Chapter Nine

Blake

" Y 'all have got to be nice to me this week."

My sister-in-law, CeCe, gives me a cheeky grin from her chair at the desk in the little studio set up on the back of their property. "I don't have to be nice to you. That isn't what's in your contract."

"Joke's on you. I don't have a contract to be on this show—I just do it because I happen to like spending time with family." I point my finger at her and stretch my neck around as I look down at her.

"You love the attention. Don't even deny it."

She's right—I do. The comments on the show's YouTube page—the show is taped too—are typically about how hot I am. I'm enough of a narcissist to admit I enjoy the attention. "Okay, okay, I do enjoy it. There's nothing wrong with that. I just like that I don't have to do this every week. I don't think I'd enjoy it then."

"Yeah," Bret, my brother, groans. "Sometimes it's a pain in the ass, especially when you just wanna hang out with the kids, or go have lunch, and you know you have this hanging over your head."

CeCe knocks him in the shoulder. "You enjoy it too. Don't act like you don't I'll be right back, I need to get some water."

"It's my retirement fund." He shrugs.

I laugh. "What are you talking about?"

"Dude, the ad revenue we get for this is insane." He whistles. "Like, for real, it's obviously not going to rival my contract, but there's so many people in this industry who have to worry about how they're going to feed their families once they retire. Thanks to this, I'm not going to have to do that. It's a blessing in disguise really."

"I hope like fuck you've made investments, too." I sink down into the back swivel chair in front of the silver mic CeCe has set up.

"I mean, I have, but you know as well as I do that there is a chance your investments aren't going to last as long as your life. I'm retiring soon, Blake. I know you don't like to think about it, but my position is more physical than yours and it's hard. My body hurts a lot—more and more every single day." Bret runs a hand through his hair and sinks back against his swivel chair. "I have a kid to raise, and I can't do that without being on the floor with her as she grows up. You know how I am. I want to be a hands-on dad—the same kind we had. I can't do that if I can't get down there, and then can't get back up. We're talking quality of life, Blake. That's what I'm thinking about now."

I hate to hear him say these things, hate to think about the day when I won't be playing professional ball with my brother. We've always been on the same team as long as we've been playing college and pro ball. "I get that." But it still fucking hurts.

"Okay." CeCe claps her hands as she comes back in. "We're ready to go. We're going live on three, two…" She mouths one as the camera light flips to show that it's on and recording.

"Welcome to The Fields," Bret says, "where my lovely wife and I take you into the lives of a married couple navigating the world of professional football every week. I hope everyone had a good one."

"I did," CeCe grins. "I was out of the house with a few friends on a girls' trip."

"That you were, but not us, were we Blake?"

The way this motherfucker is grinning makes me shake my head. "No we weren't, but you know that."

"What'd you do?""Played fucking football. What do you think I did?"

"That's not all." CeCe grins. "I saw pictures and videos on social media. Looks like you and Russell had an interesting night last night." She sticks her tongue out and wrinkles her nose. "I'm officially jealous anyway."

"I might have gone to a concert."

While looking at one another, the married couple says in unison, "Oh, he might have gone to a concert?"

"Y'all are disgusting the way you can say words at the same time, in the same tone, with that look on your face. If you wanted to just bag on me, we could've done that without me coming on the show."

"But our ratings will be sky-high." Bret laughs. "So let's talk about the concert you went to. Did you go with anyone? To see anyone, maybe?"

"I went with Russell—I think we all know that." I try to play it off, running a hand over my jaw.

"We do, but the people watching and listening want to know how you spent the day after the Tampa game."

I'm not going to be able to get out of this, so I sigh and just get it over with. "I went to the Willa concert."

"Oh, do tell how that happened." Bret smacks his hands and then rubs them together. "Last we heard from you, you were bitching because you weren't able to meet her and give her your number during her tour stop in Nashville. Obviously something happened."

Shit. He's not going to let me get out of this at all. "A friend of a friend heard we both wanted to meet—not just me, thank you very much. Numbers were exchanged, and we've been talking for a little bit. She happened to be in Tampa when we were, so I got approved to stay after the game. Wasn't a huge deal—just wanted to spend some time together." My face is fucking hot. I haven't been this embarrassed in a while. In my pocket, my phone goes off. It's at that moment, I remember this is a live stream. I reach into my jeans, palming my phone, and I put it on the table. It's a text from Willa. The smile on my face is wider than I probably even think it is.

W: You're embarrassed to tell people you were with me, huh?

"Look at him typing on his phone." CeCe pokes fun. "Probably talking to her now."

I wave her off, and continue.

B: Not at all, but he's my older brother, and since you're an older sibling, you know how he likes to give me shit. He's doing this because he's a dick, but I'm being vague because we also never truly discussed how we wanted to approach this. I want to be respectful of you.

W: I'm down for whatever you want, Blake. If you want to tell everybody we were together, then do it. If you wanna tell people what you think about me, do it. I'm sick of hiding, and I refuse to do it again.

With a big smile on my face, I drop the phone. "She and I hung out, and she invited me to her show."

"What did you think about it?" CeCe asks. "I really wanna see it. I'm bummed I didn't get to go here in Nashville, since we were all here the same night."

"She's a fucking athlete. I don't know of many professional football players who could do what she did. She's singing and dancing, playing not only instruments, but to the crowd. She is present and in the moment. She wants the fans to have an experience—I witnessed it firsthand. It was overwhelming for me being in the audience—I can't imagine how it is for her being on stage. Like, we get little bursts of adrenaline, and she gets almost four hours of it at a time. It's a lot. It was nice to see how someone else works. I had a great time. I'd love to go again."

Bret puts his arm around his wife. "Good. You can take CeCe then. That way I don't have to."

CeCe pushes against his side. "You should want to take me out on dates, sir."

They're still play-arguing, but all I can do is roll my eyes. As annoying as they can be sometimes, I want that type of relationship, and there's something about Willa that makes me think I can have it.