Running Game(62)

Which means one thing:

I’m a World Cup caliber player.

The greatest sport on Earth, watched with borderline zealotry by over a hundred countries, all culminating in a grand championship that draws audiences over hundreds of millions. The sheer marketing dollars spent on that tournament outperforms the gross domestic product of smaller countries, every single year, and it’s only getting bigger and bigger.

And right there on the field?

Me.

Lex Fucking Lambert, star player and team captain of the English National Team. I am the best of the best, a regular household name in my home country. My signature alone is a prized commodity in the realm of sports merchandising. Signed headshots fetch for thousands of dollars on eBay, especially since I’ve only signed maybe twenty or thirty of them in my entire life.

My reputation for fearless, combative ball is legendary among discussions of the sport. When I step out under the lights and look down my hardened, take-no-prisoners enemies on the field, they quake with fear.

I’m known off the field as well, although that preceding reputation is slightly different… and even more fun.

Let’s just say that playing it family friendly is a damned good waste of ridiculous fame, staggeringly impeccable physique, and my particular breed of effortlessly rugged features…

I might have been caught in the tabloids a few times with some hot, nameless piece of ass. Or, you know, maybe a lot more than a few.

What can I say? I’m a handsome piece, and I know how to wear a tailored suit… and as it turns out, the women go crazy for that kind of thing.

They all fancy a shag with Lex.

I had it all – the looks, the game, the prestige, and the effortless, thirsty pussy thrown at me every time I walked into a bar. Life was great, and the sex on demand was even better. But I lacked one thing, and I knew exactly what it was.

The big money.

You might have never heard of the Patrovo Corporation, but they’re a bigger deal in Jolly Ole England than me.

Hard to imagine, I’m sure.

Pretty much everything from top-tier, high-end sneakers to household boxes of oat cereal are owned by some subsidiary company that eventually bows to the Patrovo Corporation, no matter how high up the food chain you have to go. They have their grubby little fingers in goddamn everything… and they dish out one multi-million dollar corporate sponsorships to one lucky star athlete per year… the best of the best.

In case you’d forgotten… that’s me.

I wanted that contract with every fiber of my being. I burned for it. Nobody else deserved it more than me. I was already a pop culture celebrity, known and beloved by the entire country… and I had the skills to back it up.

That money belonged to me.

Which made this little conversation all the more upsetting…

“You do realize why you’re not getting the sponsorship, yeah?” Jess casually asked as she sipped from her frothing pint of dark ale.

She and I were sitting across from each other at a small, private bar-top table in my favourite pub, The Grinning Twig. It was one of the few watering holes that held my authority in such reverence that I could sneak through the back and sit in a private room with a lips-sealed, mum’s the word bartender.

Jess continued, setting her glass down and wiping the froth from her lips with the back of her hand. “I mean, even you aren’t that dull in the head, Lex. Surely, you’ve figured it out by now.”

“Go ahead, then,” I growled in slight protest; I set my own glass down against the bar with a clatter that rang a little too loudly. My private bartender glanced up from wiping out the mug in his hands, but when it was clear that I didn’t give a rat’s arse about him, he soon resumed his work.

One look at Jess’s face, and my mind quickly changed. “Wait, no. You’re doing that sodding smirk of yours. Don’t do the smirk.”

“What smirk?” She asked innocently, her eyes flashing wild with mischievousness. “Couldn’t possibly know what you’re talking about…”

“You’re doing it right now,” I repeated, my voice gravelly with mounting frustration. “I know that smirk. That’s the smirk you give that rambunctious, shit-assed pup of yours when he’s misbehaving.”

Of course, I wasn’t referring to a dog. Jess didn’t own a dog. What she did own was a taste for men barely old enough to move out of their mummy’s house… this month, he was a sniveling, spineless punk wannabe.

Kept on a leash like any good dog, Timothy was a scrawny little fuck… a wet-behind-the-ears kid just tall enough to pull off a leather jacket. Even that took a little convincing.

Ignoring my criticism of her fuck-buddy choices, Jess’s smirk widened, and she reclined against the bar stool, crossing her arms.