55

Adam

Two Things In Common

The ties in Ryan's closet weren't exactly what I needed. I had to raid King's before I found the right one. No ready-to-made suit, no clip-on tie, no sneakers. I brought out my dark blue custom suit for a canceled banquet last year and mentally thanked Coach Lawson for forcing us to learn how to tie ties. I looked presentable as hell.

"Here we go," I muttered, pulling open the door to Gianna's .

The place was packed. It was parents' weekend, I wasn't sure what I'd been expecting. Usually during those weekends, I just partied off-campus. This was my first one staying at Marrs. Every table was crammed full of loud families. I scanned the restaurant when a voice interrupted me.

"Did you call for—oh. Adam." Sloane smiled at me, wearing a black turtleneck. "Your table's right over here."

I nodded, still searching overhead. "Hey, Sloane. Don't worry, if Elijah comes, I'm here to kick him out."

Sloane mumbled something under her breath and brought me to one of the tables by the window. It was in full view of everybody else, just how they wanted it, but I stopped by the chair when I spotted what I'd been looking for.

Those are definitely Piper's parents .

I grabbed Sloane's attention and told her I'd hang out by the bar till the interviewer showed up. It was just an excuse. I couldn't give less of a shit about the interview. It wasn't like it was a professional one. My interview was with the newspaper at Marrs. Student-run.

On the scale of important shit, it was dead last.

Making a good impression on Piper's parents though was at the top.

Adjusting my suit, I took a casual stroll to their table.

"Hey." I grinned at both of them. "I'm Adam."

Piper's mom gave me a quick glance. "Oh, we're already being served. Thank you though."

What the hell?

I paused for a moment, completely taken aback.

Does she think I'm a waiter?

Clearly, they didn't recognize me yet. But they would know the name.

"No, I'm Adam Russell." I was careful to keep my voice quiet, there were already families glancing up at their tables to look at me, I didn't need a swarm for autographs when people built the courage to walk up to me. "Here for an interview. Just wanted to know if you two wanted an autograph. Or a picture? Big Romans fans?"

Piper's parents stared blankly at me.

Nothing.

Nobody had ever looked as confused as the middle age couple from Oklahoma.

" Adam? " a familiar voice squeaked. Piper hurried up to the table in disbelief. "What…what are you—?"

"Do you know this guy, kiddo?" her dad asked with a frown.

"Um…I…"

"Yeah, sure. Everybody knows me," I said. "I'm a professional linebacker."

Her mom raised an eyebrow. "A what?"

"Oh, dear, I think that's some kind of ROTC thing," Piper's dad muttered to his wife.

Piper glanced between us, shocked. "Dad, no…"

"A linebacker isn't an ROTC thing," I interjected. "It's for the Romans."

"That's the…hockey team, isn't it?" her mom asked. "Or is it golf?"

"It's the football team, dear," Piper's dad replied and turned back to face me. "Young man, we were just discussing this. Now—during the Hellenization period—Ares was referred to as Mars, as Romans adopted more of Greek culture, but why is the hockey team called the Gladiators? Gladiators might not have even originally developed during the Roman Empire, it depends on who you're discussing the theories with, between Ancient Campania and the Etruscan civilization."

"The what?" I asked. "The hellish what?"

I stood next to the table, rendered speechless. Not only did her parents have no idea who I was, they had no idea what I was. They didn't know anything about football. All I looked like was some guy coming up to bother the table. What the hell could I say to salvage it?

" Adam ." Piper caught my attention again, stunned. "What are you doing here?"

"Kiddo, who is this guy?" Her dad grimaced and dropped his voice to a whisper that still carried over. "Is he mentally unwell?"

Piper pinched the bridge of her nose. "Dad—oh my god—don't say that."

Holy shit. This couldn't get worse .

"No, I'm not mentally—uh—" I stopped myself. "Not that there's anything wrong with that—I used to have dyslexia. Or I still do. I don't know. I don't know if that's a…mental thing…maybe it's a physical—I don't know."

Fuck me. This is painful .

A tiny voice called out to me from the entrance of the restaurant. "Adam…Russell?"

That was my quick exit. My interviewer. But I still couldn't believe it. I just butchered my first and only chance to meet Piper's parents. Piper looked even more embarrassed than she did at the RA conference.

I didn't know what it was. Whenever it came to anything with Piper, I was off my game.

I clapped my hands together. "So, I've got this…thing. Have a great dinner."

Without a glance back, I walked over to the table that had my interviewer, and yanked out my chair, sitting down, muttering under my breath. I fucked the whole thing up.

Story of my fucking life.

"Hi." A mousy little girl gave me a wave. "I'm Tallulah."

And now I had the goddamn interview to deal with. I rubbed my jaw, trying to think of some excuse to get out of it. But if I left, Cleo would kill me. She'd already gone through the motions of rescheduling it. And I promised Ryan I wouldn't fuck up the public relations shit anymore.

Oh, fuck it. I'm ditching the interview.

"Hey, I know this is shit timing but…" I paused, glancing back at Piper's table. Ryan hadn't been the only one I'd promised.

Goddammit .

With a sigh, I settled in my chair. "Never mind."

I had to grit my teeth and get it over with. I'd done plenty of interviews with the school paper and they'd all been with one of the two regular writers, Melissa or something and someone else. Tallulah was new. I didn't know her.

It wasn't a bad thing, it just brought me off my game. And that was a regular for tonight apparently.

"What happened to…uh…?" I snapped my fingers. "Melissa and—?"

"Melody and Bristol?" Tallulah offered. "You rescheduled. Neither of them were able to make it." She shifted uncomfortably and brought out a thick, green notebook with five questions written on the paper.

Five questions?

I glanced back at Piper's table. They were in deep conversation. I grimaced and returned to the interview.

"So…um…what do you hope to…do here?" Tallulah asked, barely able to rise above a mumble.

"Do?" I frowned. "With what? The interview or football?"

"Uh…yes."

"Yes? Well…I've been on the team for almost three years…"

"I'm sorry," she hurried to say. "This is my first real interview. I haven't ever met an actual D1 athlete like this before. I'm so nervous." Tallulah took a deep breath and clutched her notebook. "I think they're doing this because I botched the car crash story. They told me that you wouldn't care if I didn't have big boobs. I tried putting toilet paper in my shirt—"

I stared at her, dumbfounded. "They said what? "

"My editor told me that's why they always schedule you with Melody and Bristol, it's the only way to keep your attention. Otherwise, you just zone out. But—I really want this to work. I'm sorry . The toilet paper fell out!"

What the fuck?

All the embarrassment I felt earlier was gone, replaced with irritation. What did the newspaper staff get by scaring freshmen writers?

I didn't demand any of my interviewers to have big tits. That was fucking ridiculous. But the longer I sat there, the more I thought about the last thirty or so interviews before we won the Birchwood Bowl last semester. All those girls definitely had two things in common.

Holy shit .

Was that how people saw me? Was that how my team saw me?

Is that how Piper sees me?

I sat up in my seat and tapped the notebook. "Pull out your phone."

"My—my phone—?"

"Yeah. You need to record this, that's the first step. You don't want to miss anything." I brought out my phone too and started pulling up the stats from the Birchwood Bowl and the highlights from spring training. "We're going to talk about Coach Lawson's tenure here, we're going to talk about the punch at last year's KYU game, how our sponsorships are doing, and what I think about the draft."

Tallulah blinked at me.

"Pull up your recording app," I urged her. "Let's go, we're doing an interview."

"Um…okay." Tallulah placed her phone on the table, but I stopped her from pressing play.

"I'll write down the questions, you ask them. If I need you to prompt me with something else, I'll type it on my phone and you say it. We're going to show these fuckheads up, okay? This is going to be a great interview."

Tallulah was quiet.

"Are you ready? Is there something you want to ask that gets good traction?"

She hesitated between scribbling notes. "Um…you're…not like how they said you are."

My eyes flickered back to Piper, sitting at the table, with her blonde hair swept over her shoulders. A wide smile played on her lips. The moment I left, they were having a good time.

But Piper had to deal with this interview and I knew she'd ask me about it. I'd make sure it was a good one for her.

"I've had a pretty good teacher," I said softly.

"Could I…uh…ask you about the RA you're working with?" Tallulah chewed her lip. "Those articles get like…the best click rate…but if you don't want to—that's okay—"

"No, we can talk about her," I said with the first real grin of the evening. "I'm always down to talk about my babysitter."