“It used to when I was first starting out, but I’ve developed a thicker skin over the years. I don’t let it get to me. I can’t and won’t. Instead, I use all the negativity as motivation to prove them all wrong.”
A small smirk lifted her lips. “So that’s your plan? To prove them wrong?”
“And to make sure the same mistakes don’t happen again.” I smiled despite myself.
Becca smiled back. For a brief minute, this didn’t feel like an interview. It felt like two people having a normal conversation.
“Okay, next question.” She flipped through her notes. “There was speculation that you were distracted last year due to your public breakup with Lydia Sullivan. Some people connected that to your performance. Care to comment on those rumors?”
I rubbed my forehead, giving myself a minute to formulate an answer. My PR team told me not to respond or correct it if she asked. They said defending myself would only make me look guilty. It didn’t matter that people had the truth backward. Going after my ex would make me look bitter, so I was instructed to remain quiet and let people assume whatever the hell they wanted. I thought these rumors would burn out and that people would get bored and move on to the next headline. I guess I was wrong.
I met her eyes from across the table. “When you’re in the public eye, you don’t always get to control the story. You just decide if you’re going to add to it.” I rubbed my hands along my thighs. “I think it’s easy to form an opinion from the outside looking in. The reality is, the relationship ran its course. There really isn’t much more to it than that. A lot of what was said wasn’t true. So, I don’t feel the need to respond to rumors.”
Her gaze didn’t waver, but I felt the mood shift between us. Becca asked a few follow-up questions. Most of them were harmless and light. She asked about training camp, routines,and my relationship with the guys on the team. We went back and forth for the next twenty minutes. Her questions were threading between serious and personal.
At one point, she asked about my family. A topic I didn’t talk about much with the media. It was usually where I drew the line.
“There was a picture of you and your sister, Callie, at her college graduation. What was it like for her to have a famous older brother?”
“Are you calling me old now?” I teased.
She laughed. “Absolutely not. I’m the same age as you.”
I glanced at her before answering, trying to read her intentions. This wasn’t the first time I’d been asked a question about my sister. However, her question showed genuine interest, not just that of a typical, nosy journalist bullshit.
I pulled on the hem of my T-shirt. “Callie doesn’t think of me as Nate Sandler, the NFL player. To her, I’m her annoying, overprotective brother.”
“So, she doesn’t put you on a pedestal?”
A laugh slipped out. “Absolutely not. In fact, she’d be the first to knock me off if I ever started believing that.”
“Do you talk often?”
“All the time. She’ll text me after a game and say, ‘Good job,’ and follow up with all the things I did wrong.”
Her face softened. “I can tell by the way you talk about her that you’re very close.”
My eyes lit up just thinking about her. “Callie was literally my favorite person on the planet, other than my mom.”
Becca glanced at the clock on the wall. “I think that’s a good place to end for today.” She closed her notebook and tucked it away in her bag.
I nodded and pushed my chair back while gathering her things.
I had to admit, this was the most at ease I’d been with a reporter in a long time. Becca didn’t push. She just listened as I talked about topics I usually kept off the record.
“See, that wasn’t so bad, was it?” she asked, pulling a tube of lip gloss out of her side pocket and swiped it along her lips. My attention lingered before dragging my eyes back to the table. She was turning into a distraction, and if I kept staring, she was going to start noticing.
I cleared my throat and stood up so I could walk her to the door. “The verdict is still out. I need to hold my judgment until the next interview.”
She glanced toward the door but didn’t leave right away. “Thank you for taking the time to meet with me.”
I stuffed my hands into my front pockets. “Don’t make me regret it.”
Her smile was soft, as if she understood that I had opened up in a way that I usually didn’t. “I won’t. You have my word.”
Surprisingly, the interview had gone smoother than I expected. Almost too smoothly. Which was ironic, because I’d spent my entire career steering away from answering tough questions and keeping reporters at arm’s length. But Becca had a way of asking questions that made me want to answer.
It was as if she saw something real in me. Not Nate with the two championship titles, but Nate, the guy who secretly craved something real, but was too afraid to go after it.
