Coming Clean

  Marcel was on board. Score one for Shaw Matthews. I offered to arrange for a surfing instructor to meet us at a beach that I’d heard had decent waves without being overly crowded. Though he was game for the beach suggestion, Marcel was confident he could figure out the how-to’s of the surfing on his own. I wasn’t so sure of that for myself, so I’d have to YouTube it. We’d decided I would get a spot ready for us on the beach, complete with boards, a sun umbrella, and some refreshments. Ben would handle that shit, grumbling the whole time, but, hey, at least he’d get out of the office for a while.

  After agreeing to meet at the beach in an hour, I disconnected the call, gave Ben his assignment, and then made another call. Cassidy answered, sounding slightly out of breath, having been chasing Abe around the house. “Get him ready and pack a bag,” I told her. “We’re going to the beach. All three of us.”

  —

  Once we pulled into the parking lot off the shore, I got out and looked down toward the beach. Marcel was next to Camille as she lathered sunblock onto every inch of Vale’s exposed skin. I tapped the horn twice, getting his attention and returning his wave.

  When I closed the car door, Cassidy was standing beside me, hands on her hips. Hips that held a sarong skirt knotted on one side, which matched the sea-green one-piece she wore. The bathing suit showed off every voluptuous curve and swell of her body. The color, however, contrasted with the angry shade of her accusing glare. “I can’t believe you, Matthews.”

  “What?”

  She gestured toward the beach. “That’s Marcel Ingram! And I assume that’s his wife and kid, right? Please tell me you’re not seriously using Abe and me to get the contract.”

  Not entirely, but admitting even a minuscule amount was not going to bode well for me. “Look, the biggest complaint I ever hear from you is that I don’t give you and Abe more time because of my work. But I do still have to work, Cass. I figured this way, two birds, one stone. Besides, Abe’s about to leave for who knows how long, and I’d like to have a little fun with my family if that’s okay with you. What’s so bad about that?”

  She crossed her arms over her chest and narrowed suspicious eyes. Uh-oh. “Why do I get the feeling there’s more to it than that?”

  There was no use in lying. The woman could read me like a book, and lying would only make things worse. “Fine. I was kind of hoping you could work on Camille while I work on Marcel.”

  “I knew it!” she shrieked. A vicious Cassidy Whalen tirade was about to commence at any second, so I had to get her calmed down.

  “Wait a minute, Cass. Just hear me out on this,” I demanded. “Marcel and Camille are here on vacation and want to have a good time. And I know you miss this.”

  Her eyes narrowed further. “Miss what?”

  “Schmoozing clients.”

  Her mouth dropped open. “I have not ever schmoozed clients.” Great, I’d insulted her delicate pride again.

  “Fine. I schmooze; you show off how incredibly smart, talented, and sincerely invested you are in an athlete’s future.” I crossed my fingers behind my back.

  “I know what you’re doing, Shaw. You don’t actually think I’m stupid enough to fall for this line of bullcrap, do you?”

  “No. You’ve always seen right through my bullcrap,” I admitted, and then stooped to eye level with her. Cassidy stared off, the crease in her brow that was always present when she was mad at me made an appearance, but I kept going. “I’m trying to spend time with you and Abe while showing Marcel we have the whole loving-family thing in common. Plus, it’s a prime opportunity for me to give to you that which I know you miss so very much. I promise, my intentions are not purely selfish on this one. You miss it, and I miss seeing you in your element. I miss the vitality and snap you embody when you’re doing your thing.”

  I took her hips, pulling her closer and incredibly tempted to work that damn sarong knot loose. Dr. Minkov was a master of suggestion, indeed. “It makes me so fucking hard, Cassidy. Do it for me. Please?”

  She finally looked at me; her lips parted and the crease smoothed. My words had affected her. “Okay, fine,” she said, succumbing to my charm.

  “Yes! You’re the best!” I said triumphantly with a loud “Muah!” kiss to her lips.

  “But,” she poked me in the chest with her finger and then continued, “you’ve got bath duty with Abe tonight.”

  “Totally cool,” I relented, following it up with a suckass, “You’re totally cool. Like, the coolest baby-mama on the face of the planet. In the whole universe!”

  She laughed at my antics. “You’re such a suck-up. Get your son. I’ll grab the beach bag.”

  The introductions between Marcel’s family and mine went swimmingly. Vale hid behind her daddy’s leg, giving Abe a blushing grin. My boy, so much like his daddy, unabashedly stepped forward and asked her if she wanted to be friends. Vale nodded, that grin becoming more flirtatious as Abe gathered his sand pail and shovel in one hand and took hers in the other to run to the beach less than ten yards away.

  Camille’s excitement over meeting Cassidy wasn’t anything like her daughter’s shyness. She hadn’t smiled like that even when meeting me. I knew right then that I was lucky Cassidy and I weren’t competing over Marcel like we had over Denver. If we had been, I’d have been forced to throw in the towel early on.

  Leaving the ladies to get to know each other better—or do their nails, braid each other’s hair, gossip, or whatever it was women did—a very eager Marcel and I headed for the deep blue abyss. My onetime nemesis. Our relationship had been fragile. Scratch fragile; it had been downright death-defying.

  “Shaw!” Cassidy called out to me. I turned to see what she wanted, noting the silent vote of confidence written in her expression. She must have noticed the hesitation in my steps. She wagged a finger at me. “No showboating.” Well, would you look at that? My woman was laying down cover before I even needed it.

  “No worries. I’ll let Marcel have all the fun,” I said, going with it. I hated that she knew I had a weakness, but I loved that she read me well enough to bail me out before shit got too real. “Women, right?” I laughed it off to Marcel.

  “Right. Let’s go, man.” Marcel grabbed one of the boards, nothing more than an unassuming rental, and ran toward the water with me following suit.

  Luckily, I did have the time to review a short tutorial on surfing before I’d left the office, so I repeated the steps over and over in my head. Stringer, rails, nose, tail, fins, leg strap, check. Those were the important parts. The actual surfing basics had seemed simple enough. Paddle out, duck-dive under the crashing waves, paddle out farther, sit and wait for a swell, and then manage to pop up and keep my balance on the board to ride the wave in without falling off and sucking gulps of salty water into my lungs. Or hitting my head on a jagged reef. Or being mistaken for a seal and becoming a meaty morsel for a shark snack. Right. Simple.

  Or not. The board and I fought for dominance as I tried to mount the damn thing to get started in the first place. I looked like a flailing fledgling, I was sure, but it was cool because so did Marcel. Finally remembering the video instructions, I found the middle of the board and was off and running, er, paddling. Marcel was no more than a half beat behind me on that one. Amazingly, we both managed to make it out to the swells without incident, and there we sat, waiting for the waves to kick up again.

  “Sorry, man. I heard this was normally a good spot for surfing. Guess that explains why we’re the only two out here.” I laughed.

  “It’s all good.” Marcel centered himself on his board and damn near teetered off. “I’m cool just being out here, you know? Reminds me of how small I am. And it’s quiet…”

  The way he trailed off like he was lost in thought made me take notice.

  “Opposed to the screaming fans?”

  He chuckled. “And the constant ringing of the phone, the doorbell, the clicks and flashes of cameramen, the whispering in my ear by every person I’ve ever known in
the industry who has considered themselves to be my mentor. It’s a lot.”

  “That’s because you’re a superstar.”

  He sighed. “So they tell me.” A plane flew overhead, dragging an aerial advertising banner behind it, and Marcel looked up, following its path. “Out here, I’m just an imperceptible speck of dust.”

  “Is the fame too much for you to handle?” I had to ask because a client with spotlight issues and an MIA tendency was a risk to take on. If he thought the attention was bad now, what would come down the line once I was done blowing him up even further would hit him like a nuclear explosion.

  “Nah, I can handle it. Just need some peace and quiet every now and then to reflect on all of my blessings and not lose sight of what’s important.”

  I kicked my feet back and forth, marveling at the stray cool current that passed by and hoping like hell Jaws wouldn’t torpedo up and out of the water from beneath me. “And what’s important?”

  He nodded toward the shore. “My ladies. I’m nothing without them.”

  I looked, too, thoroughly amused when Abe accidentally dumped a bucket of sand onto Vale’s leg and then started wiping it away. He was every bit as gallant as those superheroes he looked up to, and I was a proud papa. Guilt sat heavy on my shoulders since I couldn’t say he’d learned that chivalry from his father. Fictional characters were raising my boy because I hadn’t been around enough to do it myself. Yet somehow, Marcel had managed to play a huge role in his daughter’s upbringing.

  “How do you do it, man? How do you persevere despite the odds against you? Don’t take it the wrong way, but being a kid with a kid and a wife while trying to go to school and play ball at the same time can’t be easy.”

  “It wasn’t, but Cam and Vale give me reason.”

  “Reason?” I asked.

  “Yeah, reason.” Marcel shrugged. “A reason to endure, a reason to play, a reason to keep going, and a reason to never give up. They’re my motivation for not getting twisted up in the game, both on the field and off. I don’t do this for fame or notoriety. I love the game, man. Not only that, but football is a means to an end. I play to support my family because it’s what I’m good at, but they will always come first. The pressures of this job aren’t easy to deal with. The only way I come out of it okay is if I have a family to go home to at the end of the day. Besides, they’re my biggest fans.”

  I laughed with him, making light of the very heavy conversation. Especially since my next question could be taken the wrong way. “But why get married at such a young age? That’s an epic commitment. I’m sure Camille still would’ve supported you without the legal tie.”

  “You’re right, it is. I didn’t have to marry her. Even after we’d found out she was pregnant Cam never pressured me to make an honest woman out of her. But I wanted to. I mean, I don’t want to be with anyone else, so why not give my last name and everything I have to the woman who helped make me who I am today? In my opinion, a man who refuses to take that last step is still unsure, isn’t one hundred percent committed. He’s holding out for an escape route in case he wants to make a speedy exit.”

  Was that what I’d been doing? I’d avoided relationships all my life, and then once I’d found myself smack-dab in the middle of one, I’d been adamant that I’d never marry. Looking back on it now, I recalled hating the way my parents had made a mockery of it, and that had been my reasoning. But Cassidy and I were not Clarice and Jerry Matthews. We genuinely loved each other, loved our child, and we were a family. And that was some real-deal shit. Had I shut down the idea of marriage in lieu of keeping the door open for an escape should said real-deal shit get too deep for me to handle?

  “Here comes one, man,” Marcel said, nodding behind us at a building swell. “I’m going for it.”

  Stretching out on his board, he began to paddle, staying ahead of a quickly gaining mound of water. At just the right time, he put his palms beneath his shoulders and then popped up onto both feet in a sideways stance. He even had the whole Elvis Presley arm thing going on as he bent at the knee and floated his board along the whitecap of the wave until he eventually wiped out.

  Whistles and cheers abounded from the shore, Cassidy, Camille, and both kids congratulating Marcel for a bitchin’ ride. I laughed to myself, at myself. I so was not cut out to be a surfer dude.

  It took no time at all for Marcel to make his way back to me with a blindingly white smile that stretched from ear to ear. “Dude, that was awesome!”

  “Dude? One wave and you’re already talking like the locals?” I laughed.

  “Man, whatever. Don’t harsh on my buzz,” he said, purposely getting his slang on while flashing the shaka sign.

  “By the way, you’re full of shit! You have, too, done this before.”

  Marcel shook his head and made a cross over his heart. “Swear, man. That was my first time. Guess I’m a natural-born athlete or whatever. It never takes me long to pick up on a sport.”

  “Yeah, well, I choose not to let you make me look like a fool in front of my boy, so how about we head back in for a bit?”

  Marcel chuckled at my admission of defeat. If he’d known I’d nearly taken a permanent nap with the fishies, I bet he’d have cut me some slack. I wasn’t offended, though. I’d have laughed, too.

  “Just one more,” he said. “The adrenaline rush is off the charts. I can totally understand how people get addicted to this.”

  “Do your thing, Marcel,” I said, waving to the vast expanse of ocean. “But don’t break anything. We don’t need any injuries going into the Combine.”

  Cassidy

  I’d decided if given the option, I might actually consider committing murder to look like Camille Ingram. I wondered what it must be like to have hair that straight and shiny, skin that golden brown, and a stomach that flat after giving birth to a child. A two-piece…she was wearing a two-piece. And well, too, I might add. With her long legs stretched out elegantly before her and that lustrous hair blowing in the breeze, she was soaking up the sun while I sat under the shade of the beach umbrella to avoid scorching my pale, blotchy skin. Her eyes were an interesting hazel mix of both blue and green with long lashes and thick brows that were expertly groomed into a high arch. She wore no makeup, though she didn’t need to because her natural Latina features made her unfairly beautiful.

  I adjusted my sarong, trying my best to hide the kangaroo-style pooch still left over from when my little joey had called my belly home.

  “I hope this doesn’t sound rude of me,” I began, “but I just have to know where Vale got her blond hair and green eyes from.” Her hair was more golden than blond with dark roots at the core of a puffy mane that looked soft to the touch, and her eyes were a light green that looked even brighter against her butterscotch complexion.

  A sweet laugh carried over to me on the breeze, setting me at ease regarding my level of rudeness. “Marcel. His mother was African American, but his father was white.”

  “Ah,” I said, my agent persona fitting pieces of the puzzle together. “You said was. Past tense. Are they still living?”

  She shrugged. “No clue.”

  I perceived her short answer as an indication that she had no desire to discuss the matter further. Sore subject, check. But having dealt with my own baby-daddy with parental issues, I knew that was the sort of thing that could and usually did shape a man. I’d have to dig deeper if I was going to be able to report back to Shaw with a solid opinion on his quest to sign this athlete.

  Camille nodded toward the water where her husband was attempting to shred a wave he’d caught, shaking her head when he wiped out. “I bet he gets back on and tries it again.”

  Sure enough, Marcel grabbed the board, mounted it, and paddled hard back to where Shaw still bobbed up and down on the swells. Marcel was no quitter, and though I knew Shaw wasn’t either, the memory of the time I’d nearly lost him to the sea made me mentally plead with him not to be as daring.

  “Tell me about him,??
? I said, trying to take my mind off the close call with Mother Nature that had almost ripped the man I love from my grasp. Shaw apparently wanted to hang out with Marcel and get to know him better in order to further his agenda of signing him, but what he failed to realize was that the best way to get to know a man was through his woman.

  Camille shrugged. “Most everything there is to know about Marcel has already been plastered all over the media. I’m not sure there’s much else I can add to it.”

  Au contraire. “I find the media to be superficial and subjective when it comes to athletes. Typically, they’re more concerned with statistical facts rather than really getting to know the person behind them. I’m more curious about the secret behind his winning career. What drives him?”

  Camille regarded me with an expression of respect. “Do you know you’re the first person who’s ever asked that?”

  “Really? I’m surprised,” I said, though I really wasn’t. “An agent should know what an athlete’s motivation is just in case he needs a reminder. And trust me, they definitely need a good shove from time to time.”

  “You’re not an agent anymore.” It was a statement, not a question. Maybe Camille had done a little homework of her own on me.

  “No, not anymore. But I guess old habits die hard.” I laughed.

  “We’d wanted to sign with you,” she said, taking me unaware. “When we’d found out you’d left the business, we thought Shaw would be the next best thing.”

  Though I knew it shouldn’t have, her reveal appealed to the competitive side of me that I thought had become dormant over the last couple of years. I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed it.

  “Oh, God, please don’t tell him that,” I told her, knowing it would be another hit to Shaw’s ego that he wouldn’t be able to take. “And I didn’t leave for good,” I added, needing her to know that I wasn’t a quitter. “I’m just on hiatus until Abe gets a little older and starts school.”