Page 30 of Playing for Keeps

“Take a look.” Sean shoves his phone at me and I read the thread of tweets starting with Chloe—her handle recognizable as @SmittyJuniorSportsReporter—no subtlety there. She asserts in her usual pithy bold style that Fontanna is not the number-one middle linebacker in the league and maybe not even on the Militia. I snort as I scan through the back and forth between her and Cat where they exchange stats like heavyweight blows to back up their positions. Chloe insists with some impressive arguments that there are others better than me, putting forward a few names. Shaking my head, I’m ready to give the phone back to Sean, when my thumb slides down and I see some of the fan response.

Fuck. There are some mean, nasty SOBs out there taking exception to Smitty’s tweets. Everyone knows the trick. Media clickbait at its best/worst. Throw out a grenadelike comment to rile up the fans and then argue with them about it endlessly. I’ve seen it, ignore it religiously. It’s what sports media do. I shouldn’t be surprised and I definitely shouldn’t be concerned. She’s a big girl and knows exactly what she’s doing. Staging a Twitter war in the name of fan engagement and bigger, better ratings for her and her station.

Handing his phone back to him, I turn to the shower.

“You gotta respond to this man. She’s dissing you. I thought she liked you—I mean for real. But I don’t know.”

“She’s playing games, Sean. It’s her way.”

“Then you gotta play back. Tweet her.”

“I don’t have a Twitter account—you know that.”

“Start one. This’ll be fun. Some kind of sick flirtation—like when you’re a kid in the schoolyard and you shove a girl because you like her. You can flirt on Twitter.”

Snorting, I whip my towel at him, catching him on the back of the legs. “No way am I flirting on Twitter. I shouldn’t be flirting at all. It’ll just encourage her and I truly don’t need bad PR of any kind—not even on social media. I want to score on my new contract.”

Sean nods.

“I get you. I’ll keep you posted if anything blows up.”

“You do that.” I pause as I turn the spray on. “I appreciate you having my back, Sean.”

He moves on with a grin to leave me to shower in peace. But Chloe’s in my head, so there’s no such thing as peace. She gets to me and she’s not even here. She gets to my cock too. I should have waited to shower at home though that would be fucked up since I’m too sweaty and dirty to put on clothes or sit in my car.

The thing that churns in my gut, as I shut the water off and grab the towel, is the response Cat and Chloe’s exchange of opinions is getting from fans, some of them far from reasonable. It’s not my job to worry about her, but someone needs to. Or her sweet ass is going to land in a pile of trouble she might not be able to handle.