Page 14 of Mad Rivals
My dad unloads on me once we get back into the car.
“Under no circumstances are you to get involved with the Bradley family,” he says.
Um…excuse me? And also…what? “The Bradleyfamily?” I ask. I thought hisnamewas Bradley.
“Mm,” he murmurs. “The boy at the bid walk, that’s Madden. The eldest.”
Wait a minute.
First of all, he’sallman, decidedly not a boy.
But also…
“Madden Bradley?” I ask. Holy shit. Itwashim. That’s why he looked kind of familiar to me. He’s a fucking football god around these parts. He was out of his element in a suit and tie, and that must have been why I didn’t piece together who he was.
“Thomas Bradley has been a thorn in my side for over three decades, Kennedy. We simply cannot be associated with them.”
“Why?” I breathe, suddenly wanting to know everything about the family.
He shakes his head a little as if to say that’s the end of that discussion, but I need more.
“If you’re going to put me on this project, don’t you think I need to know everything I can about the competition?” I ask.
He sighs as he eyes me warily. “You know how work can come between friendships,” he says, nearly echoing my mother’s words from just the other day. “That’s what happened.”
“Details?” I ask.
He glances out the window. “Thomas and I attended the same college. He was a few years ahead of me, but we were on the football team together. We were the same major, so even though I was younger than him, he mentored me. We talked about opening a firm together someday. And then somethingchanged. He was injured off the field and could no longer play, and he seemed to form a resentment toward anybody who could. We lost touch only to find ourselves competing for a bid several years later, once your mother and I started VBC. The former friends might’ve teamed up on the efforts, and instead, he went behind my back and did something to win that bid. I don’t know what it was, but here’s what I do know. He’s been slimy and underhanded ever since, and every goddamned time I go up against him, he wins.”
I may not be the world’s most perfect daughter. I may not be all that close to my parents.
But I refuse to sit back and let some slimy, underhanded asshole take this project out from under us.
“What can we do?” I ask.
“Nothing,” he says, and he glances over at me. “But I like the passion in your voice.”
“Why don’t you fight?”
“Thomas Bradley has the kind of connections you just don’t fight against, Kennedy. Trust me. So if I lose this project to him, it wasn’t meant to be.” His phone starts to ring as he finishes his sentence, and he takes the call, effectively ending the conversation.
Okay, fine. My dad won’t fight Thomas Bradley.
But that doesn’t mean I can’t fight his son.
CHAPTER 8: Madden Bradley
Tight, Black Pants
I arrive solo at the SCS offices two weeks after the bid walk.
In the last two weeks, I flew to San Diego to get in some more workouts with my new teammates and find a place to live. I still haven’t settled on anything, so I’ll have to go back again sooner rather than later.
The caffeine queen lady boss babe from Starbucks and the subsequent bid walk has only snaked her way into my thoughts hourly over the last week—down from half-hourly the first week, something I’m counting as a win.
I’m not sure why I can’t get her out of my head.
There was something electric in the air when I think back to our connection. Maybe it was the way she was a little flustered when I looked at her, or maybe it was in the way she didn’t seem to know who the hell I was. I liked that about her.
