The Game by Vi Keeland by Vi Keeland

Jeff chuckled. “Thanks, man.”

The exchange was probably only thirty seconds, but I no longer felt like a bug stuck in a web with the spider approaching. “Why don’t you have a girlfriend, Christian?”

He smiled. “That’s a very good question. I’m trying as hard as I can, but she’s not budging.”

I laughed. “I don’t mean me. I mean a girlfriend in general. You must have a plethora of choices. When was the last time you had one?”

“A girlfriend or…a woman to spend time with?”

“An exclusive relationship, I mean.”

“A couple of years ago.”

“What happened with that?”

He looked away. “Kerrie drank too much.”

I don’t know what I’d expected him to say, but it wasn’t that. “Oh…I’m sorry.”

He shrugged. “It’s fine. I’m not against people drinking alcohol just because I choose not to most of the time. But she became a different person after drinking a bottle and a half of wine herself. I picked up a woman I liked and took one home I didn’t. She was a lawyer, and after a couple of drinks she would start to interrogate me about what I’d been doing when I was on the road with the team. I never gave her reason to suspect anything, and when she was sober, she didn’t seem to have doubts. I tried to talk to her about it, but she wasn’t receptive to the conversation at all.”

“I didn’t realize you didn’t drink alcohol. Is it because of your training?”

Christian looked up at me. “My dad’s an alcoholic. When I was growing up, he lost most of his jobs because of it. In college, I started partying a little too hard, and my coach dropped me to second string for two games. I realized I was heading down the same path as my dad if I didn’t clean up my act. So I stopped drinking. It’s not a sobriety commitment or anything. I have a couple of drinks every once in a while. But it’s definitely not a regular thing for me.”

I nodded. “Well, I’m sorry to hear about your dad. But it sounds like you learned from his mistakes. Are the two of you close? Your dad and you, I mean.”

Christian shook his head. “Not really. When I signed my first contract, I paid off my parents’ house. It had been in and out of foreclosure a half dozen times over the years when he’d lose jobs. I didn’t want my mom to have to worry about it anymore. But my dad got pissed. He saw it as me telling him he couldn’t provide for his family. I had to apologize in order to keep the peace for my mom. She and I talk every week, but my dad rarely gets on the phone anymore.”

I nodded.

“Anyway,” Christian said, “to answer your question, I have had relationships. The one with Kerrie was about a year, and I was with Jessica for almost two years—she and I met during my last year in college. So I’m not afraid of commitment. But it isn’t easy when you spend a good part of the year on the road. Not to mention the media likes to make a big deal out of me even talking to a woman. My first year in the NFL, I met a pop singer during a playoff game I went to, as a spectator. The entire interaction lasted five minutes, but there were pictures splashed across magazines and websites for months. The woman I’d been dating had been confident and trusted me, but after that, she grew accusatory if I even went out with the guys after winning a game.”

“That must be hard.”

He shrugged. “What about you? How many serious relationships?”

“None, actually.”

His brows pinched. “But you’ve dated and…”

“Yes, I’ve dated and had sex, if that’s what you’re getting at. I just haven’t had any long-term adult relationships that I would dub serious.”

“Why not?”

“Talia likes to psychoanalyze me and say it’s because I have trust issues. But I think it’s more because I haven’t met the right person yet.”

He grinned. “I think you’re right. You were just waiting for me.”

I chuckled. “You really are a master at rounding conversations back to you.”

“I bet Julian doesn’t put in the same effort. Bozo didn’t even ask for a second date.” My face must’ve given me away, because Christian groaned. “You’re going out with him again, aren’t you?”

I smiled. “Yeah. He said he’d been busy working on a project.”

He frowned. “When’s the big day?”

“We’re going out next Thursday night.”

Christian took a deep breath and blew it out audibly. “Alright. I don’t like it, but I guess you’re going to have to get past that guy before you find your way to the right one. Just don’t tell me about the date.” He held up a hand. “Even when I ask.”

A little while later, we landed in Colorado. Christian went on one bus with the team, while I went in an SUV with my half-sisters and some other people from corporate. When we arrived at the hotel, people were lined up surrounding the entrance, including at least a dozen young women wearing Christian’s jersey number. I felt a pang of jealousy, and I wasn’t even his girlfriend. So it was pretty easy to understand why his lifestyle was tough on relationships. I pushed thoughts about Christian Knox aside and walked to the reception desk.