BWWM Interracial Romance 5: Love After Halftime (2 page)

“To what?”

“To a young tramp just looking to bag an NFL quarterback, that’s who!”

He rolled his eyes. “Jesus, Cara, you watch too many soap operas.”

“Someone has to look over you,” she said, “and now that you and Tina are broken up I guess that leaves me and Marlene.”

“Marlene?” he chuckled. “What are you talking about?”

Cara gave him a knowing glance. “I’m just saying, she’s been your friend since freshman year of college, when you needed an English tutor, right? And now, you’re single, she’s single…”

“And bitter, and a workaholic, and avoiding me, and my ex-wife’s bestie, so… look elsewhere.”

“She’s not bitter,” Cara said. “And she’s not avoiding you, it’s just… awkward for her.”

“And me,” Joe reminded her, waving a hand for the bill.

“Hey, where are you going?” Cara asked as he settled up and stood from the bar.

“I’m going to drop you off at your place,” he said, “and then swing by and ask Marlene why she’s avoiding me.”

* * * * *

Marlene was at her usual Tuesday spot on campus when she felt a ripple of energy race through the room. She rolled her eyes and, before the waitress could go all gooey on her, said, “I’ll take another banana peanut butter smoothie, please. Extra large?”

The waitress nodded, eyes darting to the doorway of the Smoothie Shack where none other than Joe Hinkson had just strolled in. She turned slightly in her booth, smirking as he made his way through the bubbly co-eds and equally starry-eyed frat boys who frequented the campus smoothie shop all hours of day and night.

On a Tuesday afternoon, the place was already jammed, and that was before Joe walked in and sucked the focus right on him. He signed ball caps and smoothie cups, T-shirts and Smoothie Shack napkins until the crowd was satisfied. Only then did he look around to find Marlene sitting in a corner booth, by herself, surrounded by term papers.

He smirked and walked over, just as the excited waitress delivered his giant smoothie cup. “On the house, Mr. Hinkson,” she gushed.

“Please,” Marlene chuckled. “Call him Joe and, honey, he can afford it.”

The waitress drifted dreamily away as Joe nestled his six-foot-something frame across the booth from Marlene. He’d always been tall and lanky, but the training he’d gotten in the NFL had filled him out, made his shoulders broader, his arms thicker, his long, white body cut and stiff, all hard edges and sharp angles Marlene had to force herself not to admire.

“So this is what you’re doing instead of going out with me?” he teased her, rifling her stack of term papers. “Grading papers and sipping smoothies?”

“And consoling your ex-wife,” she reminded him playfully.

“Please,” he snorted. “If it’s one thing I know about Tina, it’s that she can take care of herself.”

“Maybe,” Marlene sighed, closing her latest term paper and sliding it gratefully onto the top of the stack. “But we all need a little consolation sometimes.”

“Yeah, that’s why I’m here,” he sassed her, looking youthful in his Chicago Hawks ball cap and a maroon pullover zipped down halfway. “If I can’t get my best friend to come to me, I have to come to her.”

“Please,” she said, waving him off. “You just wanted a smoothie!”

She had met Joe their freshman year at Chicago State. He’d needed a tutor and she’d needed extra money, having signed up for a program that paired honor students with athletes for extra cash. The first time they’d met in the library her heart had nearly leapt out of her throat. She’d never thought much about white guys growing up, or black guys for that matter. Plump since puberty, Marlene had had few boyfriends and, by the time she got to college, was more interested in success than sex.

But Joe had changed all that. She had found herself looking forward to their tutoring sessions and, when the football season was over, was glad when she and Joe had remained friends. And yet, “friends” is all they’d ever been. Joe was the quarterback of the football team, for Pete’s sake, and Marlene was a chubby tutor, glasses, book bag and all. What chance did she have against the comely co-eds and sorority sisters who threw themselves at him everywhere he went?

But as their friendship evolved and Marlene got used to being friends
without
benefits, she realized that Joe was more than just a pretty face. He was smart, funny, charming, sincere and exceedingly loyal. When her mother got her cancer diagnosis three years earlier, Joe had been right there with recommendations for the top oncologists in Chicago. They hadn’t helped, but that hadn’t stopped him from trying, nor visiting his mother in the hospital once a week, despite his demanding schedule.

Now that he and Tina were divorced, Marlene felt bad about the awkwardness of their current relationship.

“We need a do over,” he said, slurping his banana and peanut butter smoothie. He had lived on them in college, and still enjoyed them every chance he got.

“A do over? What is that, some kind of football thing?” she asked, sitting back in her chair and relaxing for the first time all day. Joe had that affect no her. Whenever they were together, it seemed, Marlene was instantly transported back to freshman year, when life was simpler, more pure and joyful. Just looking at him, sometimes, made her joyful. She wondered if he ever felt the same about her.

“It’s a life thing,” he said. “Where two people rewind that bad shit that’s happened and, you know… do over.”

“By ‘bad shit’ you mean your ex-wife?”

He shrugged. “You said it, not me.”

“I can’t believe you’re blaming me for trying to be friends to you both.”

“You were my friend first,” he whined, looking so playful and pathetic, she couldn’t help but laugh. Then he laughed, then they laughed and, just like that, the distance that had come between them evaporated like mist on a sunny morning.

“I’m still your friend,” she said. “And I always will be, Joe, but… Tina doesn’t have anybody. You were the star in that relationship and, when it broke up, all her old friends sided with you. Now she’s feeling betrayed, even ostracized… do you expect me to add to that hurt?”

“I can’t control how other people react,” he said.

“Nor can I, but I can control how I act, and I just can’t let Tina wallow like that, you understand.”

“I understand,” he said, peering out at her from under the bill of his cap with those soft, green eyes. “How’s she doing?”

“You asking because you care, or just to be polite?”
              “You know I care, Merl, it’s just… complicated. You’ve never been married, remember?”

“Are you sure?” she teased him. “I thought for sure I’d been married there once or twice before, but… now that you’ve so tactfully reminded me, you’re right… it appears as I never have been married.”

“Tease me all you want, but it’s an experience you can’t really talk about until you’ve been there. You know… like being an English professor.”

“Oh is it?” she asked. “I guess the difference is when my students graduate, I don’t owe them alimony?”

“Something like that,” he said, their eyes meeting across the cozy table. “And you don’t have to share them with your best friend.”

Their hands were close enough on the table to touch but, of course, they didn’t.

After all, that’s not what best friends did…

* * * * *

“Cheer up, man,” said Brad Manning, slapping Joe on the shoulder as they stood on his sprawling, wraparound balcony high above the Chicago city streets below. “There’s always next year.”

Joe frowned. “I just thought
this
year was our year, you know?”

“It was, man!” Brad was enthusiastic, despite having lost the playoff match in the last fifteen seconds only a few days earlier. “We took names, kicked ass and got as far as we could. It’s not your fault we suffered three major injuries this season, and had the toughest schedule I’ve seen in the last four years.”

Joe nodded, still disheartened. “I know, but... I feel like I let the team down.”

“Let that shit go,” Brad chuckled, finger combing his long, blond hair and fixing Joe with those trademark blue eyes. “You did your best. You can’t rewrite the past and what’s done is done. Best we can do now is rest up in the off season, start hitting the gym next week and get in the best shape of our lives for next year, bro!”

Joe smiled. “I thought linemen were supposed to be dumb, but…you’re quite the philosopher.”

Brad threw his head back and laughed, the sound a welcome one after the stressful few days after their big, end of season loss. Joe felt bruised and battered, physically and mentally, and a night out with Brad was just what he needed to let off a little steam and get his head right. Of course, as usual, his friend had other “ideas” – and two of them were sitting not ten feet away inside the sunken living room of Joe’s penthouse pad.

“Dumb, maybe,” Brad admitted. “But I’m still your friend, and I know what’s good for what ails you.”

Joe turned his head, peering through the open sliding glass door at the two comely beauties sitting on the white leather sectional couch in his sunken living room. They sat, knee to knee, drinking the Cosmopolitans Brad had made them at Joe’s wet bar.

“You mean… like
them
?” Joe said.

“Well, not
both
of them,” Brad hemmed, before lugging his friend playfully on the chest. “That is, unless you’re into a foursome.”

“Gross, Brad.”

“Hey man, if group love is what you need to get you over the slump, I’m up for a little skank swapping. Just so long as we don’t cross swords in the process.”

Joe laughed. “You’d probably like that.”

Brad shrugged, reaching down as if to grab Joe’s junk. “Hey man,” he teased, stopping just shy of Joe’s jeans zipper. “I’ve seen you in the locker room showers. I wouldn’t mind getting a closer look. That is, if you keep the beer flowing.”

Joe sighed, peering inside and noting how the two girls were looking back, each prettier than the next. Brad had arrived arm in arm with the stunning blonde, a swimsuit model of some sort named, appropriately enough, Ariel. Next to her was the brunette, long, lean and leggy in a black micro-skirt and fuzzy white sweater, no bra. Grace was her name. At least, that’s what Brad had said, though hadn’t he also said she was some kind of exotic dancer? And didn’t they all have stage names?

Probably better if he didn’t know her real name, Joe thought as he reluctantly followed his teammate and old friend back inside. After all, he was only going to kick her out at the soonest opportunity anyway.

“Ladies,” Brad announced, slapping his hands together so that his massive biceps rippled, making his magnificent sleeve tattoos roll like waves across a sea of flesh. “I’m afraid this is where we part ways.”

“What?” asked both girls – and Joe – in unison.

“I thought we were partying here all night, baby,” said the blond, standing and grabbing one of Brad’s arms as if it were a life raft and she were sinking at sea.

“Two of us are,” Brad said, winking at Joe, “and two of us are partying at my place.”

“Oh,” said the blonde, stamping her feet. “But I like it here better. Your place smells like jock straps, Brad!”

They laughed, nervously, high heels clattering on the slate tiles leading down Joe’s foyer. “I thought that’s what you liked about it, baby,” Brad said as he opened the door and whisked them out, turning to wink at Joe and the raven haired beauty at his side. “You two have fun, now,” he crowed as his girlfriend shuffled toward the elevator in her stripper heels. “And Grace,” he added with an over exaggerated emphasis on her name, clearly for Joe’s benefit, “be good to my boy here. He’s earned it.”

Joe slammed the door and slumped back against the foyer wall. Grace peered back at him, looking equally frustrated. “Gheez,” she grumbled, digging the toe of one high heel into his floor. “He makes me sound like some kind of hooker or something.”

Joe snorted, offering his hand. “Let’s start over,” he said. “I’m Joe.”

She smiled, straightened and offered a small, pale hand. “Hi Joe, I’m Grace.”

“Nice to meet you,” he said, gently shaking her hand before releasing it quickly. “And don’t worry; I’m not looking for a hooker tonight.”

“No?” she asked, following him to the wet bar and sinking down into a leather stool. “What are you looking for?”

“Honestly?” he asked, popping a bottle of champagne. “I have no idea.”

Her young, full lips curled into a gentle smile as he filled two champagne flutes. “Looks like you’re in the mood for celebrating, at least.”

“Just the opposite,” he said. “I always drink champagne with new… friends.”

“Friends?” she pouted, clinking glasses before he downed his in a single swallow. “Brad didn’t say anything about you needing a friend, Joe.”

Joe filled his flute with more champagne and winked. “Here’s to good friends,” he teased, clinking her glass again. Or, at least, trying to. She dragged it back from him playfully.