Fair Play Read Free Page B

many damn times that the idea of asking a stranger out is unthinkable.  These days I feel like it's mandatory to have a background check before allowing someone into our world. 
    So instead of allowing natural chemistry to lead me to ask someone on a date, I come home and check the online profile of a different stranger. At least this way I know a professional has screened them. Or at least that’s what the company touts.
    “You gonna interview for a new nanny?” Ben asks.
    “No way, not until I’m sure of what’s going on with Mimi. She’s raised Scarlet since birth. She’d be devastated if she lost Mimi. I don’t think anybody could replace her.”
    “I’ll do it,” he says, standing up straight and tucking his thumbs into the front pockets of his jeans.
    “She’d be better off on her own. Sit down and choose a movie.”
    “Harsh, dude.” Ben plops down and throws his legs over the side of a chair and picks Remember the Titans just to irritate me.
    I look at him when the opening music begins, and a smirk spreads across his face. I do love the movie, but this would make it the hundredth time this year.
    “Something else, anything else. I can’t watch this again.”
    “Aw come on, it’s a classic, you can’t ever get tired of a classic.”
    “The Sound of Music is a classic, how about we watch that again?” I say, looking at him sideways with my eyebrow arched. Scarlet has been on a serious Sound of Music kick lately, and anyone who has spent five minutes with her knows it.
    “Yeah, okay, you made your point. What do you wanna watch then?”
    He tosses me the remote, and I scroll through a couple of movies and choose Star Wars. When I look to see what he thinks of my choice, he shrugs and kicks out the footrest on the seat to get comfortable.
    You can never go wrong with Star Wars. As the opening crawl begins, the lights automatically go down, and I scroll through the list of prospective dates that Match Pro has come up with for me.
    There are hundreds but one, in particular, stands out. She’s still here. Her online name is Lastgoodwoman10, now who could resist the last good woman? I click on her profile and learn she is nearly as private as I am. She isn’t giving away anything about herself other than general appearance and interests to help match her with someone on the dating site.
    She’s half black, half white, in her late twenties lives in the Midwest, vague, has a bachelor degree in something, vaguer, and is looking to build a serious relationship - no hookups, no bootie calls, and no one-night stands. I like that. I’m too old to be messing around with that scene anymore.
    Dating has been a problem for a long time. When your wife dies giving birth to your child, it changes your outlook on life. Scarlet is my everything. I couldn’t focus on anything but her when Mariah died. I pushed myself so hard to be the best father and mother that it almost ended my career.
    I couldn’t see the importance of anything but her. I was blinded by my grief and the guilt that this perfect little child would have to grow up without a mother.
    Gradually Coach, my teammates, and my therapist made me see that it wasn’t my fault and that she was a perfectly healthy, well-adjusted kid, even if she only had one parent.
    When Scarlet turned two, I started to feel more comfortable with the idea of getting out there and meeting women.
    That is, until I met the kind of women who went after professional athletes. I married Mariah straight out of college, long before I became famous, so I wasn't used to the piranhas. 
    Most of the women hanging around pro football players aren’t looking for a wholesome family man.
    They want to fill their bodies with drugs and alcohol and party until they drop, and they want to do it all on a rich athlete’s dime.
    Nope, not happening. I’ve spent too long creating a good name for myself. I’m not going to let some whore ruin it for my little girl and me.
    I can’t put my