CHAPTER ONE
Faded
MONEY
“POUR THIS SHIT up!”
I had a grin on my face but it didn’t match my heart. Inside, I felt like I was dying. Waging an internal battle that was currently fucking with me something serious. My team hadn’t made it to the playoffs and it was my missing the hole on a key play that didn’t net us the first down we needed. We ended up turning the ball over and that was how our season ended. My teammates were saying it wasn’t my fault but I couldn’t help but feel like it was. That’s why I’d been going through the motions of trying to get everything out of my mind by making sure I wasn’t coherent for a minute.
Was it working? Not really. It had only caused my name to be associated with some shit that I didn’t want it to be: not taking my job seriously. They deemed me a playboy, someone who was too busy worrying about partying than he was about improving to do better next season. It was fucked up because my position as a running back was limited. Even the greats only had about eight good years in them and I was already on year four. Average players were only good for five years and I could tell people were doubting me because I’d been less than perfect. I couldn’t blame them because I was the harshest critic of them all.
The club I was in was filled to the brim with people I didn’t want to interact with, but being alone in my townhouse with my thoughts was something that was even worse for my mental health than the alcohol I was holding was for my physical. I’d come out dressed as flashy as possible so that I could appearunbothered. I wasn’t about to let people think any of this shit had gotten to me even though it had. I had on a thick diamond chain and the watch my agents had gifted me for signing on with their company. Jeans and a black t-shirt, the only hint at my mood, complete with throwback sneakers completed my outfit. My hair was out, the curls shielding my eyes from the looks of people around me. I was here, but not really.
The loss was just the first part of the fucked-up shit going on in my life. I had a bitch claiming she was pregnant with my baby, which I knew couldn’t be right. Although I was a professional athlete, there was always a face to put with the pussy. And unlike a lot of the men in my profession I was choosy as fuck with whom I dealt with for multiple reasons. Mistakes happened and I wouldn’t want to trust the most vulnerable part of myself, my child, to a complete stranger. Especially if she turned out to be the baby mama from hell and was only worried about using my kid against me or as a tool. I’d seen it happen too often even when I was in college so there was no way I would repeat the mistakes I’d learned from when my damn frontal lobe wasn’t fully formed.
This girl wasn’t someone I had ever had in my bed. Despite the number being higher than I would want my mama to know, I still had a clue of everyone I’d been with. Call me crazy but I had a mental Rolodex of everyone I’d ever smashed. It wasn’t hubris; it was a protection for instances just like this. And somehow this girl was trying to insist she’d slipped through the cracks. My lawyers were on my back to get the DNA test done to prove her wrong but I wasn’t about to lend validity to anything she had to say because I knew I didn’t fuck with her.
What I look like giving a crazy bitch the satisfaction of making me jump through hoops? She needed to put that money on the table if she thought she was going to put dirt on my name like that. It was crazy that she wanted me to front thecost of proving something I knew she was saying was a lie. Since I hadn’t fucked her and there was no chance of this shit happening, I wasn’t going to waste my money. My PR rep Bobby wanted me to make the move so that she could shut up. The girl was constantly online talking shit about me and calling me a deadbeat. That shit was pissing me off because with the type of father I had a deadbeat was the last thing I would ever be.
“Aye you good?” Marcel Owens who played tight end for the team flopped down beside me with a bottle in his hand. It was already a month after the Super Bowl but we were still drowning out our troubles. At least I was. This nigga just loved to be out. I felt like he had some shit going on with him that didn’t extend to the team because he was never out like this. Shit, neither of us was.
Marcel had his hair in two French braids that hit the tops of his shoulders. He had the prototypical tight end form looking like a mix between a linebacker and a wide receiver. It was our good luck that his ass was quicker than most people in his position. He told me he’d grown up admiring the hell out of Tony Gonzalez and Antonio Gate’s game. The newer age tight ends weren’t people he wanted to pattern himself after, he wanted to be like the men who came before them.
“Yeah man, just trying to get my mind right, feel me?” There was no reason to elaborate because everyone knew what the hell was going on. The bitch saying I was the father of her fetus wasn’t shy about tagging me in the daily rants she went on. She would run to the media and hop on live to talk shit about me and an imaginary relationship we didn’t have. There were never any specifics about how we met or what we’d done. She explained our never having been spotted together anywhere as my wanting to be private. Even when people dogged her out and called her an idiot she just rolled with the shit and kept going live to drive up her popularity and the attention to herself. Andthe shit worked. I wasn’t sure how much people made going live and getting gifts on social media, but she was definitely putting in work to secure the bag. I hoped that money lasted her or she found a sucker to take care of her kid because I wasn’t paying her shit.
“Don’t overdo this shit, Money.” Marcel nodded at the bottle that was in front of me like he wasn’t holding one in his hand like it was his lifeline.
“Ain’t like we got to prep for next season soon.” His words stopped me from reaching for that bottle like my demons were trying to get me to. He and I were people who stayed in shape year-round because it made us feel good. A lot of people let themselves go for a few months and then had to torture themselves to get back in football shape. That type of flux on your body was too much stress. Especially for people like us, who needed our joints, muscles and bones to work at optimal levels for work. I looked at the bottle knowing that with the hits I took to the head, the last thing I needed was to be fucking up my nervous system by drowning it in alcohol.
“Bruh, you still on that? There’s three dozen ways we could’ve put that game away but we didn’t. Sometimes we've gotta understand that we’ve just been outplayed. Hell, Stew was pissed with himself not you. Why are you being so hard on yourself?” Marcel’s face was frowned up like he couldn’t believe I was still carrying the weight of what happened on my shoulders.
“Because I had the chance and didn’t make it — that’s why. With all the negative press I have going on, I needed something for people to talk about that was positive. And I fucked it up. Now I’m not just a nigga dodging a paternity test, I’m also the nigga that kept the team from going to the championship.”
“Yo, you need to find therapy or something that ain’t in that bottle.”
I glanced down at the bottle of whiskey again and shrugged. This is what I had right now to keep myself occupied. But I knew better than to let anything even look like I was going to be dragging a bunch of women back to my house. My agent forced me to have a babysitter while these charges were pending so I knew better than to worry about some bitch trying to trap me. We’d mainly kept women out of the section away from me because I’d made it clear I wanted to clear my head not fight off some chick looking to be a WAG.
I released a loud exhale that I heard even though the music of the club tried to drown it out. This place wasn’t really where I was comfortable but I’d agreed to make the appearance because I wanted a reason to be seen. And I couldn’t lie like I wasn’t flattered someone still held me in high opinion. “I’m good.”
“You say that but there are a lot of signs that you aren’t. You’re saying that you feel bad about what happened but where are you putting in the work to actually make this shit a figment of the past? Right now you wallowing and I get it, but you need to tighten up.”
He had me thinking when all I wanted to do was relax and let go for a while. My life had been tightly controlled for years. I had to step up and help when my pops died and become the man of the house. My mama didn’t force me to, but she shouldn’t have to endure his death on her own. Emotionally, we’d been there for my younger siblings together and tried to handle our grief behind closed doors. I knew my mother would go into mama mode instead of taking time to be sad for herself, so I never really processed that pain the way I probably should. There were moments even now that his loss struck me in the chest and took my breath away. I knew some of what I was doing right now was probably linked to a lot of unresolved shit in my past, but I wasn’t going to delve into that right now. I knew he was probably up in heaven, that peaceful look on his face saying¡Aye ombe!¿Qué lo que?(What’s going on?). Just thinking about him made me want to tighten up because the idea of disappointing him after all he’d sacrificed for me was painful.
“I hear you. But damn, can’t I have one last hoorah or whatever before I gotta think about all this again? I can already tell this bitch is going to ramp up her bullshit and I need to be prepared for whatever she throws at me.”
“I hear you. But we’re friends and shit besides just being teammates. Don’t let this shit get you down. Do what you need to, I can look out for now.” He waved his hand around the room discreetly showing that he would keep the people away.
“I got a paid babysitter and shit. I promise I’ll be fine.” I nodded toward the security that was standing roughly six feet away and had kept everyone but my teammates from being around me.
“Yeah, but that’s someone who doesn’t know you well. I’m your boy so do whatever you need to and then get your head right. We both got a point to prove so get this shit out your system now so that we can come back stronger than ever.” He raised his bottle and I picked up mine before we clinked them together.
“Good lookin’. One for the road.”
Marcel nodded with a smile, “One for the road.”
I woke up and immediately pitched to one side looking for the trash can. My stomach had to be the reason I was woken up out of my sleep and I hurled into the trashcan I’d been smart enough to put by my bed. The stomach acid burned as it came up from my throat and the lack of food on my stomach made this shit hurt even worse somehow. I flopped back on the bed hating thatI’d forgotten to close the blinds in my bedroom. The townhouse I lived in was in a decent community and it was set in a way that it was mainly excluded from others in the subdivision. I was thankful for that type of solitude because there was always so much attention on me when I was out. I needed my time at home to recharge.
When the world stopped spinning around I was thankful that I had nothing that was pressing for the next few weeks. I was sure I would need every hour of them in order to get myself together.
