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frozen ass.
    “You guys can’t keep playing games with each other like this.”
    “I don’t jump through hoops, remember?”
    “Yeah, we all do. You remind us every day.”
    I scan the field, feeling a pain in my chest. A burn that hurts like fire.
    “Am I jumping now?” I ask Travis seriously, my voice dipping low and quiet, a rare show of insecurity. One I’ll only ever share with him. “With this job, did I jump?”
    He immediately shakes his head. He’s been waiting for me to ask this question. “No. You didn’t sell out, Harper. You did what you had to do.”
    My lip curls up over my teeth. “I’m doing it for the money.”
    “You’re doing it for the team. For the crew. Think of what this money can do for us. It’ll set us up for the next three years. We can pick whatever project we want to do next and we’ll do it all on our terms.” He closes the notebook to stand, to face me. “No one is complaining. We all know what this is. It’s a ticket to the next level, and you bought it for us. We’re grateful.”
    I nod twice. It’s all I can manage. The pinch in my chest eases but it doesn’t go away. It probably won’t, not until this job is over. That’s why I need to dive inside it as soon as I can. Lose myself in it until it’s done. Until I can put it behind me.
    Tonight Travis and I will go over the plan for the next nine months, setting up a schedule for interviews and spotlights. We’ll make travel arrangements to follow the team when they’re away, we’ll coordinate with Carmen Kelly, with the coaches and the staff, and somewhere in Massachusetts Derrick is hopefully doing the same thing with the New England Patriots. That’s his job. That’s why I sent him there; to be another me.
    To get him away from me.

CHAPTER THREE
    KURTIS
     
    April 10th
    Charles Windt Stadium
    Los Angeles, CA
     
    “Good morning, Mr. Matthews.”
    Crystal greets me with a practiced smile from behind the half-circle reception desk. The black top gleams under the myriad of pot lights in the high ceilings. Every floor of the Kodiak executive offices are built like this. These rooms were designed with athletes in mind. Wide doors, vaulted ceilings, inspiring artwork. Beautiful women.
    Crystal is no exception with thick, brown hair and dark chocolate eyes. A perfect, pert nose. I used to flirt with her relentlessly when I first signed up with the Kodiaks. I’d go behind her desk like I owned the place, parking my ass on the surface next to her and looking down her shirt. I shouldn’t have done it. I know that now. It was sexual harassment and I had plenty of girls coming at me from every direction. I didn’t need to have sex with Crystal too. And I didn’t. But it wasn’t for lack of trying.
    Now that I’m back I feel weird when I see her. Like I owe her something. An apology probably, but I’m not good at that. I can never find the right words, not even when I mean them.
    “Hey, Crystal.” I put my hands in the pockets of my jeans, stopping a couple feet short of her desk. “I’m here to see Coach Allen.”
    Her smile grows, becoming affectionate. It makes me feel even worse because she knows me. She remembers me and the way I was. Why I was always here. “I figured. He has another appointment but I’ll let him know you’re here.”
    “Thanks.”
    The waiting area is painfully modern, covered in glass top everything and couches that slither across the room in fluid, yellow arcs. The space is empty except for one white chair with a uselessly low back. A woman is perched on it, her back perfectly straight, a small, tattered paperback held loosely in her hand. Her hair is long and smooth, a rich black color that matches her skin. Her face is a perfect oval, her lips a pouting heart. Her body is an hourglass storing spare minutes in her breasts.
    There are a lot of beautiful women in L.A. So many that you get desensitized to them. You pass them on the street, you wait in line behind them for coffee.