Drake Rollins was here. I sucked in a breath.
Drake Rollins was here. And he looked just as gorgeous as ever.
I couldn’t believe that Drake Rollins even had the guts to show up today. That took some serious stones. With all the stuff that he had gone through off the field of the last few months, his draft stock had taken a nosedive. I had forgotten that he was even invited to the draft. Most players just watched from home with their families and friends.
I felt my cheeks start to burn. Drake Rollins, wide receiver from Cal. My alma mater. I hadn’t seen him in a few months; after he declared for the draft right after the end of our season, he was a ghost around campus. Meanwhile, I had been finishing up my last semester, and was neck deep in books.
I turned to Steve. “Drake Rollins is here? Did you know he was coming?”
Steve shrugged. “He was invited originally, but after that stuff a couple days ago…”
“He was uninvited, right, right, I remember now. What’s he doing here?”
Steve shrugged again. “Beats me. They’re not going to let him in.”
I nodded. “Nope, you’re right, they won’t let him in.”
Drake was just as good looking as ever, probably even more so now. He had spent the off-season clearly working hard in the gym, getting ready for the draft. It was just that off the field he couldn’t keep it together. Run-ins with the law, pissing off the Dean by sleeping with his daughter, you name it, if it was bad, Drake Rollins was thick in the middle of it, with that famous grin plastered on his face.
I had fantasized about Drake Rollins since I had first seen a picture of him in a Cal football program. He was the literal definition of tall, dark, and handsome. Those deep brown eyes, that short black hair, just the perfect man. I had seen him at the gym a few times getting ready to swim, and the way his amazing tattoos twisted and turned across his body made my mouth water. I imagined them underneath his well-tailored suit and I could help but get a little wet at the idea of tearing that suit off and having him fuck me, hard.
Ugh, Lily, you could not have picked a worse time to think like that! I had work to do, but all I wanted to do was fantasize about my dream man, who just happened to be here.
And that wasn’t all. Drake and I had a history together, if you could call it that. Nothing too big, of course, just the source of all my fantasies since we had met in college. I still remembered how that one kiss felt to me, even if Drake didn’t.
Why was he even here? Unquestionably, Drake Rollins had the talent to be here. Every scouting report I had seen gave him a first round grade. But the big news of the day was that the league had uninvited him from the green room and the draft entirely, over his latest legal issues. He wasn’t supposed to be here.
How did he not know that?
What a shame.
CHAPTER 02 - DRAKE
Draft day, 3pm
So this was fucking draft. Not bad. Not as big as I had expected, not from watching on TV all these years. But it was alright. Not a bad place to kick off my career.
I’ve never been inside Radio City Music Hall before. They held big-time concerts and performances in here, stuff I had never been able to afford, and stuff I didn’t have time for either.
The room seemed a little small, though. Like you could contain all my greatness just a room this big. I shook my head, laughing to myself. I better not get drafted by a team that plays in a dome. Not only was that only pretend football, no dome could contain me.
I walked in like I owned the place, because soon I would own the place. I looked over the team area, seeing the 32 team setting up the tables. One of those teams would soon be smart enough to draft me, and their fortunes would change forever. That team’s fans would get tired of having a Super Bowl parade every single year.
Next stop, green room. I passed by the media section, nodding and smiling at everyone that I met. Even if I never saw these people again, it never hurt for people to remember me as a cool guy, a nice guy. A couple of the on-air talent recognized me and raise their eyebrows at me, which was kind of strange, but I let it slide. They were probably nervous about spending all that time on TV today.
One of the reporters, a guy I’d talked to a few times when game day coverage had come to Cal, waved at me. I stopped and he came over. “Hey, Drake,” he said, not nearly as happily as I expected him to be.
“Hey, Rich, nice to see you.” I looked out at the crowd in the balcony. “Nice turnout today, yeah?”
Rich looked confused for a moment, which wasn’t like him. “Yeah, Drake, big turnout. Lotta teams gonna be very happy with their draft class today.”