Imaginary Lines (18 page)

“And you?”

“I listen to ‘We Are the Champions.’” He pointed his finger in my face. “Don’t laugh.”

“I’m not laughing. What else?”

He shrugged and rattled off a few other funny traditions, but only one made me stop taking notes. “And Krasner gets written up by the uniform police.”

I tilted my head. “Hm?”

He shrugged. “You know, the officials who patrol the sideline making sure we’re all dressed the same. Fuckin’ Nazis.” He looked embarrassed. “Sorry.”

I knew who the uniform police were. Players could get fined for having the wrong socks or any brand advertised that wasn’t the NFL’s official sponsor. If players wore a college cap instead of an NFL-approved one, they were out the equivalent of a semester’s tuition. “Why’s he get written up?”

TJ shrugged again. “He wears a bracelet.”

Funny sparks lit up the back of my neck. “Where from?”

“Dunno.”

He’d mentioned that before. A bracelet. He said he kissed it before the game.

That was so unlike him.

I cleared my mind and smiled at TJ. “Cool. Hey, so I noticed you wear a Loft 2530 helmet. Why’s that?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know, been wearing one since college.”

“Yeah? You remember who started you on it?”

“I think my coach?”

From behind me, a voice like polished wood sounded. “You’re not still going on about helmets, are you?”

Tingles shot straight through me, and my stomach clenched in anticipation. I was both absolutely terrified and absolutely delighted to see Abe again, and I held my breath as I turned to include him in my view. “Hi.”

But instead of smiling, he wore a slight frown on his face and a crease between his brows. “TJ, beat it.”

TJ, for whatever reason, bought it and left.

My mouth actually fell open as I watched him go, and then I swung around to face Abraham. “Abraham! I was talking to him.”

He rubbed his jaw. “I don’t suppose you’ll just drop the Loft stuff?”

“And you realize you just made me fifty times more interested by saying that?”

He shrugged. “I just don’t think that’s a story.”

“Abe—you haven’t forgotten I’m a reporter, right? You can’t keep interrupting me.”

“Maybe I’m trying to keep you safe.”

“Maybe that’s not your job.”

“For God’s sake, Tammy, don’t be so stubborn. Can’t you trust that I know what I’m talking about?”

I didn’t actually have a clue what he was talking about, only that I didn’t like his overbearing tone and that he seemed to think that feeling me up gave him the right to order me around and mess with my job. “Don’t call me a fool.”

“Then don’t act like one!”

My face scrunched up and I had to tighten the muscles around my eyes to keep the hurt in. “You’re being a jerk.”

“And you’re being pushy.”

Part of me wanted to back down, but a larger part didn’t want Abe to get the right of it. “I told you.
Sports Today
is doing real news, not just fluff lists and flattering managers and coaches. So I report. And that means being a little bit pushy. You have a problem with that?”

A hand landed on my arm and gave a quick squeeze; I glanced over to see Mduduzi had pushed through the crowd of press and players to my side, and Jin had followed in his wake. Apparently just in time to hear my defensive tone. Now he countered it with a soothing one. “Of course,
Sports Today
is also extremely interested in keeping our relationship with the team healthy.”

Abe looked at the hand on my arm, and despite feeling like he was trying to impose on my career, I also felt a strange satisfaction at the displeasure on Abe’s face. He fought it off and looked back and forth between the guys. “Jin and Mduduzi, right?”

They looked slightly impressed that he remembered their names. “Right.”

He looked over the three of us. “You all work together?”

I hooked my arm through Mduduzi’s. “Sure do.”

“Tamar,” Jin said in a low, warning voice, and it clicked that they didn’t realize why I was being so familiar with Abe.

Abe, of course, waved it off, which bugged me even more—it made him look like he was being gracious, when of course he was really acting overbearing. “It’s no big deal.”

Mduduzi smiled. “We appreciate it.”

For God’s sake, were they going to act as though he could run us over, and after everything Tanya always said about serious journalism? I scowled at Abe and couldn’t control the denial from bursting past my lips. “It is
not
okay.”

Mduduzi delivered an elbow to my ribs and a look that said to stop being a nuisance.

Right. Because good journalists acted like adults.

“Tamar—” Abe raked his hand through his hair. “Calm down.”

I crossed my arms. “No.”

“Can we talk about it over dinner?”

I hesitated as I realized that Jin and Mduduzi were staring at me. “I’m busy.”

He didn’t like that answer. “With what?”

I lifted my chin. “Maybe I have a hot date.” Or dinner with my cousin Shoshi. One or the other.

Jensen, the backup quarterback, popped over. Energy burst out of him to such a degree he practically bounced on his toes, and no wonder. All dressed up, but no chance to play. “Tamar, right?”

I switched my attention to him, because he was easier than Abe or my coworkers. “That’s right.”

Jensen grinned, and glanced back and forth between Abe and me. He was a troublemaker, all right. He focused the full force of his jaunty smile on me. “You coming out with us tomorrow?”

My eyes instinctively went back to Abe’s, who didn’t look quite as excited. I raised a brow. “What’s tomorrow?”

“Not really your scene.”

I raised my brow. “How do you know what my scene is, Abraham Krasner?”

He just narrowed his eyes and smiled slightly, as though to say,
Oh
,
I
know.
Intimately.

I blushed, but rallied my nerves. “Well, then. I’ll see you there.”

Abe’s eyes were bright with amusement. “We never told you where.”

Oops.

“Turquoise, in Meatpacking,” Jensen said promptly. “You need my number to find us?”

Abe cut in. “She doesn’t want your number.”

That was too much. “Wow, you know all about me all of a sudden. Whose number I need, what stories I should be telling, where I’d like to go.”

“Tamar...” Mduduzi said nervously.

But I didn’t get a chance to retort, because open locker room was closing, and the staff started ushering all of the media away. Abraham didn’t lose eye contact. “The two of us could just get dinner tomorrow.”

“Yet oddly, I find myself
dying
to check out semiprecious jewels.”

We were rushed out like the trash.

Jin and Mduduzi fell back and stared at me. Jin’s words actually held force. “So you know Abe Krasner?”

I could see the little journalistic wheels spinning in their eyes. Too late for anything but honesty now. “That would be a yes.”

Which meant I would end up in Tanya Jones’s office as soon as she was back.

But before that, I had a party to go to.

* * *

Lucy acted briefly censorious when I asked her and Sabeen if they wanted to come out that night. “I thought you were getting over this guy.”

“I am. I’m just...it’s just confusing. I’m confused. It’s a party! Who turns down a party?”

They stared at me.

My shoulders slumped. “Maybe I shouldn’t go. It’s probably not my scene. I don’t even have anything to wear.”

Lucy shrugged. “This is easy. It’s at Turquoise. You just wear something skanky.”

“I don’t really do skanky well.”

“Are you kidding me? Look at your boobs. You’d do skanky fabulously.”

My lips twitched. “I suppose I should rephrase that to I’m not super
comfortable
doing skanky.”

“That’s why you have Lucy,” Sabeen said lazily. “She takes all the responsibility and leaves you to the fun.”

Which was as good a theory as any, and led to me sitting on Lucy’s bed as she went through her closet.

Lucy was taller than me, which meant most of her dresses would be longer on me than her, but she certainly wasn’t as busty, so it sort of balanced out. She handed me a piece of cobalt fabric. “Try this one.”

I held it up. “Are you sure this is a dress?”

“Not only is that a
dress
, it is a piece of magical fabric that enchants and enhances.”

I rolled my eyes. “I can’t wear it. I need something at least vaguely professional because some of the other guys from the team will be there.”

Luce rolled her eyes right back. “Useless. Fine. Oh! You can wear a striped shirt and black short shorts and be a sexy referee.”

I raised one brow and drew the word out. “Professional.”

In the end, I slung on a black dress and spiral earrings. Because it belonged to Lucy, the dress was obscenely short on me, and because of my body, the neckline was a little more revealing than usual. It certainly wasn’t anything I’d wear into the office, given how much it clung to my top and bottom, but it seemed to be suitable club attire.

Another half hour passed before Lucy finished my makeup. When she let me see, I was embarrassingly fascinated by my reflection—rather like the pretty girls on the subway—because it looked nothing like me, but rather like a fashion-slave had taken up residence in my mirror and decided to mimic my every movement.

The subway ride to the club took half an hour. A line crawled out the door, but Lucy confidently strode to the front, past all the other people, and managed to talk our way inside. I tried not to gape as I followed her in. That worked. I couldn’t believe that had worked.

Once inside, I paused. Abe had been right. This wasn’t my scene.

But I was exhilarated with youth and happiness and the idea that I could bypass lines and that rules didn’t apply and that everything was in my grasp at this moment.

Blue lights flickered through the club. Everything was too dark and too bright, too close and too much.

“Drinks first,” Lucy said. “Boys later. Damn, I hope Keith’s here. If he is, you have to introduce me.”

I stared around, in something of a daze. “Done.”

We fought our way to the bar, where scarily beautiful women measured out drinks like alchemists. I asked for a rum and Coke because I was too overwhelmed to ask for anything more complicated.

“All right.” Lucy took her cocktail. “Now what? Where are they?”

The club was absolutely packed with writhing bodies, and none of them wore shoulder pads and helmets. After a disorientating minute of searching, I pulled out my phone.

Then someone’s hand trailed across my bare shoulders and I stiffened. That was not Abe’s hand.

“Well, hello.” With a slight leer, Jensen Clay circled around in front of me. He barely glanced at my face.

I straightened to my full height, which was at least two heads shorter than him. “Don’t try lines on me, Jensen.”

Jensen jerked his eyes to mine, startlement clear and recognition slowly forming. “Wait...”

“Yup.” I crossed my arms as his eyes went back to my very bare thighs. Thank God I’d switched out the plastic-wrap dress for this one.

Jensen looked vaguely horrified. “You’re the
Sports Today
chick.”

“Yeah.”

He started to grin. “That’s not a very professional outfit.”

Damn, and I thought I’d done well.

Another second string Leopard sidled up to Jensen and draped his arm around him. He grinned at me—and my roommates, who stepped up to my side. “Hello, ladies.”

“Don’t bother.” Jensen sounded amused. “It’s Abe’s reporter girl.”

First, I wasn’t an it, and second, I wasn’t property. “Is he here?”

“He’s upstairs in the back room.”

I lifted my gaze to the upper level and saw a winding balcony manned by a guard. “Thanks.”

The other Leopard grinned at Lucy as we started off. “You could stay here with me, babe.”

Lucy brushed past him. “You couldn’t afford me.”

I eyed her curiously as we wended our way through the crowd to the staircase. “What did that mean?”

She threw back her head and laughed with sheer joy. “I don’t know, but it sounded good, didn’t it?”

Sabeen smirked. “It sounded like you wanted to be a mistress.”

“A
mistress
,” Lucy mocked. “What does that even mean?”

I ignored their squabbling as we reached the top of the stairs. The bouncer, tall and broad, but with a wiriness that set him apart from the football players, shook his head. “Sorry, ladies. Private party.”

Right. Shoot. We should have brought Jensen along to vouch for us. “We’re meeting someone in there.”

He arched a brow. “Of course you are.”

Lucy pushed forward. “Yeah, but we
really
are.”

I caught sight of Dylan and waved an arm. “Hey! Dylan! Will you let us in?”

Dylan stared blankly for a moment like he couldn’t place me, and then he started laughing convulsively. “Damn, Abe’s in trouble.”

All over again I felt embarrassed about this ridiculous dress. Last time I tried to look sexy when I ended up in seeing work-related people. “Will you let us in?”

Dylan waved magnanimously at the bouncer, who seemed to be resisting an eye-roll or two. We skirted by him thankfully.

Several private rooms were up here, and we entered the loudest. My spidy-senses tingled, and I spotted Abe from the back. He stood at the bar, laughing with several of his teammates. I shouldn’t have cared about the three women around him who wore more revealing dresses than mine, but they rubbed me the wrong way instantly.

My brain started going into tunnel vision, but I vaguely remembered there was something else I was supposed to do. I turned to Dylan. “Introduce Lucy to Keith, will you?”

Dylan looked half-entertained and half-offended. “What, I’m not good enough?”

Lucy smirked, and I figured they were safe to take each other on. Though what about Sabeen? I glanced around and saw Garza close by, who looked shocked by my outfit, but nodded when I said, “This is my roommate Sabeen. Play nice.”

And then I walked slowly toward Abe.