CHAPTER 1: Dex Bradley
The Things I Live For
I stare out the window of my training room as my shoes slap against the treadmill.
This room has a killer view of Las Vegas Boulevard, which is why I stuck the treadmill in it. I can see from the Strat all the way down to Mandalay Bay from three miles northwest of the famed Strip. I can see the stadium where I play football to the south and the practice facility out the other side of my penthouse.
These are the things I live for.
What’s waiting with my doorman?
Not something I live for.
“I have a Tawny Jade here to see you, sir,” Milton tells me over the phone.
I knew I should’ve trusted my instincts and not answered when I was in the middle of a workout.
Tawny is a woman I messed around with for a few months awhile back. I haven’t spoken to her since I broke things off. She was more invested than I was, so I ended it.
“What does she want?” I askMilton.
“She’d like to speak with you.”
“Give me a few minutes and I’ll come down.” I don’t particularly want to quit in the middle of my workout, but I also don’t particularly want to invite her up here, so I take the lesser of two evils. I slow my pace to a walk so I can catch my breath, and then I stop the machine.
I towel off and throw a shirt on as I think about today’s date.
Today is July first.
When the first of July hits, that’s usually the signal that I only have another few weeks to do whatever the fuck I want. In less than four weeks, training camp will start and a new season will kick off.
So that means I have less than four weeks to live it up before I have to be on my best behavior again.
I’msupposedto be on my best behavior in the offseason as well, but there are a lot of things in life we’re supposed to do that I just…don’t.
I prefer to do what I want. I do what feels good, what feels right in the moment. What feels fun. What gives me a thrill.
Though to be honest, that feeling of the thrill has been dead for a while now. I haven’t felt a genuine thrill since…
I think back, trying to search my memory for when. I guess since last season when I hit my career-high sack count. Every time I run toward the quarterback from the outside, I get a thrill. My job as a defensive end is to keep the play on the inside and not let it get to the outside, but those moments when I get to rush the passer are golden.
Off the field, though?
Maybe a high-stakes bet in one of the underground gambling rings I attend. Maybe that time I took part in a drag race on the Strip even though my team expressly prohibited it. I had a need for speed, and it was fulfilled in a safe, legal way.
The Aces fined me anyway.
What do I care? It’s just money, and I got the thrill I was chasing.
It used to be women that gave me a thrill. A night here with a gorgeous blonde with legs that go on for miles, a night there with a brunette with perfect tits. I still have those nights when I want them, but the actual thrill of them wore off long ago.
It’s not that I’m searching for something more permanent. It’s more that the excitement wore off. I have a certain reputation around this town, and it’s not exactly hard to score whatever woman catches my eye first. I think it boils down to the fact that the thrill was in the chase, and I no longer have to chase.
It’s gotten boring, to be honest.
I spot Tawny from behind as she waits near Milton. She has the same long, brunette ponytail I can remember yanking on and the same shapely ass I recall pounding into from behind.
“Mr. Bradley is here to see you,” Milton says when he sees me, interrupting whatever she was saying.
