Romance: Seducing The Quarterback (7 page)

“Drinks on me,” a charismatic young man grinned at the swarm
of women that surrounded his table at the bar. He threw a wink at one of the
cute blondes and went back to chugging his Hennessey down – sighing as the cool
liquid hit his throat in the same familiar way he loved so much.

Some might argue that Mike Ferguson was at the peak of his
career. He had many game wins under his belt and was arguably the best player
in the team at this point.

At this point, one of the blondes squeezed his arm and
diverted all his attention on her. He happily obliged as he flirted back. This
sort of behavior came naturally to him – he had always been a ladies man even
when he was in school – which now seemed like a lifetime away. Girls threw
himself at him and he readily made good use of that advantage as he got
involved in several flings throughout the course of his career – never settling
down.

He enjoyed his bachelor lifestyle too much for him to give
it up for anything.

“Mike,” a shrill voice called out over to him as soon as he
had been getting comfortable cozying up next to the blonde whose name he was
not aware of.

“Yo, what’s your deal, Cameron?” Mike snapped back. Cameron
was his manager but more so than that, he was his best friend. He had been with
Mike since day one and if there was anyone with whom he let his walls down for,
it was him.

Cameron resisted the urge to roll his eyes, “You forgot you
had an interview today,” he said to him, nudging him a little to remind to
sober up and get rid of the girl.

Mike groaned, “Cancel it, man,” he said, “I am up here
partying it up with my girl,” he turned to looked at the blonde, who at this
point was grinning wildly and pushing up against Mike.

“No, we cannot just cancel the interview,” Cameron told him
sternly, “You need to show up – I think the journalist is already here to interview
you already. Now, get up.”

Mike groaned, “You cannot make me do this.”

“I am your manager and you damn well know that I can make
you do anything I like. Now get rid of the girl and sober up – you have an
interview to give,” he said with finality as he took off with one last menacing
glance towards Mike.

Mike sighed – he knew that there was no arguing with
Cameron.

* * * *

Megan had been asked to wait in a dimly lit private room in
the bar but forty minutes had now passed and there was no sign of either Mike
or any of his management. She impatiently kept glancing over to the wall clock
that hung on the purple velvet clad walls of the room. The whole room had a
massive 60s era vibe, complete with a vintage looking lava lamp in the corner
and the whole thing was giving her a whiplash.

She hated waiting when she had been given a precise time and
a promise in advance. But she knew that this was sometimes a part of the job.

Being a female sports journalist in a profession that was so
heavily male dominated; it was not an easy task. She knew the sort of stigma
and prejudice she would have to face beforehand but actually experiencing it
was another story on its own.

She had experienced firsthand on what it was like for people
not to take her seriously based on her gender – she had coworkers and previous
athletes she had interviewed misbehave with her but she did not let it get in
the way. In fact, she resolved that it only gave her thicker skin and made her
even braver.

Megan Linshaw was not one to back down easy.

Megan Linshaw was also not one to sit around and wait for
hours on end for someone who did not respect the common code of punctuality.

But Megan Linshaw had to admit that she jumped up a little
when he finally walked into the room.

“Sorry we made you wait,” Cameron explained to her on Mike’s
behalf as he finally managed to convince him to drag him down the room.

“It’s really okay,” Megan said quickly, not wanting to
offend, “Hello, my name is Megan Linshaw and I am the person who will be interviewing
you on behalf of sports weekly – great work-,” her sentence was cut off midway
as Mike decided to butt in.

“So you’re going to be interviewing me, eh?” he said
abruptly, flashing her grin. The smell of alcohol radiated off his tongue and
it was clear that the man was heavily inebriated.

“Of course, I just told you that,” Megan replied back with
her voice unwavering, “so here I have prepared for you some questions and I
would love if you could just answer them for me.”

But it seemed like Mike had better things to do than listen
to her as he pulled out his phone and started to type away at a text message.
Megan stared at him blankly – she could hardly believe the level of causal
disinterest he was exhibiting.

“Hmm, right,” he said after a moment of scrolling through
his phone, “You go ahead then, ask.”

Megan controlled the urge to downright ask him to put his
phone away and vocalized her well-rehearsed question to him. But two minutes
passed away and the only response she was able to weasel out of him was a half
laugh as he found something amusing on his phone.

Megan felt herself beginning to lose her patience. “Do you
mind if you put that thing away for a moment?” she said, annoyed.

He looked up from the screen to her and flashed her a grin,
“Right – sure, sure. What do you want to talk about?”

“I do not personally wish to speak to you about anything,”
she could not help but let some of that annoyance seep into her tone. Somehow,
this man had his way of getting under her skin. “But I have to ask you a bunch
of questions on behalf of the magazine I represent and the least you can do is
answer them.”

He raised an eyebrow at her, “The least I can do is show
up,” he quipped back, “Which – newsflash lady, I am sitting here in front of
you.”

“Right,” Megan replied with gritted teeth, “Let us try this
again?”

“Sure,” he said with a casual shrug of the shoulders, “I am
up for anything if a pretty girl asks,” he winked at her in the end.

He was beginning to get pretty bored with the interview – it
was always the same generic questions that yielded the same generic answers.
Mike figured he would rather stab himself than laugh at another cheesy pun how
the coach. He assumed that Megan would have the same sort of questions prepared
for him and thus, he had lost interest before she even had a chance to say what
say what she had prepared.

Megan’s cheeks heated up in response. She was used to people
saying things like that to her – but she did not tolerate it when a person
threw unnecessary comments at her in an environment that required them to be
professional.

“I would rather you not comment on my appearance and just
answer my set of questions, yes?” she said sarcastically.

“I was just playing,” he grinned and laid back on his seat.
He was beginning to curse Cameron forever setting up this interview – he would
clearly much rather be out in the back with a drink in his hand and a girl by
his side.

Megan glared at him and asked her questions anyway. This
time, he replied but his answers seemed mechanical and rehearsed. She jotted
down her notes and when she walked out that room twenty minutes later, she had
never been so glad to finish an interview with anyone.

Megan had experienced her fair share of writer’s block over
the years of being a writer but never had she experienced it as intensely as
she was now. Type, type, erase – delete the entire document. That was her
routine for the past six hours that she had been bent over her computer screen
to write.

She had the material and she had written the draft about
half a dozen times now but somehow, she could not bring herself to approve it
as the final version and press send.

No – for this version seemed too kind. It reflected on the
answers he had given her – which were quite alright in their own right. He had
obviously received some form of media training for him to belt out such
diplomatic answers that nearly fit every mold that you crafted them into.

She could have easily written her article and gotten done
with her day to go out and relax with her friends over a drink but instead,
here she was pouring over her words on the computer and struggling to relate.

The words on the screen seemed too fabricated for her to
publish them. For when she had met him, he had been behaving so poorly that she
did not know whether he deserved to be honored so highly in her article.

Honesty was something she strived for in her writing, but
was it being honest when she was to leave out the part that told the people
that the man behind the shiny words happened to be an arrogant narcissist who
barely paid her any heed through-out the course of the interview?

She bit down her lip and her fingers went to work again.
This time, she decided to belt out another draft where she had no reservations.
She wrote an honest account of the evening she had spent with him to interview
him and she wrote a candid recount of the events of the day. She made it clear
about how she thought of him as being too arrogant for his own good, perhaps an
unwanted side-effect of the immense fame that he had been given. She wrote
until she was finally satisfied with what she had come up with.

And with a smile on her face, she realized that perhaps the
piece that she needed to break into the mainstream scene was not one where she
sang hymns of praises of the already well-respected athlete. But it was one
where she wrote with brutal honestly and expose to the world just how much of a
self-absorbed person he was.

Somehow, she did not hesitate at all when she dropped that
same draft on her editors table the next morning.

She had written the article that would change her life.

* * * *

Mike awoke to a near constant buzzing of his cellphone from
underneath his pillow the next morning. Groggy and annoyed, he brought the
metal square to his ear and barked out an unfriendly greeting.

“Why are you calling me this early in the morning, Cameron?”
he said, irritated that his manager had the nerve to contact him at 10pm on a
Saturday afternoon.

“Have you seen your social media this morning?”

“Why would I?” Mike replied, “I have only just woken up.
That, too, pretty abruptly. Hint hint, thanks asshole.”

Cameron decided to ignore the sarcasm in his words, “You
need to get on it – what the hell did you do in that interview with that lady
journalist the other day?”

Mike racked his brain and then remembered that miserable bar
interview where he was half drunk out of his mind. “Oh that nightmare,” he said
in recollection, “I do not even remember man. I just used the answers you gave
me – those ones work for everything.”

Cameron groaned from the other end of the line, “Well,
whatever you did, she had absolutely ripped you apart in her interview. The
whole internet is talking about it!”

This caused Mike to sit up suddenly in his bed, “What do you
mean?”

“Read it yourself,” Cameron said and then the line went
dead. He had hung up on Mike.

Mike opened up his social applications and saw that his
notifications had been flooded. He found a link to the article and by the time
he was finished, his hands had clawed into fists and he was genuinely annoyed.

“What the hell,” he cursed under his tongue, “Arrogant, full
of himself? She’s made me look like a total douche. What is the deal with this
woman?”

He tried to recall the evening and no matter how hard he
tried, he could not remember it being as bad as she had made it seem like. It
was not until he went to read what other people were saying about the article
that he truly got upset.

Mike Ferguson had worked very hard in his life to get where
he was and the fact that some pompous journalist had the audacity to defame him
like so made him beyond past the point of annoyed.

He dialed Cameron’s number. “Get this removed,” he barked
into his cell phone as soon as Cameron picked up on the other side.

“We are not going to get it removed, Mike. Everyone has
already read it – this is the age of the internet and no one can erase anything
once it had been put out there,” Cameron replied.

“But I cannot have her out there like this making me look
this total douche,” Mike replied, sounding pissed off.

Cameron was quiet for a moment. “Well, then I guess we have
no other option.”

“What do you mean?”

“You need to have a do-over interview with this girl.”

* * * *

In the age of the Internet, the act of going viral was a
feat that was heavily cherished in the online journalism community and when
Megan had woken up to the news of having her article breaking several thousand
hits in just the span of a few hours, there had been no words to describe her
joy.

"You're so brilliant," Anne grinned at her friend
as she walked into the office for work that morning. "Honestly - who knew
that he was such an asshole? I am so glad that you exposed him"

Megan simply grinned in response.  She had been a woman
of few words that entire morning as she was bombarded with words of
congratulations. It would not be unfair to say that she was basking in the
attention.

"You're so lucky," Anna continued, "Honestly
I would die to have a piece like yours."

"I don't believe in luck," Megan said simply,
"it’s all hard work." And with that, she grabbed her purse and
decided it would be best if she took a day off to enjoy herself. A gift to
herself.

* * * *

When Megan received a call from Mike’s management, she had
half a mind to ignore it completely. After all, why did she have to sit around
and do fix his public relations for him? All she wanted from him was a story
and that he had unwittingly bestowed on her. She knew that the buzz created
from this article would be enough to keep her on top of the hierarchy for the
coming few weeks at least.

But finally, she succumbed to his incessant phone calls. She
saw some of the things that were being said about hi, with so much as the story
getting coverage on national news. She began to see how now it was a delicate
issue – and maybe some PR control was in order. She knew she was the only
person who could help him do so.

And so, another do-over interview was arranged.

This time, Megan did not bother to spend hours in the salon
to prepare for her interview in the evening. There was no nervous pacing and no
words of encouragement needed from Annie. This time, Megan was doing just fine
on her own. She grabbed a pen, her phone to use as a recorder and a curiosity
whim and she was ready to go.

She parked up outside his apartment. This time, Mike had wanted
the interview to be much more personal and so he had chosen none else than his
humble abode to host the interview. Apparently, this was a big deal as he
rarely let anyone other than close family and friends anywhere even near the
vicinity of his residence.

She rang the doorbell.

“Welcome,” a cheerful Mike greeted her at the door and
invited her inside. Megan walked in; surprised by the warmth he was exuding.
Completely contrary to how he had behaved the last time they had met.

Megan greeted him with a nod. She resisted the urge to go
for a hug – she was still a little peeved about his behavior the last time they
met.

“Nice to see that you are not drunk this time at least,” she
said casually as he led her into his living area. He laughed and plopped down
on one of the couches and gestured for her to do the same.

“Well, I like to party hard and my manager just happened to
plan an interview that clashed with that. Happens to the best of us,” he
shrugged.

Megan expected him to bring up some form of conversation
centered around the interview that she published but it looked like he was
genuinely not interested in speaking about this. Seeing this attitude of his,
she decided to forget about the subject as well.

“So, do you want to have a look over at some of the
questions I have prepared for you?” she asked him.

“That’s really okay. Surprise me.”

“Wow, okay,” Megan couldn’t help herself, “You are a lot
more mellowed out when you aren’t drunk.”

This made him laugh. “I am a chill guy,” he shrugged, “the
media would know that if they ever asked me any questions of substance in their
interviews.”

“Wow, that puts a lot of pressure on a girl,” she replied,
now mentally going over the questions she had prepared for him.

“No pressure,” he grinned back at her, “Give me what you
got.”

Megan did not fully understand exactly what it was that
convinced her but at that point, she made the decision to discard the list of
questions she had prepared. Somehow, right now they seemed too generic and
bland to be asking him. Instead, she decided to come up with an impromptu list
on the spot – candid and not consisting of the usual questions she always asks.

“So, tell me more about you family,” she told him as she
cozied up on the side of his sofa. As long as she was here, she might as well
make herself comfortable.

“What do you want to know about my family?” he asked and
Megan could tell that he was probably taken by surprise by the question.

She shrugged, “Tell me your relationship with them. Growing
up, what that was like? Anything, it’s your choice,” she explained.

He bit down his lip in concentration and then a smile spread
across his face, “I have enjoyed a close relationship with my family. I was
brought up in a house full of females – my father left when I was young and I
have 3 sisters. It was a happy time.”

Megan was surprised to hear that, “You think growing up
around that many female influences had any sort of impact on you?” she found
herself asking.

“I mean, definitely,” he shrugged, “I respect the women in
my life and that is why it bothered me when you penned down that article about
me. I really am not like that – yeah, I’m an asshole when I am drunk but I am
not a bad guy.”

Megan did not know whether to buy it or not but his words
sounded sincere. She nodded. She came up with another question for him and
before she knew it, hours had passed. They talked and shared life experiences.
It was unlike any interview that she had ever conducted – this guy was sitting
here opening up to her in way that most celebrities shun. She felt as though
she got exposed to a more vulnerable side to him that she had not been aware of
before and it had definitely made him more likable to her.

“Thanks for this,” he told her at the door of his apartment
just as she was about to leave.

She laughed and shook her head, “It really was not a
problem. Honestly, this interview went better than I expected. I feel like I
have enough material here to do an entire spread on you,” she said, looking
down at her phone.

“Well I hope they’re good words,” he joked, “but no, I
haven’t been this comfortable with an interviewer in ages. You really have some
talent there.”

Megan blushed and let out an incoherent jumble of words in
response. It was bizarre- she usually had the ability to handle compliments
very well so why had she just gotten so flustered in front of him? She cleared
her throat.

“Right, I must get back on my way now.”

But even as she retreated from the steps of his front door,
she had an odd warm feeling in the pit of her stomach. It seemed that she had
started liking this guy a lot more than she had expected to.