Covering Kendall(20)

“Maybe I should get a plate or two—”

She started to rise from her chair and he said, “We don’t need plates to eat finger food, do we? You had a long day. Relax.” He poured her a glass of wine, poured one for himself, and touched the rim of his glass to hers. “Cheers.”

Her day hadn’t been especially long, but she wasn’t going to argue with him about it.

“Cheers,” she said.

The wine was tart, fruity, and perfect in the California heat. He put his glass down long enough to put a slice of cheese atop a cracker and held it out to her.

“Aren’t I supposed to be serving you?” she said.

“It’s good to make myself useful,” he said. “What were you planning on doing tonight before I dropped in?”

“I was about to start searching the bushes outside to see if the delivery guy was here earlier and hid my phone. I didn’t get the shipment tracking number,” she said, but she smiled.

“So, you’ll forgive me for delivering the phone myself?”

“I’ll consider it,” she said. “Haven’t you had a long day today also?”

“I got checked out by a trainer and left by noon,” he said. “I don’t have to be back until Wednesday morning at seven AM or so.” He took another sip from his glass. “I’m not typically a wine guy, but I’m enjoying this.” He picked up the bottle and noted the label.

“It’s not expensive, but it’s delicious.”

She moved forward in her chair to pour herself another glass of wine, poured a bit more into his glass, and set the bottle down on the table. She reached out for another cracker and a piece of cheese. Silence fell between them as she nibbled on the snack. He helped himself to a few perfectly ripe and juicy raspberries.

She fidgeted a little and took another sip of wine.

“Drew,” she said. “We can’t do this.”

“Do what?”

She twirled the stem of her wineglass in her fingertips.

“I could deal with the fact our teams hate each other. If we dated each other, it would be bad, but survivable.” She looked into his eyes. “People would talk about me, they’d talk about you, and it would be embarrassing. That’s not the worst, though.”

He reached out for her hand. She let him take it. He saw her try to smile, to soften the blow, but her lips trembled. “The Miners are going after you in free agency. If Mr. Curtis doesn’t manage to survive the SEC investigation, you’d be working for me until they hire someone else for the GM job. Any romantic involvement between us would be considered sexual harassment. You could sue the team, and I’d lose my job.”

“What if I don’t want to sue the team?”

“Doesn’t matter.”

He turned to face her. She was still holding his hand. “My agent’s going to do the talking, Kendall, but I want to stay in Seattle.”

“We’re waving a lot of money around—”

“So it’s already being discussed.”

“At the highest levels, and I’d appreciate it if you’d keep that confidential,” she said.

“I’m not going anywhere unless I’m offered stupid money. My agent will be asking for top five defensive players in the league money.”

“By the way, we never had this discussion,” she said.

“Got it,” he said. Her palm was a little damp. He knew how much she was risking by telling him this, but part of him was just pissed off. He wanted her. He couldn’t give up quite so easily, but she’d outlined exactly why he should walk out of her house, get in the car, and fly back to Seattle without a second thought. “Why is your organization spending so much on a defensive free agent when what they should be doing is beefing up the offensive line so your quarterback doesn’t get killed out there every Sunday? That’s insane.”

“Our owner wants to make a huge splash in free agency—”

“So go after New England’s left tackle. He’s the best in the league. He’s going to cost you some money, but you can get three or four very good players for what I’d want to leave Seattle. You can grab some other offensive linemen through the draft, and your offense will look much better within a couple of seasons as a result.”

“Don’t you care about a huge contract?”

“I make three times as much from endorsements now as I do playing football. I’m getting paid, but I want great guys around me too. If you break the bank on one player and he gets hurt, your season goes to shit.” He consciously lowered his voice. “You know this. What the hell’s going on in your front office, anyway?”