Lainey’s List Chapter 5
Present Day
Nick
“Hey Lainey!” I grin at the gorgeous brunette who is currently sweeping her way around Stacks, a dingy, hole in the wall bar, that serves a mix of crusty old locals and employees of the business next door, which just so happens to be the Mustangs’ training facility.
She grunts a bare acknowledgment to my cheery hello and continues to clean. I try not to take it personally when the team nutritionist arrives and Lainey practically trips over her feet to get the woman a glass of water, an iced tea, and hands her a menu. Four seats down at the bar, I sit empty handed.
My friend, Charlotte, appears out of the back. “Oh Nick, I didn’t realize you were coming in today.” She shoots a guilty look in Lainey’s direction before coming over and giving me a hug.
“Wanted to see how you were doing.” I hug her back. Charlie got sick when she was a teen and every hug with her is still precious to me. We almost lost her and frankly, I still don’t think she’s entirely back; although, I could blame some of that on my stupid brother whose head is so far up his ass, it’s a miracle he can walk upright.
“I’m fine.” She wrinkles her nose. “I thought you had extra meetings today?“
“With a welcome like that, I don’t know why I would stay away,” I reply sarcastically. Between her words and Lainey’s cold shoulder, I’m beginning to question why I did stop in before going back to the condo.
“Oh stop,” Charlie scolds. She eases out of my grip and rounds the bar. “What do you want with your beer?”
“Whatever is good.” Charlie’s an old friend and knows me better than anyone. Plus, there’s a secret to Stacks. Despite the rundown outer appearance, the bar boasts one of the best fry cooks in the state. And ever since Charlie took over running this place, they’ve been buying meat that has been barbecued for twenty-four hours from some specialty place west of the city.
That’s Charlie’s skill — finding things no one else knows about that are going to rock your world.
She even, inadvertently, did that with Lainey. When Charlotte first told me to come to this bar, I know it was because she thought it would be a great place to unwind, close to both the training facility of the Mustangs and my new condo. As a late third round draft pick, I had a lot to prove, including that I deserved a spot on the roster.
But it’s not a relaxing place at all and the source of my tension is currently wiping down tables.
“We have cranberry beef brisket, hand cut fries, and some special zesty ketchup. How’s that sound?” Charlie sets a cold draft on a napkin.
“Sounds great.” Charlie’s eyes darken with worry over my unenthusiastic tone. The last thing Charlie needs is for me adding to her list of things to stress about. I quickly smile. “Was just thinking about practice today. Didn’t get the ball out of my hands as fast as I’d like on some plays.”
The concern in her eyes is immediately replaced by warm affection. She reaches over the bar and squeezes my forearm. “What you’re saying is that instead of releasing the ball in three seconds, it took you three point two seconds?”
“Something like that.” I actually performed like a machine in practice today. The rookies stood around in open-mouthed amazement while the veterans slapped each other on the back and whispered words like repeat and MVP. It’s the second day of camp, which means none of those words have meaning. They won’t have meaning for me until maybe week thirteen of our seventeen week season.
Lainey continues to ignore me while Charlie does her best to make me comfortable. But I never get comfortable around Lainey. Something about her hits me right in the gut, and it’s been that way from the moment I laid eyes on her.
At first, I figured it was a healthy dose of lust. Lainey is a beautiful woman — caramel toned skin, darkened from either the sun or her genes, or both. She has a lush head of brown hair, rich like the mahogany of the bar here at Stack. Full lips set in an oval face with mysterious brown eyes top curves that are bodacious enough to generate song lyrics.
My immediate thought was if we had sex, all my uncomfortable feelings around Lainey would go away. Maybe that’s still true. I wouldn’t know. There’s no one more resistant to my charm than she is.
When I was drafted by the Mustangs, Charlie came down to Dallas with me. She was in charge of finding me an apartment, getting me settled in, and making sure I didn’t screw up my rookie season.
Somehow, she got wind of this place — a local hangout that was free of the press, groupies, and filled with good food. The only downside was the owner was an asshat who treated his employees like dirt.
Lainey was one of those employees. A single mother working two jobs to pay for daycare for her kid she barely got to see, she had to take whatever Simon Cronett dished out in the backrooms on top of any flack from the customers.
Cronett nearly fired her once because Lainey had to leave early to attend to her sick kid. He followed through on his threat after Lainey and Charlotte got into it with a customer for groping Lainey.
For three months, Lainey was in the wind. Charlie and I both searched for her, but I was in the middle of my first year as starting quarterback for the Mustangs and Charlie was new to a city of over a million people. We didn’t see Lainey again until after the season.
I don’t know what happened to Lainey during those months. Charlie never told me but I guessed it wasn’t good. Charlie and I bought the bar from Cronett with the promise that he’d leave Dallas.
Somehow Charlie lured Lainey back by issuing a paycheck and sending it to all the addresses on Lainey’s employment application. Lainey showed up to collect and Charlie convinced her to come back and help manage the bar.
But no matter how many smiles I sent Lainey’s way, I only received stony glares in return. It’s like I killed her puppy — or hit her kid. I haven’t done either.
Lainey doesn’t own a puppy and I fucking adore Cassidy, her daughter. But whatever the problem is, Lainey has refused to share it with me for the past three years.
“Here you go, Nick.” Charlotte interrupts my self-pitying train of thought. I give her a grateful look.
“Looks great.” And it does. The heaping mound of brisket smells amazing and after the workout this morning, I feel like I could eat about ten of these. I dig in.
“Was practice good this morning?” Charlie doesn’t care that I can’t answer because my mouth is full of tongue-melting brisket. She probably prefers it that way. “Do you have anything going on tonight?”
I shake my head no. “No guys coming over? No girls? Good,” she replies. “Because you’re on babysitting duty.”
She picks up her purse and slaps me hard on the back as she passes by me. The quarter pound of meat I just inhaled stays stuck in the back of my throat.
I finally swallow it but not until after Charlie exits Stacks. At the other end of the bar, I see Lainey’s mouth set in an unhappy line.
“This wasn’t my idea,” I tell her.
“I know,” she responds sourly. “But I have to go to Houston for the afternoon to pick up something for one of your teammates, and Charlie’s driving to San Antonio to meet with a potential client. One of the Spurs is thinking about buying a home in Italy and wants Charlie to help him pick it out.”
Charlie doesn’t really work at the bar, although she fills in from time to time. Her real job is moving athletes. Lainey started helping Charlie this year and both of them are running a little ragged.
When a trade happens, Charlie’s the advance team to help the families settle in. It started with me and word spread like wildfire about my fixer — the person in my life that made it possible for me to focus solely on football
It’s how I was able to step into the starting quarterback position when the Mustangs’ number one guy went down with a torn Achilles. I slung my way into a record setting rookie year and haven’t looked back.
Chip, the guy I replaced, retired and became the quarterback coach. I admire the guy. Ten years in the league and no rings but he’s a hell of a coach; though kind of a dickhead human being. If I had to coach the kid who replaced me on the football field, I’d be pissed off too. So I shrug off his sly digs and focus on his good advice, which he can’t seem to help but give, even if he resents me.
“What time do you want me to pick up Cassidy?” I finish the rest of my sandwich but loiter over the beer. I shouldn’t gulp that down too, right? I mean, it’d be bad for my digestive system. It has nothing to do with the fact that even though Lainey hates my guts for some unknown reason, I still get a contact high from being near her.
“In an hour,” she says ungratefully and then, as if realizing she’s kinda being a bitch when I’m doing her a favor, she comes over and replaces my warm beer with a new cold one. “And thank you. I appreciate it.”
“No problem. I love Cassidy.”
“She loves you too,” Lainey says reluctantly.
“It killed you to admit that, didn’t it?” I ask, because apparently I like to live dangerously.
“Not really. Cassidy likes Hitler too. She thinks his mustache is neat.”
“That’s not Cassidy liking Hitler,” I protest in defense of my number one girl. “That’s a five year old laughing at a weak attempt at a pornstache.”
“Pornstache? Calling the Hitler lip hair a pornstache is an insult to 80’s porn stars everywhere. Along with Erik Estrada.” Lainey wipes her brow as if the thought of the actor still turns her on.
“Erik Estrada never had a ‘stache,” I grumble. “Plus I didn’t know you were into geriatrics.”
“Silver foxes are in right now.” Lainey sticks her nose in the air. “Did you see the guy that Sandra Bullock is dating? Hotter than ninety-nine percent of the guys younger than him.”
“Amen, sister,” Connie Miller, the nutritionist, shouts from her end of the bar. Lainey abandons me to go down and exchange a high five. I make a mental note to google silver foxes and Sandra Bullock later. Just out of curiosity, I want to know what cranks Lainey’s engine, because it’s not football players.
Despite Stacks being a second home to many of the players, she’s not taken one of them up on their offers. And there have been a legion, much to my annoyance.
In my rookie year, there were rumors that Lainey was a groupie who was interested in hitching her wagon to a football player contract but in the three years I’ve known her, she hasn’t slept with one of the Mustangs. We’d all know if she had.
In the locker room, you’re not supposed to talk about religion, politics, or money. A bad stock tip from one guy to another can put a real crimp in team unity. But who you sleep with is a constant source of heckling, particularly when it comes to the women who have more desire for the amount of your contract than the stuff in your shorts.
“Silver foxes, huh?” I say when she returns to bus my plate. “Thought you didn’t believe in dating.”
Lainey gives a small shrug. “I don’t know. I’m re-evaluating things. Cassidy could use a dad and frankly, I could use a man. Want a water or Coke for the road?”
“Since when?”
“Since when what? We started serving Coke when Charlotte took over the bar.” She gives me a syrupy fake smile. “But then you’re never good at remembering anything, are you?”
Lainey’s always making digs at my memory. Miss one birthday part ever and apparently I’m suffering early onset of Alzheimer’s. “No, since when do you need a man?”
“I don’t need one,” she sighs with exaggerated impatience. “I want one, and it’s been a long time since I’ve had one.”
“How long?” I ask, as if it’s any of my business.
“Years.”
“Honey, if you’re serious, my brother’s best friend is a trainer over at Planet Fitness. Sweet as pie and good looking to boot,” Connie offers.
“You can’t go out with a stranger,” I object. If Lainey’s interested in dating, then she should look closer to home. Like the guy sitting right in front of her, whose been panting after her for three years, not some random guy. “We don’t know anything about him. Fuck, he could be a murderer for all we know.”
“He is not!” Connie exclaims indignantly. “He’s super nice.”
“Then why aren’t you dating him?” I shoot back.
“Nick!” Lainey scolds. “It’s Connie’s brother’s friend. He’s not a murderer. They aren’t going to hire a felon to train people at a gym.”
“He could be hiding it,” I mumble under my voice. To Lainey and Connie, I say, “Dating a personal trainer is a big mistake. He’s only going to want to date women who are super fit and work out all the time.”
The words come out before I can stop them. Connie sucks in a breath and Lainey looks like I kicked her in the teeth.
“So what you’re saying is I’m too fat and ugly for this guy?” She rips the bottle of beer out of my hand and tosses it into the sink behind her. “Give me the number, Connie. I’ll call him.”
Did I say I had charm? I must have been sacked one too many times last season.
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