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“What the hell is the problem then?” his agent said, his voice rising.
Commence the bullying. Jamie drank a little more, gathering his patience around him. He hadn’t seen this side of Brad, but he should have realized that Brad’s sharky reputation meant that he had no problem bullying people to get what he wanted.
And right now Brad wanted him to accept this deal. Jamie wasn’t stupid—he knew Brad stood to lose a lot of money by him turning this down.
He didn’t like that the bullying was turned on him, however, and he wasn’t going to stand for it. He set his glass down. “That’s my decision, Brad. You won’t get me to change my mind.”
His agent huffed an audible breath. “Do you want me to shop around other teams?”
“No.”
“Jamie, you don’t have a contract for next year,” Brad said with exaggerated patience. “You won’t be able to play.”
No more team drama? No more generic hotel rooms? He shrugged, not really upset by the thought of giving that up. It shocked him for a moment—football had been his life for most of his life—but then a calm settled on him, like the numbness he’d been living with was dissipating. He felt a tingling, like the feeling was coming back into his soul. “I’m an adult. I know what it means.”
“So you’re going to, what? Retire?”
“It seems that way,” he said, smiling. A year ago he hadn’t been sure, but now he liked the idea. It was liberating. He saw possibilities open to him that wouldn’t have been feasible before.
Like being with Rachel.
“You’re barely thirty,” Brad persisted. “You could have another ten years playing.”
Another ten years like the last ten?No, thank you. “That’s not tempting.”
“Not tempting? You’re one of the top players in the world. You’re the golden boy of football.”
“I’ve been lucky,” he said, though he knew he’d worked hard too.
“Yes, youhavebeen lucky. And the fans love you. You owe it to them to keep playing.”
He shook his head. “I don’t owe anyone anything. I do my job. They don’t own me, nor does the team.”
“How the hell does this make sense?” Brad yelled. “No one retires after being offered a kickass deal like this.”
He shrugged. “There’s a first time for everything.”
“Does this have to do with being in Chicago?” his agent asked with suspicious heat. “There’s a woman involved, isn’t there?”
He saw a flash of Rachel’s sexy lips. But he wasn’t doing this for her—he was doing this for himself. Not that Brad would understand that. “This isn’t about a woman. This is about me and what I want, and I don’t want to keep playing.”
“I have to go into a meeting. We’ll talk about this later.”
“There’s no need,” he replied firmly. “I’ve made my decision.”
His agent mumbled something angry and hung up.
Rolling his eyes, Jamie lowered his mobile and rotated his shoulders to let go of the conversation. Putting his glass in the dishwasher, he went back out to the living room.
Didier and Erik watched him expectantly.
“That was my agent,” he said, sitting down in one of the wide chairs across from them.
“He didn’t sound happy,” Erik said.
“You heard?”
“A little,” the kid admitted with a blush.
