Chapter 19: Thad

Chapter 19

Thad

As winter turns to spring and I sink into my role further at King Sports, I take notice of the full-fledged agents I’m shadowing. I proof their reports and contracts, fetch their coffee, and observe how they are with their clients. Nearly all of them adjust their persona, or tact, to suit each need of that specific client.

Damon says that I must have an old-school technique because of how I treated Kelley, but I’m learning that if I want to be successful in this industry, I’m going to need to set my personal opinions aside and be a chameleon. Like Damon said, I will find plenty of clients who will like my way, but there will be those who don’t fit. And if I can’t budge or adapt even at all? My pool of possible clients becomes smaller than those who can adapt.

Like Brady.

We’re both still interns and will be for a few more months until summer’s here, and that’s when we’re supposed to find out if we’re good enough to become junior agents or not. He’s a shoo-in, not only because he’s the boss’s nephew but because he’s already scored himself two clients.

He reps a practice-squad quarterback for Chicago and Kelley.

I wish I could say I’m happy about our talk and that I felt good leaving things the way we did, but I don’t. Not because those things aren’t true, but because the second we decided not to take things further, he shows up to a fundraising event that very night with some guy on his arm. And not any random guy but a recently out NASCAR driver who’s small and petite and as pretty as a fucking flower. And okay, maybe he wasn’t super small, but he was compared to me. Next to Kelley in the press photos for the event, they actually looked really good next to one another.

They fit.

Stupid good-looking motherfuckers finding each other.

I’m not bitter about it at all. I have wondered—ever since the event happened—if he already had that date planned and was testing the waters with me to see if I’d be pissed. Even if we spent two weeks together and shared orgasms, I wouldn’t have the right to be pissed. It’s not like he could’ve asked me to the event, but if we had agreed to see each other again, would he have taken Jeremiah Castleberry as his date?

What kind of name is Jeremiah Castleberry anyway? Probably a redneck from a hick state, and—I cut myself off from thinking derogatory things about someone because of their name. I, of all people, know names don’t mean shit when it comes to social status.

It’s possible I’m a wee bit jealous.

A little.

Okay, a lot.

Even if I have no right to be.

Maybe I wouldn’t be so pissy if I’d at least heard from him since then, but I haven’t. Not even a text. I’d contemplated sending him a message to wish him luck at spring training, but then I got in my head about Jeremiah seeing it and asking questions, which led to me imagining them in bed together and waking up to a stupid text about spring training and them laughing at how pathetic I am, and goddamn it. Is catastrophizing everything contagious? Is this what it’s like to be in Kelley’s head twenty-four seven?

It’s no longer a mystery why he has issues.

It’s not like I’ve seen any other photos of him with Jeremiah, but that doesn’t mean anything. Jeremiah is on the NASCAR circuit, and Kelley’s been at spring training. They probably haven’t had the chance to see each other again.

Yet, I can’t help picturing Jeremiah giving Kelley the same sense of freedom that he had with me and Kelley forgetting all about our time together. Did I lower his walls for every man, or does he reserve that for me?

This revolving thought process has been on a loop for months, and when it all started to fade away and I’ve been super focused on work, my calendar this morning went and screwed it all up. Because there on my schedule is time set aside for a meeting today. With Kelley Afton.

It’s the thing that has made all these thoughts come flooding back and how this whole cycle has started again. My heart flip-flops all over the place.

I want to see him. We agreed not to do that though. But what I wouldn’t give to run my hand through his dark hair again. See him naked. Do things we promised we wouldn’t. Things he probably can’t do if he’s dating someone.

I need off this hamster wheel.

When Brady arrives and dumps his backpack on his desk next to mine in the bullpen, I wheel my chair closer to his cubicle.

“Dude. Why am I in on this Kelley Afton meeting? Aren’t you and Merek his co-agent or whatever you are?”

“You’re sitting in on it?” Brady fires up his computer and logs in, receiving all his calendar events for the day. He has a lot more than I do. Sometimes I’m envious of him and how far he’s already gotten as an intern, but I have to remember he’s worked summers here every year since he was a freshman in college. Hell, he probably did some summers in high school too. It would be easy for people to look from the outside and say he’s a nepo baby and is only as far into his career already because of who his uncle is or who his dads are, but I’ve seen the work he puts into this place, and I’ve seen how Damon treats him. Sure, they have this casual uncle/nephew banter and teasing that would in no way be appropriate for other employees to have with Damon, but I’ve also seen how hard Damon can be on Brady. Brady is his protégé, and he will take over this company at some point in his life. Brady needs to be perfect.

And fuck that kind of pressure .

“Hmm. I bet Damon wants to teach you some sort of lesson.”

I cock my head. “Lesson?” I’m suddenly worried that Brady heard me jump out that window all those months ago, that he has known the entire time Kelley and I hooked up, told Damon, and today will be my?—

Wait, that doesn’t make sense. Why would Damon string me along like that? The second he found out I screwed a client, I’d be out on my ass.

I’m beginning to think I really have caught overthinking from Kelley. The little voice inside my head saying it’s more likely that I realize I don’t want to screw up the good opportunity I have at King Sports and I actually want it—not just need it—is too rational to me.

“Maybe Kelley told him you were a dick to him for the first few days of the babysitting adventure, and he wants you to personally witness how the professionals do it.”

“Kelley did tell him I gave him the tough-love treatment.”

Brady snorts. “Man, did he tone that down for you, but I guess you must’ve done something right for him to refrain from telling Damon you basically called him an egotistical diva.”

So yeah. I never told anyone about the bonus, and obviously, neither did Damon, and I can see why he’d keep it secret, but I don’t know why I did. Other than it feeling a hell of a lot like prostitution.

“Just sit in the meeting, smile, nod, and look pretty. I’m assuming you’re there to observe only,” Brady instructs.

Observe. Like I’ll be able to do anything else in Kelley’s presence.

The thought alone of seeing him walk through those doors makes me jittery. No matter how many times I tell myself that nothing has changed between us, I left him with an open-ended invitation to message me if things got too much, and he hasn’t.

So unless my cock really did cure him of mental illness—something I know can’t be done—it means he chose not to come to me when he became panicky .

I need to deal with that. And fast. Because Kelley will be here any minute.

I’m too anxious to remain seated; my knee is bouncing all over the place.

“Why do you look nervous?” Brady asks. “Aww, is wittle Thad scared the big bad Kewwey is going to be a tattletale to Daddy Damon?” He screws up his face. “Eww. I can’t believe I just called my uncle Daddy Damon. Excuse me while I go pour bleach in my mouth so I can never say it again.”

I stand. “While you go take care of that, I’m going to make coffee.” Okay, coffee and then thinking like an agent. Wait … “Do I make one for everyone? So you, Damon, Merek, me, Kelley? Or will Damon not be there?”

Brady clicks his schedule to enlarge the full details again. “It doesn’t say if he’ll be in there or not, so make him one anyway. I’ll take one for the team and double fist both coffees if I have to.”

There’s a joke in there about him being good at double fisting, but things have been quiet when it comes to Brady and those two guys. He never talks about his private life, and I get it. I do wish there was a way I could tell him I was cool with whatever that was and that he doesn’t have to hide it from me.

Then again, it’s not as if I’m confiding in him about Kelley. So that makes us even.

I make the coffees from the espresso machine in the break room. When I started, I barely knew how to make coffee using a coffeepot. Now, after almost a year of fetching coffees for senior agents, I’m a real barista.

Hey, maybe barista can be my backup plan to my backup plan. Sure, my parents will probably lose their house, and I’ll be stuck with four roommates forever, even when I’m sixty when all my friends have their own houses and successes, leaving me with the only option but to be that creepy sixty-year-old who lives with college kids.

Okay, I’m spiraling again.

Shake it off, St. James. You can face him. You can be suave and cool and casual. You have not been thinking about him for months. You have not been obsessing over what he’s up to, who he’s with, and if they can fuck him the way I did.

Not. At. All.

As I finish up the coffees, the elevator to the floor dings, echoing in my ears, and even though it could be anyone, it’s as if my body knows it’s him. My gut swoops, and my hands shake as I wipe down the espresso machine.

Then, I do as I was taught by my many coaches and my dad over the years: shake off all the bullshit and get my head in the game.

I put the five coffees on a tray and head for the conference room, trailing Brady and Merek, who greeted Kelley at reception and ushered him in the right direction. Damon isn’t with them, and because Kelley is kind of in between Brady and Merek, I can’t see him properly.

I can see his smile as he turns his head to the side, that gorgeously tanned skin, and the single diamond stud in his ear. He throws his head back and laughs as Brady says something, and I could be reading into everything because fuck knows I’ve been doing that a lot lately, but he seems at ease. Relaxed.

He’s a completely different guy than the one who was freaking out in the Catskills in the middle of the snow.

It’s not until we’re inside the conference room and they’re all taking a seat that I get a good look at him. His hair has been shaved close to his skin on the sides with it longer on top. Not a lot. Not even enough to need styling product. His scruff is extra sexy, all dark and … Ugh. Nope. Not going to check him out.

I have a job to do.

I place the tray of coffee on a sideboard and pick up Kelley’s to give our guest the first cup. But as I walk toward him, it’s like one of those slow-motion scenes in a movie. Not the ones where two long-lost lovers run toward each other, but more in the something is about to go terribly wrong and you know it’s going to end in embarrassment kind of way. Because while I’m focused on Kelley and the way his face lights up as he sees me, I’m not so focused on my feet.

I have to say, for an ex-baseball player, I’m not as quick on the reflexes as I once was. So when I trip over the leg of Brady’s chair and crash to the ground, it’s not only embarrassing for me but for the person I spilled hot coffee all over.

And yup, of course it had to be Kelley.

My future as an agent and possibly a barista has come to a crashing end.