“Have you ever watched a football game, like at your high school or on TV?” Callahan asked, his expression relaying he couldn’t believe he even needed to ask the question.
“No. But I’ve seen commercials for games.” I defended myself.
“Oh, darlin’, you and your big brain are missing out.” Falling into step beside me as we continued walking toward my dorm, he said, “Football is a massive game of chess. You do know chess, right?” He smirked at my exaggerated eye roll and continued. “The coaches from one team draw up offensive and defensive strategies to outplay the other team. The plays they call on both sides of the ball are their chess moves. When one team has the ball, the coaches are calling plays to advance it, while the coaches on the other team are calling plays to stop that advance.”
We crunched through some early downed leaves on the sidewalk as we passed through a small stand of trees a block from my dorm.
“The one variable in this chess match is the players.”
I frowned in confusion, and he went on.
“At any time during the play—the chess move, if you will—a player might see something on the other side of the line that causes him to improvise. In this live chess match, the chessmen can make changes during a play.”
His explanation pulled me in, and to my surprise, being a chess nerd and all, I wanted to know more. “You make it sound like something out of Harry Potter.”
He chuckled, and I asked the obvious question. “But why all the violent bashing into each other?”
The tone of his laughter said he knew he had me, but I was intrigued enough not to care. We stopped beneath a street light on the corner outside my building. He picked up a stick and squatted down to draw in the dirt of a fallow flower bed. Drawing two lines of X’s and O’s, he said, “These are linemen. Think of them as pawns.” Behind the line of O’s, he drew more. “This is the running back.” He pointed to an O. “Think of him as the knight. These are receivers.” He pointed to a couple more O’s. “Think of them as bishops. This is the quarterback.” He pointed a lone O in the center of the area behind the line. “Think of him as the queen. The ball is the king. In this chess match, though, once you ring the bell—or in this case, the center snaps the ball back to the quarterback—all the pieces move at once.”
He glanced up to see if I was following him. When I circled my hand in the universal gesture for “go on,” he continued. “The defensive players are doing two things simultaneously: trying to reach the quarterback to take the ball from him and covering the running back and receivers so he can’t give the ball to them to advance it toward the goal. When the defense”——he pointed to the X’s he’d drawn— “is successful, they stop the advance of the offense. When the offense is successful, they score a goal and move ahead in the game.”
A lock of hair escaped his backward ball cap to fall over his forehead as he bounced back up to stand in front of me. His enthusiasm and that wayward curl gave him a boyishness I couldn’t help but smile at. Mischief narrowed his eyes.
“Admit it, Jamaica. You want to watch a game.”
Tilting my head to one side, I crossed my arms over my chest. “Which piece are you in this game?”
“Tight end.”
“Of course you are.” The words slipped out before I could clamp a hand over my mouth.
A laugh barked out of him. “I’m that versatile piece that can be played as a pawn, a rook, or a bishop depending on the play the coach calls. I can line up here”—squatting beside his drawings, he pointed to the line of O’s with his stick—“or here or here or here.” He marked additional spots in the dirt. “Depending on where I line up, I can block for the running back or receive a pass. Either way, I’m helping to advance the ball.”
In spite of myself, his description of the game grabbed my attention. Stepping a bit closer, I studied his scratchings under the light.
“When we advance the ball—a.k.a. the king—over the goal line, we score six points. Checkmate. Then the other team has their try.”
The flaw was obvious. “What you’re saying is basically whoever has the ball last wins.”
His eyes glittered. “Nope. Whoever scores the most points wins.”
“But if each team has a turn back and forth, then the team who has the ball last wins. And you still haven’t explained all the bashing.” Honestly, the guy played a silly game.
As if he knew my thoughts, he said, “Let’s say we score.” His tone was all kinds of patient. “We kick off and they field the ball to begin their drive to advance down the field. One of our defenders, say a pawn or probably a rook or a bishop—we call them linebackers since they back up the defensive line.” At my raised brow, he clarified. “The line of X’s in front.”
I nodded.
“Let’s say one of them steals the ball either by intercepting a pass or forcing a fumble. Then we’re back on offense and can score again. In that scenario, we’re up two scores before the other team has had a chance to advance the ball. But usually, our defense forces the other team into a stalemate, and they have to kick the ball back to us. Then we have another chance to advance the ball.” He stood and grinned. “All the ‘bashing’ is how each team tries to force the other team away from the goal.” Waggling his brows, he added, “It’s the best part of the game.”
His excitement drew me closer, but when I glanced up from his drawings, his eyes were on me. More accurately, on my mouth. Involuntarily, my tongue slipped out to wet my lips.
“You know you want to come.” His voice dropped an octave, sending tiny tremors through me.
I blinked, and the corner of his mouth tipped up.
“To my game, you naughty girl. But after the hot way you kissed me in the library, I can see how your mind might have gone somewhere else.”
My eyes nearly bugged out of my head as I huffed out a breath. “You truly think you’re the BFD, don’t you?”
“Come to my game on Saturday. See for yourself, Island Girl.” The words were cocky, but his smile was gentle. Vulnerable. I couldn’t figure out how to react.
Callahan did it for me. “What happened in that study room tonight? Hottest. Kiss. Of. My. Life.” He leaned down and brushed a soft kiss over my cheek, shoved his hands in his pockets, and stepped back. “See you in class tomorrow.”
He walked backward two steps, long enough to let his smile linger between us, then he turned on his heel and strode back up the sidewalk the way we came.
The next day when I walked into class, I was still thinking about how Callahan had described our ill-advised make-out session in the library. The hottest kiss of his life? Seriously? How I’d let things go so far off the rails, I had yet to figure out. Yes, he was gorgeous and smart and oddly sweet, but he was still a player. A player who could make me forget my own name when he put his talented lips on mine. I sighed.
“That was heartfelt.” Axel smirked as I slouched into the chair beside his. “I heard you were a bit disheveled after your study session at the library.”
I sat forward so fast I almost gave myself whiplash. “Where did you hear that?”
“Drake knows Enriquè from their graphic design classes. He comes over sometimes to play COD with us,” Axel explained. “He popped in last night after he finished up at the library.”
My heart tried to climb up my throat, but I shoved it back down with attitude. Crossing my arms over my chest, I said, “Your friend has no idea what he’s talking about. He doesn’t even know who I am.”
“Jamaica, darling, this glorious mass of curls draws everyone’s attention. That and the entertaining way you annoy professors with your endless questions in all your classes.” He gave me a patronizing pat on the thigh. “You’d be surprised how many people on campus know who you are.”
Hotshot chose that moment to slide in beside me, sandwiching me between himself and my best friend as though I needed an additional testosterone boost. Axel with his laughing eyes and that thigh pat was plenty, thankyouverymuch.
“Good morning, Island Girl. Did you have sweet dreams last night?” The wicked gleam in his intense blue eyes sent a shot of pure lust straight to my center.
Why did that part of me have to have delicious memories of rubbing up and down his length?
Turning up my nose at him, I said, “I was too busy sleeping to spend time dreaming.”
Callahan chuckled and smiled his infectious smile. “It’s your story, babe. Tell it any way you want.” He leaned in close and whispered for my ears only, “I dreamed about kissing you all night. Woke up with morning wood hard enough to take out a brick wall.”
My hand flew to my mouth to cover my snort of laughter at his outrageous description. Recovering myself, I shook my head. “That’s a visual I did not need.”
He winked at Axel over my head, and I had to reach into my backpack for my notebook to keep myself from smacking him. Sliding a glance at my best friend, I amended that thought—to stop myself from smacking both of them.
Dr. Dair interrupted. “If you’re finished with your theatrics in the middle row, the rest of us would like to start class.”
Now I wanted to add my professor to the smack fest forming in my head.
Sitting up straight, I pulled up my writing table and clicked it into place, tugged a pen from my hair and set it on a blank notebook page and zeroed my focus in on my nemesis instructor. Soft laughter, in stereo, assaulted my ears as Axel and Callahan reacted to Dair’s pronouncement and my response.
For the next hour, I studiously ignored my best friend’s intermittent chuckles and Hotshot’s not-so-subtle touches as he all but glued himself to my side. Fine, I struggled with that second one, but I worked hard to stay in the lecture. I even managed to stop daydreaming about a certain football player’s hands on my ass long enough to ask three pertinent questions, eliciting dramatic sighs from the teacher.
As we packed up to leave class, Callahan reached across me to hand a pair of tickets to Axel. “These are for you and a plus-one for Saturday’s game.” His eyes sparkled as he handed me a ticket too. “It goes without saying that you’ll be at the game.”
“Excuse me?”
“You can’t argue my chess analogy if you don’t watch a game.” He gave my shoulder a tiny bump with his own. “We both know you want to argue it, so you’ll be there.” Grinning at my oldest friend, he added, “She’ll probably come with a notebook and take notes, yeah?”
Axel, the traitor, laughed. “Jamaica will be there.” He held up the tickets. “Thanks for these, man. Drake is going to be pumped to sit at the fifty rather than crowd into the student section as usual.”
“Game time is one o’clock, but you’ll want to arrive thirty to forty-five minutes early for the full experience.”
My brow shot up. “Explain.”
“There’s a whole thing leading up to kickoff, Jamaica,” Axel chimed in. “The marching band, cheerleaders, and dance team perform. Fireworks and a military flyover. Someone awesome from the music department wins the honor of singing the National Anthem. It’s a big deal.” If I didn’t know better, I could have sworn he bounced in his seat.
“I’m sure it is a whole thing.” I sighed. “You can tell me about it later. Right now, I have about five minutes to make an eight-minute walk to my next class.”
Callahan led the way out of the building. “Don’t worry, Island Girl. I’ll break a trail for you, make sure you arrive with thirty seconds to spare.”
“I’ll catch you later at our usual coffee spot, J.” Giving Hotshot a salute, Axel spun on his heel and sprinted toward his next class.
Without asking my permission, Callahan grabbed my hand and started walking at a pace that forced me to jog to keep up. When we arrived outside Huffine Hall, I was slightly winded. I was also on time.
Giving my hand a lingering squeeze, he leaned down to whisper in my ear, “You can cheer for me tomorrow if you want.” He ghosted a kiss over my cheek. The contact was so light it shouldn’t have even registered, let alone electrify a band of butterflies into doing the cha-cha in my belly. Straightening up, he smirked as though he knew exactly how that little move played through me. “My number is 85.”