bet on it - odell beckham jr.

chapter nine

"they'll come around." coach jordan tells me, later on in the day as we walk back from the meeting room to the other side of the stadium that holds both of our offices.

"whatever."

my eyes roll. i've hardly gotten over being knocked over and having pizza shoved in my face, the very last thing i want is someone to tell me that these males are gonna come around. and as if it isn't bad enough that they almost made me cry today, i was forced to wear one of their stupid promo shirts since mine was wrecked.

right after, i had to wash my hair in the bathroom sink with soap and scrub all the makeup off my face. the hot pizza sauce left marks to my cheeks and forehead. and without makeup, it's super noticeable. so not only was my day bad, i also look awful.

"don't worry about them, ira. they got their feelings hurt and didn't like the change. so now they're resisting, it's normal." he tells me, before patting my shoulder.

"i'm only trying to help them." i grumble.

"i know, they'll figure it out too. it just takes time."

"they don't have time, the season starts on monday!"

he stops, turning to me. "you know, maybe you could give a little? do something that they might like instead of forcing out all these new rules on them?"

i move towards my office. "i'm not rewarding them for bad behaviour. bad behaviour equals bad treatm–" my words die as i open the door to my office, and i scream as an entire load of spinach falls towards me.

"what the fuck!" i screech, the slimy leaves descending onto me, knocking me down and covering every square surface of my body.

i start to open my mouth again to scream, but another hefty batch of spinach begins to tumble from above me. of course, some of the leaves end up in my mouth so i cough and choke a bit, having the god-awful taste of rotten spinach in my mouth.

not only is it in my mouth, it's everywhere. down my shirt, my shorts, in my hair. and that's just what's on my body, my office? let's just say i can't see a single piece of my furniture because spinach is literally covering every inch of the place. the office i just paid to have deep cleaned, nonetheless.

"oh my god." jordan chuckles, as i continue to get stuck to the floor under a pile of green.

"jordan, i swear to god i'll fucking drown you in this spinach myself once i get my hands on you." i grumble, but gladly take his hand as he helps me stand. however, i slide forward on the sludge, onto my hands and knees and land face first in his crotch.

"hey, coach. make sure you sign a non-disclosure agreement before getting that blowy!" i hear yelled, and then a few hoots break out and the hallway fills with laughter.

"for fucks' sake." i groan and scoot myself back.

the leaves are wet, making them even more slippery and since most of them are rotten, they've turned into a green mush underneath my fingers. coachs' face is bright red by the time i make it to a standing position, and for good reason, he should be looking like that. i nearly just bit off his balls.

a paper is thrust my way, and i snatch it, crumpling it back up and tossing it to the owner. landon grins back at me, before looking down at my now soaked and slime-covered t-shirt.

"look, saquon. she's wearing our faces." he glances down at me, a grin on his face. "that's sweet, ira. seriously so sweet. here we are thinking you didn't like us, but yet here you stand sporting our faces. probably shouldn't do that, not if you're gonna bang coach. he might get jealous." behind him, saquons' face is bright red from laughing, tears streaming down his cheeks whilst he gasps for breath. "who would of thought? ira and coach jordan. what a coincidence."

"collins, that's enough!" jordan shouts, motioning wildly between the two. "is this your idea of a sick joke?" he gestures around my office.

"no, sir. no idea about it. we just came by to talk to ira for a second."

"she's busy." he snaps, as i manage to straighten out my clothing and pluck the stray leaves of spinach out my hair.

"don't worry. we see that."

☯︎

"worst. fucking. day. ever." i grumble into my martini as iris laughs at me over hers.

"honestly, yeah. it was a bad day for you. but, you're still here. you're still standing and you haven't fallen into any of their charms. so i would say, all is good."

"charms, you call that madness today charms?" i roll my eyes before taking a long drink. "you've been around women too long."

"you're probably right." she grins at me over her drink, before shrugging. "if i weren't already a lesbian, stunts like that might push me in this direction."

"i guess i survived."

"that you did. at least now you have the weekend off, two days of not having to deal with them."

"i'll drink to that." i hold my glass up to hers in cheers, before taking another long sip.

"what are you gonna do for the rest of the weekend?"

that's a big fat nothing. i have no one here besides iris, and we are now just becoming friends. the last thing i wanna do is become clingy to her, expecting her to hang out with me all the time.

i debated flying out to tijuana to visit my best friend, frankie. but then opted against it. while a little bff time would do me a lot good, she just recently got engaged and doesn't exactly have the time to fully have me around right now.

since that would be the case, i had plenty of time to visit my mom. and, well. i'm not exactly in the mood for any of that either. i have a lot to do here around my house anyways, so it's probably best to wait it out.

"not much, really. i need to get my house in order, get some furniture moved around, boxes unpacked, that kind of thing. plus, my cupboards are empty. i've been eating take-out every night. so, grocery shopping is definitely in order, along with organising my closet."

"what an exciting life you lead. are you sure you're 23? sounds more like a weekend of a 70 year old." she teases, but not long before her eyes open wide. her mouth drops open slightly as she nods her head behind me. "you may not wanna look right now, but landon and odell just walked through the door."

"what?" i hiss, before turning ever so slightly, and groan. "i thought you said that none of the guys come here." i shoot daggers at her from across the table, forcing my eyes to stay on hers.

nope, no way. not me. wrong bitch. but, everyone else in the bar has no problem of doing so. every girl in this place grins widely, and begins to bat their eyelashes at the hunks of men that just walked in, acting as if they own the place.

"usually they don't." she mutters. i cringe as i watch her face change, and feel the air around me definitely alter as i'm pretty sure we've been spotted. "they're coming over here." she kicks me under the table with her stiletto and i groan again, wishing i could sink into the floor and disappear.

i'm feeling weak at the moment, beaten down from a horrific day. i'm not in the mood.

my ass hurts from where i was knocked onto it, my pride hurts that they all laughed at me, and don't even get me started with my office. because when i had to call that cleaning crew, not only did they practically shout at me for at least five minutes on the phone, but it also took a huge dent out of my check book when they hit me with that cleaning bill.

"iris? hey, babe. you're looking good tonight." i hear crooned. landon grabs a chair and pulls it up to our table, before lifting his hand up to signal the waitress.

"um." my eyes widen, as odell grabs the chair on the opposite side of landon—which is the closest to me—and does the same. i give iris a look across the table, tryna get her to stop this from happening, but she totally misses it.