“Yes, because that is definitely what my job is. I am a human computation machine,” she snarked, but I could hear the smile in her voice. “Is there something I can help you with, Football?”
“If you want, I can make a list,” I said.
“I donotwant,” she said with a laugh. “But thank you.”
“Okay, so obviously I’ve called when you’re in Duffy the Accountant mode, so I’ll make this brief,” I said, even though I could banter with her like this all day. “But I was wondering if you would consider going out with me again. We can do karaoke, we can go to Burger King, we can fly to Seattle for seafood and coffee; whatever you want to do, I’m game.”
“Oh. Um…?” she said, sounding confused. “You’re asking me out again?”
“You make me feel like I’m doing this wrong with the way you continuously fail to understand that I’m asking you out.”
“I mean, I don’t get asked out by a lot of celebrity football players, so it catches me off guard each time,” she said.
“So will you go out with me?” I asked, trying not to sound desperate.
It was dumb how badly I wanted her to say yes.
Dumb.
But the truth of the matter was that I didn’t have a lot of people in my life who weren’t attached to football. I had teammates and coaches and my agent, but since I’d moved to Minnesota, I hadn’t really gotten to know anyone outside of that world.
Imissedhaving friends, as weird as that sounded.
It was like I’d gone from college life, which had been full of friends and parties and chaos, to this weird world where I owned real estate and made a lot of money but kind of had no life outside of football.
I still talked to my buddies on a regular basis, but it wasn’t the same long-distance.
I wasn’t complaining, because it was the dream, and this year was marginally less stressful than my rookie season, but truth be told, I was homesick for a place with connections.
She cleared her throat. “Listen, um, I seriously had the best time last night, but I think for right now, I’m good.”
Wait. What?
“Are you…are you ‘No, thank you-ing’ me?”
“I am,” she said, clearing her throat and then saying it again like she was confirming it to herself. “Yes, that’s right. No, thank you. Thank you, though.” I turned off the shower and snatched up the phone.
I hit the green FaceTime button and waited as it switched over. I knew it wasn’t really…typicalto dip into a FaceTime call without first texting, but it happened before my brain caught up.
“What is going on here?” she asked when she accepted the call, her eyes narrowed. “We don’t toggle to FaceTime without a word; where are your manners? What in God’s name do you think you’re doing, Cunningham?”
She was giving me shit, but I could tell by her smirk that she wasn’t pissed.
I drank in her appearance on the small screen, fully entranced. I fucking loved the messy bun and black glasses. She was giving Sandra Bullock inMiss Congenialityand I was fucking there for it.
“Can I ask why you’re rejecting me?” I said, genuinely confused and in need of some clarity.
“You find it impossible to believe somebody would reject you?” she teased, but I’d lost a little bit of my levity.
“It’s not that,” I said as I paced in the bathroom, moredisappointed than I would’ve expected to be when I hadn’t even wanted to ask her out the first time. “But I felt like we had a good time last night.”
“Okay, so we totally did,” she said, blinking fast like she was trying to convince me. “I’m going to be honest with you. I know it’s not fair and it’s not your fault, but I have no interest in something high profile where there are people with cameras tracking our every move when we go out. That’s your life and that’s so cool, but it’s just kind of not my thing.”
“Oh.” The few girls I’d taken out since moving to the Twin Cities had really seemed to enjoy the visibility and attention. I could tell Duffy hadn’t been the most comfortable with the cameras, soshit—it was totally shortsighted of me not to have even considered she might see it as a deal-breaker.
“And it’s probably best for you anyway, because I would do nothing but ruin your reputation.”
“How so? What does that mean?”