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“Alright,” Burt said as he wedged between us and showed Darren the Dickhead the exit. “Let’s give these ladies a water break. I think the heat is getting to us all.”
It was a crisp sixty-three degrees.
* * *
“Water?”A pretty blonde with stick straight hair asked as she offered me a bottle. I had slipped into a team personnel tent for a minute to collect myself before the verbal reaming I was certain I was going to get when Catherine Trumble tracked me down.
Maybe it was the fact that it was my fifth season as a cheerleader for a professional football team. Maybe it was the fact that I wasn’t a naïve twenty-two-year-old anymore. Maybe it was realizing that maintaining the “fan experience” wasn’t an excuse for sexual harassment—ever. It wasn’t an occupational hazard; it was unacceptable, and I was fucking done with it.
Maybe it was Tatum making me think about what was next. What I wanted long term.
Colette had given me until the end of the season to make my decision. With my work schedule and Tatum’s and my schedules with the Reds, it wasn’t a topic worth debating. What little time we had together was kicked off with inhaling lean protein and complex carbs, then very epic and very clandestine sex.
“Yes,” I said with a dry laugh as I accepted the bottle. “Thank you. I appreciate it.”
“I bet,” the woman replied as she popped open a new case of water bottles and started shoving them down into a cooler of ice. “I can’t imagine doing what you do. All the waving and the smiling and the Go Reds-ing.”
She looked familiar. I couldn’t quite place her, though. Probably just someone on the Red Cocks payroll that I had seen around the stadium.
“It gets tiring after a while,” I admitted as I cracked the top of the water bottle and guzzled half of it down. My throat was dry and scratchy, and even though it was a cool autumn day, I was still sweating buckets.
“Wren, right?” she said.
I nodded. “Yeah, that’s me.” She probably just recognized me from the viral video of the tackle.
She offered her hand, and I shook it. “Heidi. I think we met last season.”
“Oh!” I said, smacking my forehead. “Right—Heidi Carmichael. I knew you looked familiar! I’m so sorry, I—”
She laughed. “No worries. The limelight is Gideon’s thing. Staying out of it makes my life a hell of a lot easier. It means I can actually get work done without having to be Mrs. Gideon Carmichael.”
I looked at the pile of forms stacked up on the folding table. They looked like spreadsheets. Donations, maybe.
“I didn’t know you actually worked for the Reds.” With Gideon’s guaranteed contract, he could retire tomorrow and neither of them would have to work for the rest of their lives.
“Oh, I don’t work for the team, per se. I work for the Reds’ charitable foundation.” She pointed an ink pen at the banner draped across an adjacent folding table. “We raise money during games that go to supporting after-school programs for at-risk kids. My husband and some of the guys get together and run summer camps, too. We’re able to provide breakfast and lunch for the kids, a safe place for them to be when school isn’t in session, and we send dinner boxes home with them at the end of each day. Food scarcity is a problem year-round, but when kids are out of school and can’t count on getting a meal at the school cafeteria, it’s an even bigger deal. We do as much as we can.”
“Wow,” I said, looking over the rest of the paraphernalia that was scattered under the tent. Heidi had a laptop open, detailing donations and comparing them with the foundation’s operating budget. “That’s… I had no idea. I mean, I knew the foundation existed and they did community programs, but I didn’t know it was this big.”
“It’s huge,” she said with a look of pure glee. “Parents are willing to send their kids to programs like this because the guys are a huge draw, but it’s not just for the kids. We have volunteers at drop-off and pick-up who are there to help the parents with job searches or get them enrolled in adult education courses or night classes. There are counselors and therapists. Some of the team doctors volunteer and do free clinics. It’s really incredible.”
“How’d you get involved in all this?”
“Gideon and I were college sweethearts. He was the big man on campus, and I was a nerdy accounting major. When he was going through the scouting combine and the draft, I realized that if our relationship was going to make it, I couldn’t let my identity get wrapped up in being his wife.” She laughed and added, “Don’t get me wrong. I love being Gideon’s wife, but his job is his and his alone. I’ll be there to celebrate or commiserate with him when he gets home, but his trophies and championships are his. I needed something that was mine, so I decided to stay in school and get my MBA. He was playing for Dallas when we got married. I went to one of the games and spent all of it talking to one of the reps from their charity instead of cheering on my husband.” She tossed her hair over her shoulder. “It’s not all selfless, though. If there’s an away game I want to go to, they’ll fly me out and put me up with the team so that I can work the game and get backers for our programs.”
Tatum had told me all about Gideon’s and his college days, playing together. A strange sense of jealousy roiled my stomach. Heidi had known him back then. I only knew him as he was now.
Heidi eyed me suspiciously, her cool green eyes studying me intently. “So, that tackle during preseason was pretty scary.”
I let out a dry laugh and fiddled with the cap of the water bottle. “Tell me about it. I get nervous anytime my back is to the field now.”
She glanced at the tent flap. “You had to do press with Tatum. How was that?”
Heidi called him Tatum. It hit me like a ton of bricks. On the field, he went by T.J. Being the son of a league legend gave him more clout, and he hated every minute of it. But what the team wants, the team gets. Only people in his inner circle called him Tatum.
Hence, he hadn’t been too keen on introducing me to his parents. Well, that and the whole “getting caught” thing. Apparently, his father would sell information to tabloids faster than I could say pathetic has-been.
I blushed. “It was… It was good. Just a day in New York and a few video interviews here in Providence.”
