Another knock on the door. It opened without me saying anything, and an assistant stuck his head in. “Your, uh, reporter is here. Come out to the main area.”
Shit, right, The Boston Globe girl, Lily Pearson. I had forgotten all about that in all the commotion of getting here, despite her being on my mind 24/7 since the draft. She was here already! I guessed the team and the paper wanted their reality show to start sooner rather than later.
I checked myself in the mirror and made sure I looked up to par before heading out to meet her.
She was waiting in the main hall of the facility, nervously looking around, and trying to look like she had been here before.
She was dressed for work, and damn, did she look good. I hadn’t seen a girl more beautiful than that in…I couldn’t remember how long. Maybe ever.
If this were any other place I’d be looking around for somewhere the two of us could be alone and I could work my magic on her. There really wasn’t that much magic to perform - once girls found out who I was and what I could do, that was usually enough.
This girl was different, though. We had a little bit of history together, and now we were stuck together on this…whatever this thing was the Globe and the Patriots had us doing.
I had to resist her as long as I could, though. Every time I looked at her I wanted to rip off her clothes and do disgustingly naughty things to her, but I couldn’t risk it, not when so much was on the line.
It occurred to me right then and there - as bad a start as Lily Pearson and I had gotten off to, she might be the closest thing to a friend I had in this entire building.
“Hey, Lily.”
CHAPTER 11 - LILY
I had never been to the Patriots’ facility. Yeah, my father and I had come to games once a year, but that was different. That was the other side. This was where the players and coaches and assistants just walked around freely and did their thing!
It was exhilarating just being here, as a fan of the team. I almost didn’t want to get involved, just watch as people worked, listening in on conversations, getting a feel for how the team was run.
I mean, you see the finished product out on the field on Sundays, but getting to that 3 hours took year-round preparation. It was so easy to lose sight of that as a fan.
Standing here, though, that came to the front. Occasionally someone would stop in front of me and ask if I needed help, they they would see my “PRESS” badge and walk away. The Patriots had an almost mythical aversion to the press, all because of Coach Armstrong.
They called covering the Patriots the hardest and most thankless job in sports media for that very reason. While the general manager’s office and the team ownership might occasionally got interested in public perception, from the coaches on down to the players they treated the media like they were getting in the way, like they were information leeches.
This joint venture of sorts between the team and the Globe would hopefully spark a new partnership, a new way for the team to reach out to the media and get on board with how things worked these days, but I wasn’t holding my breath.
An assistant had gone to tell Drake Rollins that I was here, so I waited for him, wondering what this next assignment was going to be like. I just wanted to cover the story and stay as far away from him as I could, because if I didn’t, I had no idea whether I would be able to control myself.
I was stuck covering him, and that was as far as it was going to go. At least, that’s as far as I hoped it would go. Despite the rest of my body screaming for it to go much, much further.
Stupid body. We had work to do. Keep it together, Pearson.
I kept going back and forth between being nervous about the job that lay in front of me and being wide-eyed and in awe of being around the Patriots’ facility. I took a couple pictures and sent them to my dad - he must have been waiting for my message, because he replied almost immediately, telling me he wished he could be there.
I did too. Hopefully I could get him a guest pass of some kind soon so he could see it. I didn’t know how long I would be on this beat, so I might as well take advantage of it while I could.
I turned around, feeling like I must stand out like a sore thumb around all these people walking around with purpose, but all of a sudden I caught his eye as Drake Rollins walked toward me.
Damn, he looked good. It had only been a weekend since I had seen him at the draft, when he was all dressed up in a suit and looking fine, but today he looked a little more casual, but just as sexy as before. I could feel myself flush with lust, which set off twinges of embarrassment and anxiety.
Keep it together, Lily, keep it together.
If only it were that easy around him. He did things to me with a look that the best and most lurid romance novels could only hope to achieve. And I wondered if he knew just how devastating that smile could be?
He should have to register it as a deadly weapon.
“There you are,” his gravelly voice echoed out, pulling me toward him. “Making me wait like that.”