t having the same problem at all. And now I was getting all the flack and none of the fun. Dammit.

“You know I’ve got half a dozen meetings lined up while we’re here,” Ethan reminded me. “And none of them are going to like this.” He dropped the tabloid onto the bench. “None of them are going to want to do business with a man with a reputation like yours.”

“I don’t believe that,” I told him, though I couldn’t deny that small twinge of doubt. Was he right? Did tabloid hold that much sway over public opinion? Did charities care? “These people will look at the money and turn a blind eye to everything else.”

“Let’s hope so,” Ethan said. “Or else you’re going to have to start rethinking your big plan.” He clapped me on the shoulder. “Have a good practice, ok?”

“Yeah, alright,” but my mind was already elsewhere. I hadn’t even thought of how my Play Maker reputation might impact my future plans. Had I royally f*cked myself? No, I quickly pushed that thought away. I had never let other people’s opinion of me determine my future and I certainly wasn’t going to start now. All those people that told me to aim lower, that a career in football was too unattainable, too unpredictable. I had proven them wrong, hadn’t I? I had worked damn hard to get to this point in my life. If I had to prove myself anew, I would.