RHINO: A Bad Boy Sports Romance (With FREE Bonus Novel OFFSIDE!) (3 page)

“
My boss thinks you’re retiring.”

“
The blades haven’t even stopped spinning and you’re asking me your killer question.”

“
I thought I’d see if I could catch it back. Alex Vann Haden, the mysterious man of football retires at twenty-eight.”

She marks the headline out in the air with her hand.

“
I’m not twenty-eight until next year.”

“
We’ll hold back the release then.”

For a moment we just watch each other, two strangers on a rock floating in the sea.

“
You want to come inside?”

“
I could do with a drink I suppose.”

I hold out my hand. “Dictaphone.”

Lucy sticks her tongue into her cheek and looks away momentarily before looking back at me, both hands clasped protectively around the strap of her handbag.

“
How am I-?”

“
Dictaphone”, I say again.

“
You do realize that interviews are usually conducted in a matter of hours, with a dictaphone, not over the course of a week without one.”

She digs it out of her bag and hands it over. Reluctantly.

“
I don’t want you making your mind up about me before the end of the week is up.”

“
Why, are you scared of the truth?”

“
Some versions of it, yeah.”

“
Like the versions people have published already and you’ve had removed from the public domain?”

“
I’ve got to protect my liberty.”

“
What about public right of information?”

“
Are you going to be a hard ass all week?”

“
You’re the one that invited me here.”

“
I think I liked you better when you were face down on the ground.”

“
Why did you choose me?”

“
Come on, knock it off for a moment. Let’s go inside, I’ll show you which side of the mansion is yours, and then we can have a drink and relax. Over dinner you can grill me.”

Lucy narrows her eyes at me.

“
What?”

“
One thing.”

“
Go on.”

“
I’ve followed your rules, I get that you have this weird aversion to being in the public, and you’ve done your best over the years to change the opinion people have developed over the years about you. I know you’ve brought me here for a reason, whatever that is, but I’m going to tell you one thing and we need to be clear on that or I’m out of here, swimming if I have to.”

“
Shoot.”

“
I’m writing the truth about you. I’m not here to write some cutesy bullshit story about how Alex Vann Haden lives in a palace in the sea with millions of furry animals and is the best person in the world ever, If I think you are an asshole, which, by the way, I already do, just so you know, and it’s going to take more than those thick arms and turquoise blue eyes and perfect hairline to change that, that’s the story I’m going to write. If you want cutesy, hire someone else. And if you’ve invited me here for anything else, outside of what has been agreed, because you’re lonely or whatever, you can forget about it now.”

I let her get her breath, my eyes wide at the outburst. “Finished?”

“
I’ll let you know.”

“
Travelling makes me cranky too. You must be tired.”

“
I’m not tired.”

“
You don’t have to be embarrassed to admit it. I mean, meeting me must be making you nervous, there’s no shame in that. I’ve had girls faint at my feet before.”

“
You see? That.”

“
What?”

“
That right there.”

“
What?”

“
It’s that attitude that makes people think you’re an asshole.”

“
Come on, you’re hurting my feelings now.”

“
I’m just saying what I’m seeing.”

“
I brought you here as a reporter not as a therapist.”

“
Then you’ll let me write the truth.”

“
Write what you like, just don’t do anything until the end of the week.”

I turn, knowing that she’ll follow me.

“
You’re not going to offer to carry my bags?”

“
Lucy, I already know that you are the kind of girl that will resent me asking you because it will look chauvinistic, but secretly want me to anyway. If I did, you’d refuse, but now that I haven’t you’re upset. Someone will bring them.”

I walk towards the house and after a moment Lucy comes up alongside me.

“
You still haven’t told me why I’m here.”

“
You’re here to write about me. You’re right, everyone thinks I’m an asshole for doing what I’ve done, and I’m sick of it. I ask for a little bit of a private life and I get shunned.”

“
That’s not the only reason people think you’re an asshole.”

Now my eyes narrow. “That was a long time ago, and I was a different person back then.”

“
You’ve never liked us lot, so why now?”

“
Because I need you to convince me I can have both.”

“
Both what?”

“
Football and a private life.”

“
I don’t know if you can.”

“
Then if I can’t, I have to choose.”

“
You are retiring.”

I sigh. “That depends on you.”

“
On me? You want to explain what I have to do with your decision to retire?”

“
I need someone to convince me I shouldn’t.”

“
If you really are an asshole, retiring isn’t going to change that.”

“
No, it won’t, but at least people will leave me alone.”

“
Then you’ll still be an asshole, you just won’t be held accountable for it.”

“
I’m not anyway.”

“
Not out here in the middle of nowhere with seagulls and waves for company.”

She gives me that look again and I can feel a whole forgotten world of memories of our time back at LSU come flooding back to me.

“
Come on I’ll show you to your room.”

Three.

Lucy

Talk about an identity crisis, or personality complex, or whatever you want to call it. Talk about throwing your toys out of the pram when things don’t go your way. What an asshole, I mean, seriously. I’m Alex Vann Haden, I’m the most famous quarterback in the world and I don’t like being in the public eye because people say nasty things about me. Boo hoo. Me me me me me. If he wasn’t such an asshole, if he didn’t threaten press, get into fights at nightclubs, disrespect his manager, get banned for violent conduct, and bed hop quite as much as he does, there wouldn’t even be a problem. Now he’s realized that taking himself out of the public eye makes him lonely, he wants to give up the sport entirely. I mean, come on. Grow the fuck up. If you want to be a football player, your whole life is going to be scrutinized. You can’t think you’re the whole team, even if you are, you can’t act like you’re untouchable, because no player is like that.

Twenty-seven years old and he still wants to go out and party, fuck as many women as possible, be rude and arrogant and immature and have the whole world love him for it. Alright, not for the last five years. Not since he basically told them all to fuck off because they were saying nasty things about him. I can’t say he doesn’t deserve it. If he’s lonely, it’s his own fucking fault. And now he wants me to convince the world he’s not an asshole, that he wants me to write some kind of super article about the real Alex Van Haden so he can be resurrected like Lazarus and come back to claim his title as the golden child of football.

And then drink and screw his way to retirement, with every single press reporter writing glowing reviews about just how brilliant he is, based solely on my shitty magazine’s article. Either he really has changed and he’s keen on a comeback or too much time alone has made him deluded. It’s going to take a hell of a lot of convincing to make the world think that he’s changed his ways.

This is the player that was banned for eight weeks for trying to get into the white house. He was almost shot for that and lucky that he wasn’t. This is the player who has had not one but two pregnancy claims by former high-profile female celebrities both of which ended in expensive payouts and press coverups.

This is the man that’s nicknamed The Rhino, not just for his physique, but mostly because of his gigantic horn, that is constantly hard and constantly erect and which he seems to lead with into most of his often very short relationships.

No-one else in the history of football has had such a bad reputation. Not even his home fans can stand him, despite the fact he’s led their team to three Superbowl wins. He was only given MVP because there was no one else even close for the four years he won it.

There is no doubting he is the best player playing currently in the football league but even more clear than that is the fact that Alex Vann Haden is arrogant, dislikeable and always constantly in trouble. And that’s saying something for a man who is never seen in public apart from when he’s on the football field.

This is the man that wants me to write the truth about him. This is the man that ignored me in college, that has shunned journalists for years and has now invited me to his private residence. And beyond all of that, and despite who he is and what he has done, this is the man that makes my insides go all gooey and my brain and other delicate parts of my body all fizzy.

Typical isn’t it? I seem to have a tendency to go for bad boys and terrible men. He’s slept with so many women he has to be infected. I don’t want that. Why do I want that? Yet I can’t stop thinking about The Rhino’s horn. I can’t stop thinking about who he really is underneath his bad boy exterior, and whether he’s actually serious about retiring, or threatening it at least, or serious about being lonely, or whether this is a gigantic
fuck you
to the press after five years of silence, just because it’s a game for him.

I don’t doubt he’s capable of that. The first interview in five years just to throw people a hooky ball. Bad boys don’t change, I’m old enough and wise enough to know that. Leopards don’t change their spots, and Rhinos don’t lose their horns, unless someone comes along and saws them off.

My room is bigger than my apartment. It has a wall of glass that gives a panoramic view of the sea, a retractable roof, a bathroom with a bath big enough to swim in, a bed that I don’t want to get up from, and a piece of artwork hanging on the wall I think is an original Picasso.

I get the tour. Bedrooms after bedrooms, none of which look like they’ve ever been used, bathrooms, reception rooms, kitchen, cinema, swimming pool, gym, terrace and patio, the works. The works +1 actually. I’ve never seen anything like it.

Alex shows me his room too, just so I know where to come if I want to find him. I’m momentarily surprised to see it clean and ordered, but then realize there must be a team of waiting staff to fulfill his every desire. I expect he has a legion of women at his disposal whenever he feels a little horny too.

The whole building sits in a complex with landscaped gardens, Alex suggests we explore over the coming days, on a rock that is big enough to not be able to see from one side to the other. I am casually informed there are beaches that disappear gradually into clear blue water and the fact that I haven’t brought my bathing costume is not a cause for concern. I assure Alex that skinny dipping is definitely not on the cards, and he gives me that
we’ll see
look he pulls off so well.

I shower, and then I get in the bath as well, just because I can’t resist it. It’s been a  long day already and having the warm water soak into my skin feels every bit as luxurious as it sounds.

Here, as I begin to relax into the heat of the water, I start to think about my interviewee.  

Alex Vann Haden. The Rhino. The meathead, star athlete asshole. It would be a shame for the world of sport if he retired, even for those who openly hate him. Maybe the key is finding a balance. Maybe what Alex really needs to do is stop being such a dick and hope the world embraces him. Bad boys are fine. We need bad boys. I love bad boys. Assholes are not. Nobody needs arrogant alpha holes in their life, not even lonely reporters who might struggle with their advances. You know, if they were, in the unlikeliest of all scenarios, to make advances upon them.

Maybe he just needs someone serious to keep him on the straight and narrow. Sex is one thing, a relationship is another, and this girl does not suffer fools gladly, no matter how thick their arms are, how sexy their eyes, how cute their bum or how big and hard and insistent their horns.