Playing to Win

your ass, Cole. I was hired to clean up your image. We can only do that if I tell it to you with honesty. Straight-up, and regardless of you being on what you might consider your best behavior at the club last night, your image isn’t clean. We have to fix that.”
    “There’s nothing wrong with my image. My stats show what kind of a player I am.”
    He could tell she wasn’t buying it. She didn’t even blink. “That’s not enough and you know it. If it was, you’d still be playing for Green Bay.”
    Logically, he knew she was right. It had been a shock to get cut from Green Bay, and an even bigger blow to be fired by yet another agent. Especially when he felt like he hadn’t deserved it. When Liz signed him, he’d wanted to kiss her because he’d been damn scared no one would pick him up, not that he would have admitted that to anyone. He owed it to Liz to give this image rehab thing a chance.
    “Okay, so what do you suggest I do?”
    “Well, there’s obviously nothing wrong with your play on the field.”
    His lips curved. “Obviously.”
    “Or your ego, for that matter.” She got up and grabbed the remote, rewound it back to his touchdown at the New Orleans game. “But look here. This was a go-ahead touchdown. A game changer.”
    She replayed him charging into the end zone. After the touchdown, his teammates cheered. Mostly with each other. He got a few obligatory high fives, but it wasn’t like they all ran to the end zone and surrounded him like a hero.
    Typical.
    She fast forwarded. “But look here. When Harrell scored on a running dive from a yard out, they surrounded him. Same thing with Mohan’s catch. They were celebrating with him, patting him on the back, banging his helmet. You mostly celebrated your touchdown alone. You ran the ball in and scored, got a few pats, but then the rest of the team went off to the sidelines to celebrate the touchdown—the touchdown you scored. You weren’t part of that team.”
    “I was never part of that team. I never felt welcome.”
    She leaned back in the chair. “And whose fault was that? Theirs?”
    “I didn’t say that.” He’d never noticed it before she pointed it out, but now that she had, there’d been other instances. He’d keptto himself, worked his magic with the ladies, did the PR gigs he was required to do, but never got involved with any of his team members. It had always been like that. He’d been a one-man wrecking crew, but he never bonded.
    It was just the way he operated. He knew what it was like in the NFL. You went from one team to another. No sense in making close friends. And a lot of those guys were assholes, anyway. He got a lot of media attention and they resented it. What was the point in him trying to explain it was part of his job? He owed nothing to them.
    “Look. Everyone’s out for their own game. That’s the way it is.”
    She arched a brow. “Really. That’s how you see it?”
    “Yeah. You do your job and leave it on the field. You want best friends, you find them elsewhere.”
    “Like at the clubs?”
    “Something like that.”
    “I don’t think even you believe that, Cole. Those people at the clubs aren’t your friends. Not the kinds of friends you get close to.”
    “How would you know? You don’t know who my real friends are.”
    “Then show me. Introduce me to them, and to your family. Let me see who the real Cole Riley is.”
    “Is this how you want to do your job? Just follow me around and talk to my friends and family?”
    “That’s part of it. I told you already that part of me reworking your image requires me to know who you are.”
    “So you can change me.”
    “I don’t intend to change you.”
    He stood, raked his fingers through his hair, and paced in front of the television. He stopped and faced her. “I don’t get this. I thought maybe you were going to change what kind of clothes I wore or something like that.”
    “That’s not the kind of image we’re talking about and I think you know it. This is going to be a deep evaluation into who you are. It’s a journey, a discovery not just for me, but for you, too.”
    “See. You are some kind of shrink.”
    She laced her hands together in her lap. “I already told you I wasn’t hired to psychoanalyze you. I’m here to help.”
    “You don’t need to meet my family and friends.”
    “Do you have something to hide?”
    “No.”
    “Then what’s the problem?”
    “There isn’t one, except I like to keep my personal