Pleasure Rush Page 12

  “Maybe if you take the time to explain to Cedric just why you thought that other guy was the better choice, he’ll understand.”

  “I tried. But Cedric doesn’t care about my reasoning, he’s too busy playing the victim. Besides, it shouldn’t even matter what I think,” Theo said. “The selection committee voted him in, so he’s here. I don’t know why he’s still making such a big deal out of this.”

  “Are you serious?” Deirdre stared at him as if he was the most idiotic person on the planet. “Cedric looks up to you, Theo. I can only imagine how much it hurt him to hear you say that he shouldn’t be here.”

  “I didn’t actually say it,” he argued.

  “Fine, but you implied it,” Deirdre returned. “I understand how that upset him.”

  Theo shut his eyes slowly, exhaling an exhausted sigh. Deirdre reached over and touched his arm.

  “But I applaud you for sticking to your principles and not succumbing to the pressure to say something you really didn’t feel,” she said.

  Theo cracked one eye open, and then the other. Deirdre’s mouth tipped up in a remorseful smile. “It took guts for you to do what you did,” she continued. “You had to have known you would take some flak for stating your mind.”

  “Call me naïve, but I truly didn’t anticipate the extent of the fallout. It’s not just Cedric. I’ve been getting the cold shoulder from other players on the team, too. These are the same guys I worked with for years. Now they look at me as if I’m the enemy. It makes me regret some of the things I said about the media during my playing days.”

  “Kind of the same way I feel about past complaints I made at restaurants.” Deirdre squeezed his hand. “Don’t let it get to you. This is your career, and integrity is a huge part of it. You’re paid to give your opinion, and if this is how you truly feel, that’s all that should matter. You can’t allow outside forces to influence you.”

  He took a deep breath, his chest tightening at the thought of owning up to the fear he’d been holding on to for so many months.

  “Is something else bothering you?” Deirdre asked, insightful as ever.

  “I don’t know if I’m cut out for this,” Theo finally admitted. “Lately, I’ve been wondering if this is what I really want.”

  “Working as an analyst?” she asked.

  He nodded. “This job isn’t anything like I thought it would be.” He shook his head. “That’s not true. For the most part, the job is great. I get paid to talk nonstop football. It’s like a dream. It’s just…” He shook his head. “I hadn’t anticipated the issues I’d have covering the Sabers. That team has been my heart for so long, I’m not sure I can be impartial.”

  “What would you do if not sports broadcasting?” Deirdre asked.

  He rolled his shoulders in a noncommittal shrug. “When I spoke to Dave Foster at the luau the other night, it sounded as if he wouldn’t mind me coming back to the team.”

  Deirdre’s eyes widened. “Theo, you can’t be serious.”

  “Why not?” he asked with more affront than he should probably feel, but why wouldn’t he be serious?

  “Why did you retire?” Deirdre asked. “I know it wasn’t something you did on a whim.”

  “No, but I didn’t think I’d miss it as much as I do, Deirdre. Seeing all the guys here, strapping on their shoulder pads, running sprints, going through the drills—”

  “Taking hour-long ice baths to recover?” she interjected.

  He blinked. Yeah, he’d forgotten about those.

  “Theo, you don’t want to go back to football,” Deirdre continued. “You may have those urges now and again—you played the game for twelve years, how could you not? But when you give it some thought you’ll realize you did the right thing by retiring when you did.”

  She caught his hands and tugged until he was forced to look at her. “Your friendship with Cedric is strong enough to survive this. He’ll eventually come around. You need to do what’s right for you.”

  Theo tilted his head back, and stared up at the stars. “I’m trying,” he said. “I really am, Deirdre. I’ve been going back and forth in my head, driving myself crazy, wondering if I did the right thing.”

  “One of the things you told Torrian when he first joined the team was the importance of the gut-check. Does it feel right in your gut?”

  He paused for a moment, mulling over how he felt. Slowly, he nodded. “It does,” he said. “It feels right.”

  She smiled up at him. “Then you did the right thing.”

  Theo gave her hand a gentle squeeze. “This is what I’ve been missing.”

  “What?” Deirdre asked, perplexed.

  “That nurturing way about you. It’s one of the things that attracted me to you. I saw how you would help Torrian work through tough decisions and I loved it. You are always there when people need you.”

  “It’s just what I do.” She cast her eyes downward before looking back up at him. “If you can’t be there for the people you love, what good are you?”

  Theo’s chest constricted. He wanted to ask if she considered him one of the people she loved, but no way was he pushing her into admitting anything she wasn’t ready to acknowledge. Instead, Theo pulled her in close and pressed a kiss on top of her head.

  “Thank you,” he said. “You have no idea how much I needed this tonight.”

  “Anytime.” Deirdre looked up at him and smiled. “All you have to do is ask.”

  * * *

  Deirdre wrapped her hands around her bent knees, awed at the beauty of the moonlight twinkling along the rippling water.

  “I still can’t get over how gorgeous it is out here,” she said.

  “I know,” Theo said, pressing a kiss just behind her ear. He’d been holding her for what felt like forever, just sitting here with his arms encircling her, his chin resting on her shoulder. Deirdre breathed in his scent, relishing his presence. Everything about this moment felt like a dream.

  “Don’t tell Torrian this, but I’m happy he came down with food poisoning,” she said.

  Theo chuckled. “Why are you happy about that?”

  “Because if he hadn’t, I never would have tried to accomplish my bucket list.”

  Theo peered down at her. “I thought you said seeing me in the bar with Ambria is what made you write the list?”

  “That’s what prompted me to write it, but by the next morning I had already cast it aside.” She shook her head, thinking back on how much had transpired since that fateful morning. “I was preparing to go on a bus tour around the island with Paige when she called to tell me Torrian was sick. I tried to take charge, which is typical when it comes to Torrian, but Paige wouldn’t let me. In fact, she practically threw me out of the room.

  “I was ready to kick her skinny behind,” Deirdre laughed, but then she sobered, pulling in a deep sigh. “But Paige was right. It was no longer my place.”

  She dug her toes in the sand and concentrated on the gentle waves that rolled in from the ocean.

  “It scared the heck out of me,” she admitted in a hushed tone. “I’ve always taken care of Torrian, even before our parents died. But he has Paige now, he doesn’t need me to look after him the way I used to.” She tilted her head to the side. “It wasn’t until that moment that I truly took stock of my life, Theo. I’ll be forty years old in a couple of days. I don’t want to spend the next forty the way I’ve spent the first.

  “Don’t get me wrong,” Deirdre hastened to add. “I wouldn’t trade the time I’ve spent taking care of Torrian and raising Dante for anything, but I’m ready to start doing things for me.”

  A light breeze blew off the water, and Theo rubbed his palms up and down her arms, warming her. “So you decided to go through with the list,” he murmured.


  She nodded. “Best decision I’ve made in a long time.”

  “I have to agree with you there,” he said.

  “That just proves that you’re as crazy as I am.” She laughed.

  “It’s not crazy,” he argued. “A bit out there, especially for you, but I get it.”

  “I just needed to prove to myself that I’m not a coward,” she said.

  Deirdre felt him stiffen at her back. “Coward?” Theo asked. He captured her shoulders and turned her slightly to face him. Staring into her eyes, he said, “Deirdre, you took responsibility for your baby brother when you were just a baby yourself. Then, when he was drafted into the NFL, you picked up your entire family and moved to one of the largest cities in the world. You sacrificed everything to make a better life for your brother and your son. If that’s not courageous, I don’t know what is.”

  He used his thumbs to smooth away the tears that had begun to stream down her face. “You don’t need some list to prove that you’re brave, Deirdre. You’ve proved that every day that I’ve known you. You’re the one who didn’t see it. But you’re seeing it now, aren’t you?”

  “I am,” she said.

  “I can tell. Over these past couple of days, you’ve opened yourself up to more experiences than you have in the seven years I’ve known you. You’re finally starting to see just how strong you really are, and I have to tell you, Deirdre, it’s sexy as hell.”

  “You really think so?” she asked, a tentative smile edging her lips.

  “Oh, yeah. Incredibly sexy.”

  “So, if I’m already brave, does that mean I don’t have to swim with the stingrays?” she asked with a teary laugh.

  “Is that the only thing left on your list?” he asked.

  She thought about the rumpled napkin that had started all of this. “Yes,” she said. “I’ve checked off everything else.”

  She’d done so much more than just check items off a list, Deirdre realized. She’d changed completely, irrevocably. She would never go back to being that woman who stood in the background as life passed her by. The fear was gone. In its place was a confidence she hadn’t known she could feel, and a willingness to open up her heart bigger and wider than she ever thought possible.

  She twisted around and cradled Theo’s strong jaw in her palm. “Thank you, Theo. Your faith in me means more than you can possibly know.”

  “I can say the same about you,” he returned. “This thing with Cedric has been plaguing me all week. But you gave me a few things to think about.”

  “So, what are you going to do tomorrow?” she asked. “Are you going to recant your story?”

  “I haven’t made up my mind. It’s tempting, though,” he said, shaking his head. The indecision she saw in his eyes squeezed her heart. “It would be so easy to just say ‘I was wrong, everyone else was right, many congrats to Cedric Reeves.’”

  “But it’s not what you feel,” she reiterated. “You still think others deserved his spot on the roster.”

  He sighed. “I do.”

  She settled back against him and pulled his arm tighter around her. “Remember the gut-check,” she told him. “It won’t steer you wrong.”

  Chapter 10

  Theo walked up to the refreshment table and poured himself a cup of coffee. Not bothering with cream or sugar, he turned and surveyed the circus atmosphere. The arena had been transformed into a huge interview room, with well over two hundred players, coaches, and reporters littering the field.

  He had been excited at the prospect of Media Day before Ambria had dropped the Sabers story in his lap. Now, Theo was dreading facing his former teammates, the uncomfortable weight he’d gone to bed with still taking up space in his gut.

  He had been in their shoes for enough years to know how some of the guys would react. No matter how nicely you tried to slant it, anytime someone started asking why the job wasn’t getting done, people became defensive. Hell, he felt defensive. He had been a member of those Sabers teams that had failed to reach the Super Bowl.

  Daniel Bates sidled up next to him, stirring his coffee. “How’s it going, Theo? Having flashbacks yet?”

  “Just a few,” he said. “Media Day was always a unique experience.”

  “Kind of different not being treated like royalty anymore, isn’t it?”

  “You’re right about that,” Theo said. Like him, Dan had been much heralded as a player, but had become a dime-a-dozen analyst after retirement. Except Theo refused to be easily replaceable. He was determined to show the network execs that he was a true asset to Sports Talk TV.

  “Theo!” He spotted Ambria waving him over to the interview area the Sports Talk TV crew had set up on the sideline. “I just talked to Dave Foster,” she said as he approached. “His schedule has tightened considerably with all the media outlets wanting to know about Dane Washington’s torn MCL. He needs us to push up his interview. Do you have everything you need?”

  “I’m ready.” He straightened the knot on the teal-and-gray tie his sister had given him for Christmas years ago. It was a small nod to his former team, though he doubted wearing the Sabers colors would soften up any of his teammates.

  He slid onto one of two director’s chairs that sat at right angles to each other. Moments later, Dave Foster walked up and took the other seat.

  “Morning, Coach,” Theo started. “Heard you’ve had a busy morning. How bad is Dane’s knee?”

  Foster grimaced. “Bad enough for the Bears to be concerned about his availability next season. That’s one of the biggest issues with this game. I know the players enjoy going up against the best of the best, but the risk of injury is just too damn high. Can you imagine how our team would have suffered if you had ever been hurt when you played in the Pro Bowl?”

  Theo nodded in understanding. He had been grateful to never suffer a major injury in all of the years he’d played this game.

  “Okay,” Coach Foster said. “Let’s get on with this interview.”

  Theo hesitated a moment. “Look, Coach,” he said. “Before we get started, I just want you to know that I mean absolutely no disrespect by any of these questions.”

  Foster eyed him cautiously. “Are you about to grill me, Stokes?”

  “Not really,” he said. “But I told you the topic.”

  “Why the Sabers haven’t made it to the Super Bowl? You think you’re the first one to ask that question? I have to answer to Milton Crawford,” he said, referring to the owner of the Sabers franchise. “There’s nothing you can ask me that he already hasn’t.”

  Theo motioned for the cameraman to start rolling. He asked the questions as diplomatically as possible, making sure it didn’t seem as if he were laying blame on any one particular segment of the organization. Coach Foster caught on quickly, agreeing that everyone—from the coaching staff, to players, to management—shoulders both the triumphs and failures of the team. When they were done, Theo breathed a sigh of relief. That hadn’t been nearly as tough as he’d anticipated.

  Unfortunately, that’s where the easy portion of his day ended.

  As soon as Kendall Fisher, who had served as co-captain of the defense with him for years, sat in the chair across from him, Theo knew he was in for a tough interview.

  “You’ve been a member of the Sabers defense for eight years, Kendall. How does it feel to still not have a Super Bowl ring?” Theo asked.

  “You tell me,” his ex-teammate replied. “You were a member of the defense longer than I was.”

  Theo clamped his mouth shut on the retort that nearly sprang forth. Instead he grinned and said, “You’re right, and based on past experience I can tell you that it isn’t a good feeling. What do you think has been stopping the Sabers from getting to the big game?”

  Another shrug
from Fisher. “There are twenty-nine other teams in the league who didn’t make it to the Super Bowl. Why aren’t they being harassed?”

  “Come on now, Kendall, I wouldn’t call this harassment. And those other teams haven’t been christened the ‘Golden Team,’” Theo returned. “The Sabers have been heavily favored for the past four years.”

  “The Sabers received that golden label from the media. We didn’t ask for it. I’m on the field with guys who bust their asses week in and week out, and I can tell you that the added pressure of trying to live up to the media’s hype doesn’t help.”

  With that Kendall tore off the microphone that was clipped to his collar and walked away.

  Theo kneaded the bridge of his nose. If he had been in Kendall’s shoes, he would have done the same thing. He unhooked his microphone and headed back to the refreshment table, even though his gut was so unsettled he couldn’t stomach the thought of eating anything.

  Torrian walked up alongside him. “Interviews not going so well?” he asked.

  Theo gave him a look that said what do you think?

  “Sorry, man. I had a feeling the guys would be rough on you.”

  “When did I become enemy number one?” Theo asked.

  “When you turned in your shoulder pads for a microphone,” Torrian replied. “Come on, Theo, you were in this league long enough to know how this works. There have been too many stories leaked by ex-players-turned-analysts who found out something juicy while just kicking it with the guys.”

  “I’m not some snitch,” Theo protested.

  Torrian held up his hands. “I know that. I’m just saying that some of the guys have a harder time trusting the media than others, even when that mediaperson was once a teammate. Sometimes that’s even harder to swallow.”