4

Nathaniel

Adriano stands in my kitchen in workout clothes, making a protein shake. When I walk in, he whistles. "That’s some fancy-ass shit.”

“Shut up, jackass." I straighten the collar of my shirt. I feel as ridiculous as I look in this outfit. There’s a reason I don’t wear tuxedos. Aside from the fact that I try to avoid doing anything that requires a tux (or a suit, for that matter), they don’t make tuxedos in “football player” size. This thing had to be tailored for me, which seems like an insane amount of effort and expense to go to in order to attend a swanky ten thousand dollar per plate fundraiser.

Going to the fundraiser was not my idea. It was my agent’s idea, since apparently I'm more marketable if I show up at a public event or two, mind my manners, and pretend I like being around people. The real reason I’m going is that it’s for a good cause, even if it's going to be a room full of uber wealthy snobs eating caviar to benefit a foundation run by the daughter of the President of the United States.

"Why are you going to this again?" Adriano asks.

"Because I'm donating my ranch to a foundation for the summer, and this fundraiser is to benefit the foundation."

"For what?"

"The foundation gives deserving kids a chance to spend time on a ranch – learn life skills, that kind of thing."

"Shit, are you having a mid-life crisis? First you move into this place, and now you're not going to spend the summer at your ranch being grouchy and avoiding everyone? You're going to let a bunch of kids have the run of your property? You don’t even like kids.”

"Fuck off."

Adriano presses the button on the blender in response. When he stops, he pours an extra-large protein shake into a cup and takes a swig. "Remember to put your pinky up when you're drinking champagne. It's classier like that."

"I think I'll pass on the etiquette lessons from the guy who walked into my kitchen the other day with his junk hanging out."

What the hell was I thinking, agreeing to this? I've been here for an hour, and so far it's been a parade of rich old men and their trophy wives or girlfriends asking to take photos with me while offering condescending condolences about the team's big game loss in February, as if I'm personally crushed because the team didn't win.

I’m not, by the way. I'm still a little pissed off about it, though. More so now that I’ve been reminded of it about a hundred times.

I knew this fundraiser was a bad idea. Normally, I'd never do something public like this. Make donations? Sure. I've done lots of those. But I’ve never donated my ranch before – it was the first major thing I bought after I got signed in Denver. For the past few summers, in between seasons, I go out to the ranch and decompress, away from everything and everyone. This summer is different, though, because I’m in negotiations and I can’t hole up away from everybody, as much as I want to do just that. So when my agent came to me a few months back with info about this charity, the idea of donating the ranch just popped into my head.

I should have anticipated that my cutthroat agent would want to maximize the public relations part of that donation as much as possible, which is why I’m reluctantly at a fancy event where I’m supposed to smile and pretend to be interested in what a bunch of wealthy people who are completely out of touch with reality are talking about. I realize the irony of saying that when I've played on a multi-million dollar contract for the past four years, but even now, I have a hard time seeing myself as wealthy. I'm still the same poor kid from West Bend, and I always will be.

Before long, I find myself at the bar, asking for the bartender to put something into a glass - anything, just to take the edge off. "Surprise me," I tell him.

I down the liquid – whiskey - grimacing as the alcohol burns my throat before crossing the room and dodging too many self-important people outfitted in black tie attire to count as I walk out of the ballroom to the front hallway, planning to head outside to get some fresh air. Okay, I’m actually planning to hide out and maybe read on my phone for a little while until I dart back inside to make an appearance at dinner, then get the hell right out of here.

The hallway is deserted compared to the crowd in the ballroom, only a few stragglers on their cell phones and one couple walking toward the entrance to the ballroom. A man with salt-and-pepper hair and a young redhead on his arm brags loudly to her about the size of his private jet. Talk about overcompensation. As I brush past them, the redhead gasps. “Nathaniel Ashby!” I nod and smile, dodging them before I’m dragged into another boring conversation.

I’m so preoccupied with congratulating myself for my expert evasive maneuvering that I don’t notice the girl in front of me – or her dress – until too late.

Everything that occurs next seems to happen in slow motion. I swear, the sound of tearing is amplified by a million. I look down to see my foot on the back of a long red dress that trails on the floor. My eyes follow the dress up as the silky material skims softly around the curves of a woman’s hips, to her trim waist, to the creamy smoothness of her back where the material –

Oh shit. I broke the straps on her shoulders – the straps that were on her shoulders when I stepped on the back of the dress.

I lift my foot quickly, but instead of moving away from her dress, the material somehow clings to my shoe, and I step down again, catching it under my foot a second time. The woman shrieks, stumbling backward against me. Reaching out instinctively, I catch her as she lands with oomph, her back colliding with my chest.

Then, a flash goes off in my eyes. Someone – probably some asshole reporter covering the event – just took a photo of the brunette whose arms are draped over mine.

I look down at the woman.

The woman whose dress I just stepped on, tearing the straps and causing the top to slide right down over her breasts. The woman who’s struggling to upright herself, reaching for the top of her dress to hold it up, only to find it’s caught under my feet and when I try to step off of it, she falls back against me even harder. The brunette who someone just grabbed a photo of topless.

As the next flash goes off, I do the only thing I can think of. I hold my palms up in front of her tits to block them from the guy taking the photo.

But she chooses that exact moment to stand upright, lunging forward and straight into my hands.

Specifically, pushing her tits right into them.

Which means that I’m now standing here, wearing a tuxedo at a fancy-schmancy charity event, holding the boobs of some rich girl.

She shrieks. “Oh my God, are you groping me?”

Before I can answer, hands are on my arms. “Mr. Ashby, step away from the President’s daughter.”

The President’s daughter?

Oh, hell.

The woman whirls around, one hand gripping the top of her dress and yanking it up over her breasts, her green eyes flashing. Brown hair frames her face, cascading in waves over her shoulders. Her cheeks are flushed scarlet, although whether it’s from anger or embarrassment, I can’t tell.

Probably embarrassment.

Scratch that. She looks pretty damn irate.

“Oh my God. I recognize you. You’re the – the football player who’s donating his ranch,” she hisses. Her nostrils flare again. Holy shit. The photos of her in magazines don’t do her a damn bit of justice. They’re absolutely nothing compared to the woman standing in front of me right now.

The one whose tits I just grabbed. Shit. I just felt up Georgina Aschberg, the daughter of the President of the United States.

And it was caught on camera. Good publicity from this event just went right out the fucking window. Hell, I’m probably about to end up getting waterboarded in a windowless room somewhere. If I'm lucky.

I hold my hands up as two agents pat me down. Meanwhile, the President's daughter stands there gaping at me, her mouth open. For a fleeting moment, I consider asking if she's staring at me because she's stunned by my good looks or because she's never taken a photo with a football player's hands on her tits before. But I reconsider that since she's wearing stilettos and I'm certain she wouldn't hesitate to use one as a deadly weapon. She looks like she'd have good aim. “I was not groping you,” I begin my defense.

Her hand grips her dress around her breasts - the same breasts I just cupped. I glance down because now I can’t stop thinking about her tits. When she notices, the flush on her cheeks intensifies and her eyes go wider. “Your hands were on my boobs.”

“Ma’am, the Secret Service will detain and -“

“Wait, detain me?” I was a good boy and stood still for a second while the Secret Service agents patted me down, but detain me for what was clearly a fucking accident? I don’t think so. “I stepped on your dress, but the whole boob-groping thing was really your fault, not mine, sweetheart.”

“Sweetheart?!” She straightens up, standing taller as she steps closer to me. One of the agents puts her hand up to separate us, but she swats it away. “I can handle a belligerent drunk, Blair."

“Belligerent drunk?” I ask, bristling. “First of all, I’m not drunk. And just because I'm right doesn't mean I'm belligerent."

"Because you're right? So those weren't, in fact, your hands on my breasts?"

"Look, sweetheart. I don't go around groping women. I stepped on your dress, but you fell into me. And that flash went off because someone was taking a photo, so I put my hands up to shield your tits from the photo. Like a gentleman.”

“Like a gentleman?” she squeals.

“That's right. I wasn’t even touching your tits. Not until you pitched forward and fell into my hands. That was your doing, not mine.”

"You've got to be kidding me," she starts. Then a look of panic passes over her face, and she pauses. “Who took the photo?” She looks up at Blair and David. "Obviously, the photos need to be deleted… Oh, God. My dad is going to be here any minute. He'll flip out."

Her dad. The President of the United States.

"I'll take care of the reporter,” I blurt out. The last thing I need is for a photo of me groping the President's daughter to circulate around the tabloids. I could kiss a potential lucrative contract right the hell goodbye. "He went out the front door. He won’t have gotten far."

One of the agents puts up her hand to stop me. “Sir, you need to stay here.”

Yeah, right. “I think I can take care of a fucking reporter,” I growl. “Unless you want to keep questioning me about whether or not I touched her tits on purpose.”

The Secret Service agent stares at me, her expression unchanging.

“Seriously?” I look at the President’s daughter.

"Let him," she says. The agent looks at her questioningly, and she shakes her head, sighing. "The groping…it was accidental.”

At least she admitted it. As if I’d purposely grope a girl, much less the President’s daughter.

I take off after the reporter. I can see the headlines now – Football Player Assaults Daughter of the President. Hell, could this night get any worse?