Linebacker's Second Chance (Bad Boy Ballers) by Imani King Page A

patching up another one again. So I go back to pacing and wonder if it’s too early for a beer. Then the ache comes back over me—the one I feel when I think of that night a week ago when Renata found me, nearly passed out, after I’d given out all that free information to the girl with the camera. The camera that I never saw—I wasn’t thinking about what could happen at that party. I wasn’t thinking. And now it’s come to this.  
    “You agreed to all of this. I watched you sit there and nod at Renata before she retreated back to the guest house and refused to see you again. She’s interviewed each and every one of those women. And then you picked one from the line-up, just like she wanted you to. You can’t come up to this dinner party thing and get second thoughts.”
    He’s right. The photographer somehow leaked a few photos from the party even though we got her camera and her phone. Wingate thinks she paid someone who was at the party for a few of their pictures and got the story out anyway. Fortunately, it hasn’t been enough ammunition for the field day the media really wants to have, but it’s more than enough for there to be intense speculation about the parties, my use of alcohol, and the idea that I might be failing the team and its owner.  
    Rumors are circling, and Renata and Wingate are right. There’s only one way to deal with the media: give them another distraction.  
    Still, I can’t help feeling like this is all wrong. Seeing Renata the few times that I’ve been able to—stolen glimpses and hasty conversations before she puts as much physical distance between herself and me as possible—reminds me that there’s something more to life than parties and dimly remembered hookups. And it seems that there’s something far more than pulling a fast one on my team—and every news outlet that’s been following my story—with a stand-in girlfriend who becomes a stand-in fiancée at some nebulous point in the future.  
    “It’s not—this isn’t right. It doesn’t seem like something I should do.” I crack my knuckles and sit down on the bed in front of my cousin.  
    He regards me with something akin to disdain. “You can’t afford to have second thoughts. Let me reiterate. You agreed to this. You took the profiles and picked out the candidate. You talked to her on Skype and said she seemed—in your words—‘real nice.’ And she’s coming here tonight for a high-class dinner that can be effectively documented by a photographer of our choice. It puts the ball back in our court—or on our field, what the hell ever. It gives us back the power, and that way, we can help mold the public perception of you—and your fellow players while we’re at it. Instead of thinking we’re some lazy podunk joint down in the Carolinas, they’ll start to see more of what we can be.” Wingate leans back on the sofa that faces the bed and then looks out of the window that faces the pool.  
    It’s a bad reminder of all the shit I’ve pulled, a reminder that I might be able to do better.  
    The late-night parties that made me and my teammates late to practice. The several eighteen year-old girls I was dating at the same time, the ones who probably caught Eddie Davidson’s eye and made him know for sure that I was no damn good. Why does Renata being here make me feel like this? All reflective and shit? Good God, that woman. That stare of hers, cutting me down to the bone and making me realize things I haven’t figured out in six years of playing professional football.
    I crack my knuckles again and think of Renata, the last time I saw her at Brooks University. I didn’t know I’d never see her again, didn’t know that all the shit that happened would happen. I’ve wished a million times that I could go back in time, start all over again.
    But I can’t. And now we’re stuck here. I’m waiting for my fake girlfriend to show up, to start a relationship with someone I don’t know for the