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After the snap, it’s always chaos on the field—coordinated chaos, but chaos, nonetheless. Bodies are moving everywhere, the ball is getting ready to launch into the air, but you have no idea where its target is. My job as cornerback is to see the bigger picture of all this chaos, to focus on where the ball is going to go and get there to end the play before the team can make too much forward progress.
If only things were that simple in my own life.
Unfortunately, the chaos I’m currently sitting through seems to have no end in sight, and I’m at a complete loss for how to stop this chaos from running roughshod right over me. I’ve fucked up a lot—more in the last few months than ever before—but this time seems to have stirred up a shitstorm not even I could have prepared for.
Come on, Laney. Pick up the damn phone.
I grip my phone hard and close my eyes when it goes to voicemail. Again.
Fuck.
“Dom? You ready?” My agent, Trey, pokes his head out of the nearest door, and I reluctantly nod. I’d feel more ready for this meeting if my best friend would answer her fucking phone.
I feel like I’m going into fucking battle here, and I really need to talk to Alayna. She’s never failed to center me, even when the ground was crumbling beneath my feet. And right now the ground is exceptionally shaky. My career is on the line, and some days it feels like that’s the only thing I have besides Laney.
My phone vibrates in my hand and I jerk it up, glancing at the screen like a teen girl waiting for her crush to call, only to roll my eyes when I see the caller. Since it’s not Laney, I decline the call and tuck my phone in my pocket. Whatever my dad has to say to me can wait until I’m in a better frame of mind to deal with his bullshit.
The atmosphere when I walk into the room is tense, which does nothing to ease the tightness in my chest, but Trey still tries to give me a reassuring smile. He’s been with me since the beginning and weathered every storm, but the edges of his smile are brittle like even he knows this was the final straw and we’re dealing with something unprecedented for me.
It wasn’t even that this was the worst thing I’ve ever done. It was just the straw that broke the camel’s back. It was one thing too many, and even I can admit I fucked up.
I’ve been fucking up, but a part of me didn’t care. I’ve been invincible for so long. You can get away with a lot when you’re attractive and making millions of dollars a year. It didn’t matter that my coaches were up my ass about my increasingly reckless behavior. It didn’t matter when my best friends Gabe, Ty, and Romel called me out for being an inconsiderate ass.
None of it mattered until Alayna’s silence. Every call in the past week has gone unanswered. Every text left on read. I’m not sure why it’s her actions that tipped me over into realizing how badly I’ve fucked things up. Maybe because she’s seen me at my lowest and still never left my side. Or because she knows everything about me, more than even the guys, and still stuck around. Maybe because at the end of the day, she’s always been my rock, my strength, whether she knows it or not.
And now I’m feeling lost without her.
I slide my hand into my pocket over my phone, hoping it’ll vibrate with a text or call from her, but it doesn’t.
“Dom, I’d like to introduce you to Shawna Cramer. She’s from the new PR firm and has dealt with some very big public scandals.”
Shawna stands and extends her hand. Her pantsuit is tailored to fit her trim frame perfectly, her brown hair straight and smooth down her back. She may look small compared to me, but her handshake is firm, and she holds my gaze with the confidence of the toughest linebacker who knows he can pummel anyone he comes across.
“Wish we didn’t have to meet like this,” I say with a slight raise of my lips in what might pass as a tight smile, my usual carefree grin nowhere to be found.
“I’m used to meeting people at their worst,” she says with joking smirk. “Don’t worry about a thing, Dom. We’ll get this all cleared up in no time.” She gestures to a man sitting next to her. “This is my assistant, Spencer. He’ll be taking notes.”
I extend my hand, and he shakes it quickly before resuming his position at Shawna’s side and picking up his pen. They both seem competent, and I trust Trey’s judgment, but that tightness is still there and when I sit, I can’t stop my knee from bouncing under the table.
“So, what’s the plan?” I ask. This isn’t my first rodeo with a PR company or needing to clean up a mess.
“We’ve already written up a statement,” she says as she slides a piece of paper from an organized pile next to her across the table toward me. “With your approval, we’ll send it to the media outlets.”
My lips pull down and my brows furrow as I read the statement. “This puts all the blame on Jen.” Jen Summers, the woman I met at my birthday bash who told me she was separated from her husband and looking for a rebound. I was drunk—not that that’s a good excuse, but it was certainly a factor—and she was hot. I didn’t think much of it past that until we were alone in her house and a man burst into the room in a rage. Turns out she wasn’t separated at all. I was the other man, something I promised myself a long time ago I’d never be after discovering my own father’s affair.
Adultery is a hard pass for me, so not only is this scandal an embarrassment and the final straw for my coaches, but it’s also made my self-loathing soar to an all-time high.
I need to get my shit together.
Shawna nods once. “Correct. You were innocent. You thought you were hooking up with an available woman. It’s appropriate that the blame should land on her, and it’s easy to paint women in a bad light in the media. No one will question it.”
“Absolutely not,” I say, my voice hard and firm.
Everyone goes still for a second before Trey leans over to whisper in my ear. “Shawna is the best—”
Without looking away from Shawna, I say in a clear voice for all to hear, “If she’s the best, then she can figure out another angle. I’m not playing the blame game here. Was I lied to? Yes. But I’m fully responsible for my own actions. She’s famous enough I could’ve—and should’ve—questioned it, but I didn’t. I was irresponsible and made a poor judgment. That’s on me. Not on her. I won’t add to her issues, for the very reason that women too often get the blame for things that aren’t their fault, or at least not entirely. It takes two.”
She narrows her eyes slightly, but then sits taller. “Fine. We’ll go a different route. If you insist on owning up to it, then we can do that. You might get some begrudging respect for taking that approach.” She nods and her eyes light up like she’s liking that idea more and more. She turns to her assistant and gives him a list of tasks to do and a new statement that they’ll need to write up.
