Page 78 of Love By The Falls

My stomach flips again, but this time it’s not from unease but desire. A most inconvenient time to want to pull the man down and kiss him. But these hormones have me wanting to do just that.

By the time I pull my gaze away, the last of the fans are leaving and these last stragglers seem less pissed off than the earlier ones.

“Follow me,” says Caleb. “We’ll take the private elevator to the ground floor.”

I nod and usher the boys out of their seats. “Come on, guys. Let’s go.”

They’re completely oblivious to the tension around them, but I’m thankful that Caleb is here. Jane and Austin wait at the entrance of the suite, and we all follow Caleb away from the crowd to the end of the hallway. There’s a security guard at the elevator and he nods at Caleb, who holds the door open for us as we get inside. “We shouldn’t have any problems from this point.”

Austin is bouncing on his feet, presumably as excited, if not more so than the boys, to be visiting the Lions’s locker room. His palpable excitement puts Jane in a better mood and she’s smiling, too.

When the doors open, there’s a sea of reporters and cameras along the narrow hallway. Caleb pulls out a card from his suit jacket and it opens a door to another hallway. This one is clear of any media.

“Damn. This feels like a movie,” Austin whispers.

Caleb doesn’t reply, but his smile tells me he heard Austin’s remark. We turn to the right and walk through another set of doors. These lead us into a room right next to the player’s locker room.

The room is swarming with players in all states of undress. Unbothered by their lack of clothing, theplayers walk around reporters and cameras, setting up their interviews. “This is insane,” I whisper, mostly to myself, but Caleb hears. “It’s what they’re used to.”

“I don’t think I could ever get used to that.”

A player pulls down the waist of his pants and is about to expose himself completely. “Is that Cafferty—"

I cover Charlie’s mouth with my hand and spin him around. Jane covers Anthony’s eyes. “I think this may be a little more than we had hoped for.”

Caleb cringes. “Sorry. I’m so used to it, I wasn’t thinking. Wait in the next room and I’ll bring Cafferty out when he’s ready.”

“That’s a good idea.” We usher the boys into another room, but Jane looks back over her shoulder.

“Really?” Austin deadpans.

“What? I was just checking that you were behind us.”

“Of course you were, darling.”

Jane presses her lips together, hiding her smile.

Anthony and Charlie talk excitedly about what they’ll ask Cafferty when they meet him, each boy arguing over who will ask him what.

A few minutes later, Cafferty himself appears at the door in a pair of gym shorts and a white T-shirt, a gold chain with his number over his chest. “Hey, I hear there are a couple of big fans in here to see me.”

Charlie’s, and Anthony’s chatter stops, and their mouths hang open. Cafferty rubs his mouth to hide alaugh, but he’s loving his star power. “Uh, we’re big fans,” says Austin, stumbling on his way to shake Cafferty’s hand. Charlie pulls a baseball out of his jacket pocket and holds it up to Cafferty. He doesn’t say anything though, so Austin adds, “Do you mind signing the ball for us?”

“Sure thing. Who should I make it out to?”

“That’s Charlie. It was his birthday a couple of days ago.”

“Your birthday, huh? Well, I think we can do better than a ball. How would you like me to sign your jersey, too?”

Charlie’s eyes widen and he immediately turns around and looks over his shoulder as Cafferty takes a sharpie to his jersey. He pens ‘HBD Charlie, your friend Paul Cafferty.’

“Thank you so much,” I say, walking up to them. “That means a lot.”

He tips his baseball cap to the boys and walks out of the room, shaking Caleb’s hand.

The second Cafferty leaves, the boys snap out of their shock and jump up and down, saying they can’t believe they just met Paul Cafferty. “Oh, my God, he signed my shirt. Paul Cafferty signed my shirt.”

“That’s so cool, dude. No one’s gonna believe us at school. We should have taken a picture.”

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