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My stepbrother, Joseph, had turned out to be way smarter than me, despite my IQ results. He was three years older than me at thirty-three, and he worked in sports medicine. Now, while sports medicine was as stressful as hell, he only had to mend broken bodies, not mend tarnished reputations. Athletes always wanted their injuries fixed, rightfully so. However, many of them didn’t give a damn about their public personas as long as the checks were still coming in.
Joseph was also happily married, and his wife, Kelly, was lucky enough to be able to stay home and raise their son, Henry. They’d gotten married five years ago, and Henry was a proud toddler, running amok all over the place now that he knew how to walk. Though we lived in different states, we were some face-timing fools. Luckily for Henry, Joseph had chosen to stay close to home after graduating college, so my parents were very involved grandparents to their only grandchild.
Now, while I’d had nothing against returning home after college, I’d been recruited by the Cardinal Comets to head their public relations division right after graduating with my degree. However, that stint hadn’t lasted long. The team’s management had been toxic, and it’d been easy to see how they had cared more about winning than they’d had about maintaining the team’s integrity. While the players hadn’t been horrible, they’d gotten some passes on shit that they shouldn’t have. When the time had come for me to decide to keep my job or sleep at night, I had chosen sleep.
Luckily for me, I’d gotten a job with the Highland Wolves almost immediately after putting in my resignation at the Comets’ offices. While I could have chosen any sport for my career, I had always had a fondness for soccer. I could appreciate the stamina that it took to play at such a competitive level, and with a sport that was revered all around the world, the energy that surrounded soccer was like no other.
It had been my first day on the job when I’d met Lita Baruch, and I knew that I couldn’t do this job without that woman’s sense of humor. Lita was twenty-eight, had natural blonde hair, bright blue eyes, was as petite as a pixie, and was happily married to her husband, Timothy. Both of them were advertising executives-that’s how they’d met-and the Wolves liked their PR department to work with their media department, so that the Wolves were always shown in the best light.
Now, while women had made progress over the past fifty years, it was still a man’s world and anyone that believed otherwise was just naïve. So, while Lita didn’t go around burning her bras or anything like that, she was still a force to be reckoned with. In fact, Timothy liked to say that he fell in love with her at first sight, and that was after she’d told him to go eat a dick for talking to her like she couldn’t take constructive criticism. Five years later, they were still married with no kids, and weren’t planning on having any for another two or three years. They were workaholics, and it worked for them. Timothy was also very alpha protective about his wife. In his suit and tie, he looked tamed. However, the man was anything but when it came to Lita. Though I had no desire to get married or have children just yet, I envied their marriage, and most people should.
As for working with the Highland Wolves, the gig wasn’t a bad one, just a…stressful one. In a world full of cameras, it was hard to lie or charm your way out of a scandal these days. Plus, in a world where money and fame ruled everything, athletes expected their adoring fans to forgive them anything, so there were very few of them that were actually sorry for their transgressions.
I also wasn’t a fan of those generic apologies of ‘working on myself’, ‘time to reflect’, ‘didn’t realize that my words were so hurtful’, or all that other nonsense. Anyone over the age of eighteen knew the difference between right and wrong, so those ridiculous apologies always rang hollow in my ears. I was more of a “I fucked up, and I’m sorry’ sort of public relations agent. I appreciated honesty over window dressings, and that’s what made my job harder than it needed to be. In all honesty, I should have been a kindergarten teacher or something equally boring. Plus, as a kindergarten teacher, I’d never be pulled from my sleep in the middle of the night to fly to God knows where to clean up some sloppy athlete’s viral mess.
Granted, it wasn’t all bad. The pay was incredible, most of the athletes were respectful, and Lita Baruch was irreplaceable in my book. I had a good life, and I really shouldn’t be complaining. However, when you were called at two in the morning because Carmelo Rodriguez got caught on CCV, screwing some ball hopper behind a bar in New Mexico, it made me feel like complaining.
Now, while the footage was grainy, you could still make out what the couple was doing. There was no mistaking that Carmelo was taking that chick up against the back of the brick building, and strictly from a female’s perspective, the man had some good hip action. However, my good buddy Carmelo was also married, and his wife had been at home with their newborn daughter while he’d been breaking his marriage vows.
Luckily for Carmelo, Arizona was a no-fault state, and he’d had the presence of mind to make sure that his wife had signed a prenup before getting married. Yeah, he was going to be on the hook for child support, but that was his own damn fault.
Of course, that was all speculation. There was a very good chance that his wife wouldn’t file for divorce. Many women thought that fame and money were a great consolation prize for an unfaithful husband, so they bought diamonds and Prada bags to get over the humiliation, which I did not understand at freakin’ all. It was one thing to cheat on your wife, it was another thing to cheat on her, knowing that she was going to be humiliated in front of the entire world because of who you were. To each his own and all that, but whenever I thought about all those famous women that had chosen to stay with their cheating boyfriends/husbands, I just didn’t get it. As role models, why send a message that it’s okay to stay with a cheating asshole? Why not set the example of deserving better?
At any rate, Carmelo Rodriguez was the reason that I was at the office at all hours of the morning, trying to draft a statement about his stupidity. Not daring to reach out to his wife just yet, I needed to draft something that couldn’t have her coming back, claiming it was all lies. Social media gave everyone a voice, and a scorned wife had the loudest voice of all. Depending on how Marianna Rodriguez had been raised, she could choose to handle this privately, or she could choose to tellallthe business, and I had no idea which road she was going to take.
I also didn’t understand why these stupid fucks got married when they weren’t ready to settle down. Carmelo was in his sixth year of playing professional soccer, so he was very aware of the temptation when he had asked Marianna to marry him. So, I mean, what in the hell was that? Plus, he only had a couple of good years left in his professional playing career, so why throw it all away now?
Nevertheless, Carmelo’s faithless marriage wasn’t any of my business; only his image was. As cold as that sounded, I was paid to make shit go away, not be some pseudo-marriage counselor or an AA/NA sponsor. I hadn’t inherited their demons when I had taken this job, I had simply been hired to dress them up prettily, if possible.
“Glad to see I’m not the only one that got dragged out of bed this morning.”
I looked up to see Stacey Kline grinning at me from my office doorway. “Why can’t they just keep it in their goddamn pants?”
“And age-old question that will never be answered to anyone’s satisfaction,” she sighed.
“Maybe they’re just cursed,” I grumbled.
“Maybe they’re just stupid,” she retorted.
“That gets my vote,” I chuckled.
Stacey shook her head. “We’re going to need some real brain power for this one.”
She wasn’t wrong.
Chapter 3
Titan~
Though we were public enemy number one in this town right now, that hadn’t stopped me from making my way down to the hotel bar for a drink or two. Normally, I’d celebrate in my room with a woman or three, but after making that stupid deal with Sebastian, that wasn’t an option anymore. Yeah, I’d gotten laid a few times during the months between when we’d made the deal and now, but not like before. Before that goddamn agreement, I’d gotten laid regularly, and with women that hadn’t mind sharing me for a night. However, for the past three months, I’d been keeping it in my pants, and I was pretty sure that it was because of all the love in the air. Seeing the guys all happily married was killing my mojo, and I knew that Atlas was feeling the same way.
As the bartender slid my second drink of the night over, I also blamed those damn news articles about us. After Orion and Sinclair had gotten married, the media had gone crazy with spotlighting mine and Atlas’ single status. They had played up how there were only two left of The Loyal Five still available, and women on a mission were something else. There was no male army like that of women on a mission.
I also wasn’t the only one at the bar. Antonio Viera, Kerry Malkovich, and Alonzo Maltese were all down at the bar, making nice with the local ladies. I’d been invited to join them, but the plan was to still keep it in my pants, waiting for Sebastian and Nova’s first wedding anniversary to get out of the damn deal. Granted, it was all worth it to be able to see Bast and Nova happy, but my dick didn’t see it that way.
Sipping my whiskey, I smelled her before I saw her. Though her perfume was the expensive kind, a small spritz would have been more than enough. The more expensive the perfume or cologne, the less that you needed to put on, something that many people didn’t realize. Besides, I liked the natural scent of a woman. There was nothing quite like God’s greatest creation, and any man that thought women weren’t beautiful right out of the shower were fucking stupid.
“Congratulations on your win,” she purred, and I wondered if that was her natural voice or if she had practiced that sultry tone.
