Chapter 8: Tiffany, Part 2

I clear my throat. "There were a lot of whispers last night about a certain rookie being groomed to take over as a starting mid-fielder next season." I try not to change my expression as Rowen crosses my mind. I haven't stopped thinking about him since the other night. I've never had anyone turn away before when I've been naked. I was surprised by how nice it made me feel.

Steve raises his eyebrows and turns towards me even more. "So who's getting cut?"

"Mack Shivel." I lean back and clasp my hands together, resting them on my stomach. Steve whistles his disbelief softly.

"I bet that's going over like a ton of bricks."

"Mack hasn't figured it out yet."

"Are you sure?"

"Oh yeah." I nod my head. "The Rookie was at the party. No way he could have gotten that drunk and not thrown down if he knew."

Steve scratches his shoulder. "Yeah, that Mack Shivel is kind of a dick."

"Hey!" I say in protest. "He's not that bad. He's always been nice to me."

He rolls his eyes. "Yeah. Because you're young and beautiful and have a vagina."

My jaw drops and I can't help it when a laugh comes out of my mouth. "Did you just say that?"

"Too much?" he asks sheepishly.

"No. You're just usually more…" I pause to figure out how to phrase it. "…more conservative than that."

He shrugs. "I've only had one cup of coffee today. I'm a little off."

I grab a pen off the desk and begin twirling it around my finger. "Well, anyway…I'm keeping my ear to the ground for when it happens. I'll work on getting an exclusive interview with the Rookie and, if I'm lucky, with Mack when it all happens."

"Sounds good."

Steve clicks his mouse a few times and a few seconds later, grabs his story idea list off the printer. We spend the next twenty minutes or so discussing the games coming up for the day and their order of importance. We already know our reporter will be going to cover the Houston Astros. By far, football has the most hard core fans. But when football isn't playing, baseball is a close second.

Soccer comes after that for the average fan. But I'm not your average fan. I started playing soccer at the YMCA when I was a kid and have loved it ever since. I played until my junior year in college when a tibia injury made it too hard to play without pain. I was bummed when I had to stop, but hanging out with the Mutiny helps.

I know I'm not part of the actual team, but it still feels good to be part of that family. I would genuinely do anything for them. And I'm pretty sure they would do anything for me. Well, within reason of course.

The room gets quiet as Steve and I turn to our work. A lot of our day consists of reading through all the wires to make sure we're not missing any big national sports stories. There's also editing of last night's late games that may not have been over by the time we went on the air last night. But for the most part, things are pretty relaxed until about five o'clock when all the games start.

Then we're watching multiple TVs at the same time, looking for that money shot. There's a lot of trash talk, too, as we root for our favorite teams. It's great fun.

While we wait, there's time to do some research. And there's only one topic I want to do research on…Rowen Flanigan.

After putting his name in the search engine, I sort through dozens of articles. Most of them are talking about his being recruited straight out of college. Many recap his college stats. Even more articles just mention him during the over view of the game.

His stats are amazing. An average of over .6 assists per game last year and seventeen goals. It's really unusual for someone his age to be this good already.

An article from further back catches my attention. Pulling it up, I scan through it and everything falls into place.

"Son of a bitch," I say under my breath.

"What?" Steve asks absentmindedly while doing the two-finger peck on his keyboard.

"The rookie. He's soccer royalty." I stare at the screen, stunned. I don't know how I even missed it before.

I feel Steve come up behind me, putting his hands on my chair to read over my shoulder. "What do you mean?"

"Look, right there." I point to a picture on the screen of a younger Rowen, red hair disheveled and looking like it's needs to be combed. He's sitting at a table next to an almost identical version of him…just twenty-five years older. "His dad is Ryan Flanigan."

Steve leans a little closer. "Are you serious?"

"Yeah, look. The article says it right there. Rowen Flanigan, only son of the European football legend, Ryan, signed a letter of intent today to play soccer for the University of Southern Michigan. Holy shit, Steve," I say swiveling my chair all the way around to look at him. "His dad is Ryan Flanigan. Do you know how insane that is?"

"I wouldn't call it insane. But yeah, that's awesome. Have you met him? Is he a nice guy?" Steve sits back down in his chair and a feel my body flush as I think about meeting him. Both times.

"Yeah. He's really, really nice," I say nonchalantly. "Kind of quiet. Prefers to people watch than be in on the action."

"You think we should interview him?"

I think about it for a second. "I'd like to wait. Since this is the first I'm hearing about it, my guess is he doesn't want it to seem like there's any nepotism going on. But do you think we have time? He looks just like his dad so at some point people are going to figure it out."

Steve taps his finger on the desk in thought. "Well, let's think about this. His dad retired, what fifteen years ago?"

I scan the article for the answer. "Um, looks like it. Somewhere around there."

"Fifteen years ago, there weren't really any teams to worth following in the States so it wasn't a really popular sport. I think people followed tennis more."

"I remember that. My mother made us watch almost every championship game that year."

"There were some fun players then. But, anyway, almost no one in the States followed soccer. And they certainly didn't follow the European leagues. So unless it was an obsession for someone, they probably wouldn't put it together."

"So you think I have time to get to know him a little better before I hit him up for the exclusive?"

"Yeah. We've got a little time," Steve says. "But if he really does boot Shivel out, I want an interview with him before anyone else. That'll be a major scoop."

"Of course." I nod my head in agreement and look back at my monitor.

Rowen Flanigan is the son of a legend.

He already intrigued me. Now, I just might become obsessed.