Looking to Score(53)

23





“That motherfucking asshole. I’m going to make sure no one works with him,” my dad shouted. I had to pull the phone receiver away from my ear. I pictured my father pacing the floor of his office in our San Francisco home. I’d called him after I had time to process everything. “The nerve of him. To blackmail my own daughter.”

I didn’t like explaining everything to him. It was embarrassing to once again be caught up in a scandal. Luckily, my parents liked Oakley and didn’t understand the issue of us dating, and now that I was clear of Dr. Haynes’s ethics lectures, I didn’t see the problem either. I did my job. I hadn’t done anything wrong.

“You don’t need his recommendation, sweetheart. You know you have a job here whenever you’re ready. You were practically raised at Plotify. You were born for this.”

I sucked in a deep breath. This would be the hard part. “I’m not sure that’s what I want to do anymore, Dad.” He went quiet. The sounds of his pacing footsteps completely stopped. I took a deep breath and continued. “Dr. Haynes is an asshole, but something he said really hit me. I don’t want to be handed this job. And I’m actually really enjoying sports representation. I really want to succeed on my own merits.”

Dad sighed. “I’m so proud of you. I support whatever you want to do. I’m going to chat with some connections I have. There’s a football player in New York that likes to randomly release rap albums. Maybe I could—”

“Dad. I think it’s time you stop cleaning up my messes. I think I need to...I need to do this on my own.” I ran away to Texas because I needed to escape the bullying, but a lot had happened since that night. I wasn’t the same girl anymore. I was a hard worker. I knew my shit. I needed to find my own road, wherever it led.

“Can we talk about it when we see you this weekend?” Dad asked.

“What? Y’all were just here.”

“Oh my...did you just say y’all? You need to get out of Texas pronto, my dear.” I smiled. I hadn’t even noticed that it had slipped. “And no, you’re coming here. UT has a game at USC. Your mother and I got tickets.”

My stomach sank. My alma mater? I was destined to run into someone I knew. And since I was still Oakley’s publicist, there was no getting out of it. Shit. Shit. Shit. I told my dad I loved him and hung up the phone so that I could start obsessing, I mean, planning for the weekend.

I couldn’t believe I forgot about the game. I had it in my calendar. Hell, I had the entire practice and game schedule in my calendar, but I guess it just didn’t register that this game was the game.

I was definitely slipping. Normally, I would have had a countdown widget with annoying blinking numbers reminding me how many days left until the big game. I would also have events on every day in the calendar with a daily alarm to remind me. I decided to blame not being prepared on Oakley. It just seemed easier than taking responsibility.

I jumped on my travel app and booked a flight, car, and hotel within minutes. My parents had wanted me to stay with them, but I decided I would be happier in the hotel. This time, it wasn’t to make sure Oakley stayed in line, it was so that I could have a safe space to hide if I needed it.

The next thing I did was research the university media presence. I knew they were going to want to interview Oakley, because quite frankly, everybody did. After a lot of deliberate online stalking, I found three news outlets wanting exclusives. My hope was that they wouldn’t know who I was since Dad expertly buried the footage from when I decided to publicly, and nakedly, humiliate myself. Threatening to sue was apparently good enough to keep it out of the news.

I was starting to feel semi-confident that this weekend wouldn’t be a complete shit show. I could handle this. It was time to stop feeling sorry for myself and ignoring my feelings. Someone knocked on the door, and I got up to open it, half expecting to find Shelby on the other side. She was always forgetting her keys. But to my surprise, it wasn’t Shelby. No, it was Oakley, dressed in a fucking killer suit with a bouquet clutched in his palm.

“What’s all this?” I asked.

“We have some celebrating to do. My mother sends these,” he explained, holding out the fist full of flowers. “Not to brag, but I arranged them. Also, she wants to meet you.”

Just this morning, he didn’t want to label us, now I was meeting his mother? Talk about emotional whiplash. “Wait, what are we celebrating?”

Oakley walked inside and started shuffling around my kitchen. “Where do you keep the vases? We need to put these in water.”

“Oakley...what are we celebrating?”

He spun around to look at me. “I’ve been turning down scouts for years. But today, I told Coach I wanted to work hard this season and that I’d be open to meetings. I don’t know if they’ll even want me—”

“Of course they’ll want you,” I reassured. I’d seen the evidence of it in his email. Plenty of agents, coaches, and scouts had reached out, but he strictly instructed me to ignore them. “What changed?”

“I don’t want to work in a flower shop,” he replied. “That was always my sister’s dream, and my mother has her empire handled. She just opened another shop in New York, actually.”

“So what are you saying?” I was excited for him. So much had changed so quickly.