Baller: A Bad Boy Romance Read online

  “Dante seems a little off his game tonight, wouldn’t you say so?” I asked. He looked surprised…like I had blindsided him with that one.

  “What the guy does in his personal life is his business. He always delivers when he comes to the court.” That was true. Dante had missed a couple clear shots and had been a little slow, but if this was him when he was bad, he was still better than most of the guys on the court. Trudeau had unintentionally answered a question I hadn’t even asked him. Apparently, Golden Boy Dante had partied a little too hard last night and was paying for it today.

  The coach looked over at Dante and waved at him. I panicked, thinking for a second that Dante would come over, but he didn’t. He was on the bench, sitting on his own. He raised his arm acknowledging the coaches greeting. I looked at him and our eyes met. He winked at me. I turned away immediately and thanked the coach for his time.

  There was still a little time before the fifteen minute halftime was up. I wanted to talk to some of the players, but there was no way I’d be able to have a whole conversation. You didn’t really know what to expect when it came to the sports types. All of them were athletes, and when it came time for them to interview, you sort of got an idea of who the guys were that only had athleticism going for them. It wasn’t funny; it was just interesting. Some of the guys were hopeless at interviews. They were players first, second, and last. They didn’t do the cameras-and-media part of the whole deal. These were the guys who made my job harder than it needed to be, but I understood. They were there to play; people like me were just an inconvenience. They would only give me as much as one or two words and force me to ask more and more questions to get them to give anything up. They wouldn’t really look into the camera, and they would give off the vibe that there was literally anywhere on earth that they would rather be than being interviewed by me.

  Then there were the media darlings, the guys who could hoop and could also charm the fans and have a few interesting things to say. Dante fell under this category. He was great in an interview, and a few other guys really knew how to work the reporters and the press. They had a good time with it, and they were the ones who tended to get the sponsorships and brand deals because they were good talkers. They could be spokespeople for different things and their likeness, personalities, and the fact that they played on this team or that would give them a way to generously supplement their sports-career paychecks.

  I thought about Dante again. He was there. I had him in my peripheral, but I didn’t want to look right at him because I thought he would be looking right at me. The wink had been cheeky, and there was no way in hell that I was the only woman that he had ever winked at. There was no way I was the only woman he had even winked at in the last twelve or so hours. It had made me a little nervous, I wasn’t going to lie. Whether or not I was looking right at him, I knew what he looked like. Who didn’t? The pictures on the internet were more than enough. They were all there. The man in his uniform, out of his uniform, out of his clothes and in his swimming trunks. Even in a little less than that, too.

  He was tall, obviously, but he even looked it, sitting there on the bench. His limbs were long and rangy, padded with lean muscle. He had a face that he could have used successfully in a modeling career. It was the sort of face that was most accurately described as beautiful. It was hard and masculine—with enough softness that balanced it out. His eyes and hair were light. The hair was blonde, and his eyes were green. He had dimples in both his cheeks when he smiled, or smirked, which was what he was doing when I decided to take a chance and glance over at him. He looked tanned every time I saw him. I thought it was more to do with his heritage, which was Mediterranean, than his frequent use of tanning beds.

  He had a couple tattoos—(that wasn’t an irregular thing for athletes)—but they weren’t visible when he was in his uniform. I knew, not because I had seen them personally, but because I had done my research before coming here today. I had just been talking about him to his coach. Whether or not I wanted him to be, he was a star. He was the star. An interview today with the man himself, Dante Rock, was what I needed to get. It just was.

  What could be better than a quote from the man himself? I could ask him about whether he felt pressure being in the position he was in, or what he thought he had to do to make this his first championship. Did he care that he had—up to this point—not gotten a championship?

  As far as athletes went, he was amazing in front of a camera. He must have had some media training because he was communicative, looked like he paid attention when he was spoken to, and was funny and magnetic when he talked to reporters. He knew just what to say, which meant a lot of people like me were clamoring for a chance to talk to him. He was the sort of interviewee who made interviews fun. He made them feel more like a conversation, from what I had seen of him.

  I had not interviewed him. At least, I had not interviewed him yet.

  I had imagined it, because, of course, I had. I was a sports journalist and he was pretty high up there on the list of people who were my dream interviews. It would be gold. A real tell-all with Dante Rock, an exclusive where he opened up about his career and his stresses and his history, would do wonders for my career. That sort of piece in my portfolio would be priceless. I wanted it—and maybe today I would be able to get it, or at least get the guy to agree to have it with me.

  He wouldn’t say no. What reason would he have to say that? From an assessment of the man’s very public private life, there was no way Dante Rock would be bashful and shy about letting his fans under the hood. I wanted to do, like, a Behind the Music, but in writing, and not about music, but about basketball, and Dante Rock in particular.

  When the game ended, there were interviews in the locker rooms. I would approach him then. Halftime was finally drawing to a close, and I saw the players start to get back onto the court. I looked to my side and saw Dante there, on his feet, looking at me. I didn’t think he was checking me out, but I felt like he was. His eyes were penetrating.

  “Big fan?” he said to me. I liked the sound of his voice. It was pleasant and smooth. The sort that you could listen to for a long time because it wasn’t annoying or overly raspy. “If you hang around after the game, I can sign your chest.”

  I wanted to laugh, if only to hide the effect that the statement had had on me. He was coming onto me, and he had said that phrase as if it was a perfectly decent thing to say to a woman you had never met before and whose first name you didn’t even know. I felt my cheeks heat up a bit, but I needed to keep my cool around him.

  “Hm, I think I’ll pass, but thanks for the offer.”

  “I’m Dante Rock,” he said. Was he? Was he really? Because I hadn’t noticed. It wasn’t like his last name wasn’t emblazoned on the back of his jersey. That statement on its own was likely all he had to say to some women to get them to come home with him.

  “I know who you are,” I told him, trying to sound sure of myself. I had walked up to him so we were about a foot away from each other. He should have looked a little worse than he did, given that he had just played one half of a basketball game. His hair bordered on long, but still sat at around medium length and was wavy. Standing that close, I could see the stubble on his chin and jaw. It was just a little bit darker than the hair on his head, but it wasn’t a drastic difference.

  “Who do you write for? TMZ?” he asked. I bristled a bit.

  “Not a chance,” I said, lightly. How dare he? How dare he suggest that I wrote for TMZ! TMZ was a different outlet than the one I worked for, and I didn’t want to judge them that harshly, but shit! They made their money, and I didn’t want to knock their hustle, but I had not been through four years of journalism school and accumulated the amount of debt that I had to work for TMZ.

  “You know, there are a lot of articles about you on there,” I said, trying to hint at the possibility of me writing one on him.

  “You’ve been reading about me?” he asked, eyebrows raising and interest obviously pi
qued. Whether or not he was interested for the right reasons was not something I could as yet tell.

  “Nothing good. I’m Quinn Blaze.”

  “Well, Quinn Blaze, you obviously want something from me,” he said. Was it that obvious? Could he read the hunger on my face?

  “An exclusive would be nice,” I tried to say to him in a way that I thought of as sweet. I wasn’t trying to flirt; I was just trying to be nice. I wanted him to say yes. That was the whole point of this conversation that was likely going to make him late in a few more seconds if he dragged it on and didn’t just say yes like I wanted him to.

  “How about I give you that if you let me take you out?” he asked. I wanted to wipe that smirk off his face. I also, for the shortest split second, the shortest, considered it.

  “Gotta give me something to write about first,” I said. He barked out a short laugh and left because he had gotten his signal to get on the court. I watched him leave.

  I had just survived my first conversation with Dante Rock. It could have gone better. He could have cooled it on the flirting, but then again… it was a little bit nice. There was no denying that. He had a charm, an acute aura that radiated off him and it was disarming. Could I be alone with him? What was I thinking? Of course I could. He was just a guy. He was an amazing athlete, but I was an amazing journalist. I had this.

  I wanted that story—and he was going to give it to me.

  Chapter Two

  Dante

  What the fuck happened last night?

  I couldn’t remember what time I had gotten back to the house, or how I had gotten back to the house without dying or getting in a wreck or something, but I had. All I remember was the girls came over some time before midnight, then we went out to one spot, then to another… then maybe one other, but there was no way of being sure.

  One thing for sure, though, it must have been a good night because I felt like absolute garbage in the morning. It takes a lot to take me out. A lot a lot. You don't take down a dude who’s six foot seven and two hundred sixty pounds with a couple shots. I must have mainlined straight gasoline or something; my head was still fuzzy. My game had been weak but not terrible. Considering the night I had apparently had, things could have been a whole lot worse. I could have still been passed out for one thing. The coach had had a couple things to say to me about the condition I was in, and I hadn’t heard half of them. Partly because of the massive hangover and the other part because he needed to relax.

  He had no reason to be that mad. I had shown up, hadn’t I? I was playing, wasn’t I? We were going to win that game. He had nothing to worry about. I didn’t appreciate him talking to me like I was his son because I was not. I didn’t care if he did it because he was worried, or because he wanted me to slow down before I crashed, because I was not going to crash. Like I said, it took a lot to take me out and a night of partying with a few girls and some shots was not it.

  There were three girls in the house when I got up. Three. That was a good indicator of exactly how much I had had to drink. I had never in my life needed help getting girls. Never. The fact that I had managed to get not one, not two, but three home with me was a sign that maybe I hadn’t had all that much to drink after all. We had started the night together, but they were under no obligation to come home with me and fuck. If it was rides home that they wanted, I am sure I would have had the mental presence to call them an Uber or something. Everything was a blur, but the women, maybe even more than these three… or a different three entirely had been with me the entire night. Or maybe they hadn’t. I had had a lot to drink. I didn’t know. It had been a lot, but most likely not enough to make me unappealing to chicks. I mean, really, because, how did drunk, slurring Dante manage to hook three birds at once?

  I knew the answer to that. It was because drunk, slurring Dante Rock was still Dante fucking Rock. I could pull anybody. Anybody. Girls wanted me. They just did. I was hot. I knew that, but a lot of guys were hot. It was not that hard to be hot. It was hard to be Dante Rock. I had never met a girl who told me I wasn’t her type. I was every woman's type. I was your married mom’s type. If they insisted on lying and pretending that I wasn’t, there was always the money.

  Money has been letting ugly guys pull since the beginning of time. When you had money and looks, you were like the prize stallion, everyone wanted to place their bet on you. Most, if not every single one of the broads I had ever brought home, were trying to become a WAG…wife and girlfriend. Any girl with good sense avoided athletes like the plague. We just weren’t the ones who were there to give you stability and a family you could come home to every night. Our schedules sucked, our lifestyles were high risk, and we travelled a lot. There were guys who wanted that sort of thing and there were some who even made it work. They had the wife, a stunner of course, the kids, a dog, the whole bit. I wasn’t one of those guys though.

  Getting girls was risky for a man in my position. You never knew with the hot ones who was batshit crazy. Good makeup and hair hid a lot of baggage. It also hid a lot of plotting and scheming. You never knew which girl was the one who would try and get pregnant by you so she could have the baby and start picking up monthly checks and gain a couple thousand more followers on her Instagram for posting the kid’s pictures.

  Love was a battlefield. Hooking up was a battlefield. There were so many willing women, and so few nights in a week. Sometimes, like last night, you had to team them up and take a couple down at the same time. It was just like that sometimes.

  One was in the shower, the other was downstairs, and the last one was still in bed with me when I woke up. As if the awkwardness of having a woman over and not remembering her name wasn’t enough. I had to do it three times. It was like hide and seek, but with one-night stands. Two blondes, well, one actual blonde, one counterfeit blonde, and a redhead. They had reminded me their names in the morning, but they were leaving anyway. I didn’t need to retain that information. Could I even if I tried?

  I don’t even know whether I fucked them all, or if they just partied on their own. If they did, I hope I was conscious to see it. If they did, I was glad I could facilitate that for them. The only thing hotter than having one girl was having more than one girl. That way, if you got tired and weren’t into it anymore, you could just watch them. It was always just… just fantastic to see. That was another thing about these girls who chased the athletes…they would do almost anything if they thought you would like it. They would let you put it in the butt, do it with other girls, let you run trains on them… it was a lot. Sometimes, I would ask a girl to do something, just to see if she would. I wanted to see how far she would go for the dollars she thought she would be entitled to when she became my girlfriend. None of them ever did become my girlfriend…because I wasn’t an idiot. Why would I tie myself down to just the one girl? That was one pussy every single night. That was one person who you had to see all the time. That was nights you could spend having three different girls in your bed at once…but instead settling for one.

  Blondie was a nine, fake blonde was an eight and a half, and redhead was a ten. I loved freckles. She was the one I would have back for another round, maybe once I remembered, but there was no need to double dip. Literally. There was no need for me to ever fuck a girl twice if I didn’t want to. Newer, hotter girls were coming down the pipeline every day.

  I was sitting out for a minute, thankfully. It gave me a minute for my body to catch up to where we were, what we were doing, and what I needed it to do. I had never had a truly shitty game, but this one was definitely suffering. I could hoop in my sleep, but at the end of the day, I was getting paid to literally play a game and the people who paid me to do it expected me to be doing it while under the legal blood alcohol level.

  Were games always this loud? Were the lights always this fucking bright? I needed to go the fuck home. A little hangover couldn’t take me out, but when it got to the point that I almost couldn’t see straight anymore, I needed to call it a day and see wheth
er I could still stand the next. I would though. I’d be fine tomorrow. If I didn’t do the same thing tonight and just went to bed, alone, then I would be golden.

  Maybe I wouldn’t have to go to bed alone. Girls I could do. It was the alcohol that was fucking me up. I watched the game unfold in front of me. I hadn’t even been following the score, but we were down some points. Nothing serious that we couldn’t come back from, but coach would likely have something to say about it. He had been stolen away by this reporter. A girl.

  I turned my attention to the girl who had been talking to the coach at halftime. She had a mic in her hand, and she was standing, watching the game from the sidelines. Her face looked like she was really concentrating hard on what was going on. As if she knew something about what she was looking at. A lot of girls didn’t know shit about hooping, but they could tell you what the NBA minimum annual salary paid to players was. They didn’t know the difference between a dunk and a lay-up, but they knew how much Kobe’s wife was set to get in their divorce settlement. Some of these girls, I swear, could only name Michael Jordan as a basketball player…and that was only because they had seen Space Jam as a kid.

  Her arms were crossed across her chest, which made her tits sit up. Those were nice. She had on heels, which I didn’t know people could wear on the wood floor court. Her legs were smooth and disappeared under this tight skirt, which clung to her hips and ass. Also pretty nice. She had a body, something to hold onto while you fucked her, which I appreciated. I liked it when a woman looked like she could bear me loads of healthy sons, if you know what I mean, even though I didn’t want kids. I just enjoyed a thicker protein shake.