When I met her in the Union for coffee Thursday afternoon, Chessly asked, “This thing between you and Callahan O’Reilly is heating up into something serious, isn’t it?”
Blowing at a curl that had escaped my headband, I sighed. “I was not looking for this. Especially not with a football player.” I blew on my flat white and took a sip. “But he wouldn’t let up pursuing me.”
Chess’s brow lifted, a knowing expression on her face.
“It doesn’t help that he’s so hot and smart and fun. To be honest, he’s done as much or more of the heavy lifting on our project for Dair’s class as I have.”
She smirked. “You say that like you’re surprised.”
Shaking my head, I huffed out a sigh. “That’s because I am surprised.” I slumped back in my chair. “Which is so unfair to him. I’m embarrassed to admit I stereotyped him right out of the gate. Fortunately for me and our project, he called me out on it but didn’t hold it against me.”
“Because he’d rather be holding you against him.” Chess laughed uproariously at her own joke.
Even as I tossed my friend a half-hearted obscene gesture, visions of Callahan and me in my bed the night before swirled through my head and sizzled through my blood.
Her eyes sparkled as Chessly finally pulled herself together. “Judging from those pink cheeks, you like that part. Not that I blame you. If I was dating someone as fine as O’Reilly, I’d enjoy being held against him too.” For a second, she wrinkled her nose as though she’d thought of something nasty.
The juxtaposition of her expression with her words had me gripping my coffee cup. “Okay, out with it. Is there something about him I should know?”
With a shake of her head, her expression cleared. “I was thinking about someone else for a second there. Sorry.”
“Who has you looking like you sniffed something sour?”
All of a sudden her chai tea held great fascination. “No one.” Squaring her shoulders, she said, “No one special anyway.”
“You know ever since Homecoming when Finn drove you home, you’ve acted weird. Did something happen?”
I couldn’t imagine Callahan’s bumbling roommate would be capable of anything awful, but growing up the way I did taught me looks could be deceiving.
“Nothing happened. It was fine.” The shortness of her tone meant that part of the conversation was over.
Not that it mattered when a shadow fell over me seconds before its owner opened her whiny mouth and ruined our coffee date.
“Well, if it isn’t Little Miss Truck-Stop Trash and her stick-up-her-ass friend.”
“Luckily for all of us, you don’t live in the dorms anymore, Tory. So you can keep moving.” A person could have frozen to death in the ice of Chessly’s voice.
“You need to set your sights lower, Jamaica. Look for someone more on your level,” Tory sneered.
“Fortunately for me, Chess thinks I am on her level, which means I don’t have to stoop to being friends with you.” Even though I remained seated and Tory loomed over me, I still managed to look down my nose at her and her pack of freshmen. Each of her sycophants’ eyes saucered at me even daring to call out their leader.
“I’m not talking about this person.” She waved dismissively in Chessly’s direction. “I’m talking about Callahan O’Reilly. He deserves someone who’s at least in his league.”
Glancing around at the assembled group of fashionista wannabes, I said, “Which is obviously why he’s dating me instead of one of you.”
Tory planted her hands on her hips. Her eyes spit fire. “I don’t know who you think you are, but I saw him first. You need to back off.”
Chessly and I exchanged looks. “No matter how much money your daddy has, you can’t call dibs on a person, Tory.” Crossing my arms over my chest, I added, “Then there’s your little problem of him not wanting a single thing to do with you, which, as I understand it, he made clear right after he met you.”
“He comes from a good family. I know things about you, Jamaica. Things that will make his good family want him to stay far away from you.” Her snide tone raised my hackles.
Under the table, Chessly pressed down on the top of my foot. Hard.
Batting my eyes at Tory, I asked, “Is that a threat?”
“My family has influence. For his sake as well as yours, you need to pull your claws out of him.” With a toss of her poufy hair, she flounced away. Her pack of four or five wannabes echoed her flounce like the good little toadies they were, and I sat back in my chair with a sigh.
Once the adrenaline from that unpleasant encounter wore off, I sipped my tepid coffee, eyeing my friend over the rim of my cup. “Well. That was fun.”
“She’s such bad news, Jamaica,” Chessly said, unhappiness written all over her face.
“As I recall, her family’s ‘influence’ didn’t result in your expulsion from school. Hell, you even kept your RA job, so I’m not too worried about Tory Miller’s ‘threats,’” I said with air quotes.
“I don’t know, Jamaica. My issues with her were rules-related, something the dorm and the university could back me on. Yours have to do with a guy—a football player, no less.” She crossed her arms and leaned on the table. “You do know her dad is one of the biggest donors to the team, don’t you?”
“I didn’t know that.” I tried to infuse my tone with far more confidence than I felt. “But just because he gives money to the team doesn’t mean he can decide who the players date.”
She shrugged. “Let’s hope not. Otherwise your guy might be stuck with that bitch, which would truly be a tragedy.”
For the rest of the day, I brooded over my run-in with Tory Miller and Chessly’s revelations in its aftermath. I was raised by a single mom who worked in a truck-stop diner. So what? Callahan didn’t seem to care when I told him. If he was as close to his family as Tory implied, then perhaps they shared his attitude.
My dad drove an over-the-road eighteen-wheeler on an interstate route that sometimes took him through our small town. But he hadn’t been through in over five years. The last time I saw him was at the end of my junior year of high school. He promised he’d help me pay for college if I kept up my grades. Then he disappeared. I thought he might show up when I graduated valedictorian from my class, but Mom was the only person seated in my designated family section.
Mom had his number, but it came with strict instructions never to call it unless it was a dire emergency. High-school graduation and lack of funds for attending college didn’t qualify as an emergency, since Mom refused to call him even when I begged.
In the end a combination of scholarships and saving every penny from working multiple jobs kept me in school while Mom’s money paid the mortgage that kept a modest roof over our heads and food on the table. If Callahan’s family had a problem with women who worked hard for what we had, well then, perhaps he wasn’t the guy for me.
Another thought struck me. What if he needed Tory’s dad’s backing to get into the pros? Though his focus remained on the Wildcats, he’d mentioned on more than one occasion that he and all his roommates—well, he wasn’t sure about Danny but Bax and Finn—wanted to go pro after college. If Tory’s dad was such a big-time donor to the team, maybe Chessly was right about him demanding Callahan break up with me in order to achieve his goals. Maybe courting favor with Tory’s dad was the reason Finn spent so much time entertaining the jersey chasers.
I snuggled down into my comforter, pulled the footrest up on my recliner, and stared at Persuasion, willing myself to concentrate on the words on the page rather than on the words swirling around in my head. When my phone pinged with an incoming text, I almost kissed it for taking my thoughts somewhere else.
Then I saw the name on the text and actually did kiss the screen before I opened it.
Hotshot: Answer your phone.
Me: Maybe.
Hotshot: Answer your phone.
Before I could respond my phone started ringing in my hand, his handsome face filling the screen.
“Hello, Hotshot.”
“Hello, Gorgeous.”
“Aren’t you supposed to be doing football things?”
“We practiced as soon as we stepped off the bus. I’m gonna be honest. I’m not a fan of Friday night games, especially Friday night away games.” His eyes danced. “Let’s talk about something important. What are you wearing?”
“A blanket.” I smirked.
His expression turned intense and his voice dropped an octave. “Is that all?” In the screen, I could see him swallowing hard.
Chuckling, I said, “You wish.”
“You have no idea how hard I’m wishing.” When he shifted to sit up higher on the bed, I noticed the generic hotel backboard that didn’t look all that comfortable to rest against. “Will you show me?”
Tugging my favorite fleece blanket to my chin, I said, “You’ve seen this draped over my chair every time you’ve been in my room.”
Clearing his throat, he said, “I meant, will you show me what’s beneath it?”
Only then did I catch on that I was the only one playing. Callahan was intently serious. Of course, that meant I had to ramp it up. With excruciating slowness I tugged the blanket down. His eyes darkened to a midnight sea as I revealed my décolletage. Then with one fierce jerk, the blanket fell to my waist, revealing my braless state in my low-cut tank top.
Covering my mouth, I tried not to laugh at the thought he might have concussed himself with how violently he banged his head against that solid headboard.
“Jamaica. That was mean.”
“Since I didn’t know you were going to call me tonight, you can’t blame me for being unprepared.” My tone was prim even as I suppressed another laugh.
His expression turned roguish. “If you’d known I was calling, would you be naked under that soft blanket?”
“Probably—I’d be wearing two layers and a hoodie.” I giggled at his narrow-eyed stare.
Then the grin he shot me lit up the screen. “You’re saying that if you’d known ahead of time you’d have given me a striptease?” He pumped his fist in the air. “Fuckin’ A, Island Girl!”
For a second I dropped the screen into my lap.
The blanket muffled Hotshot’s words. “Hey! It’s not a striptease if I don’t get to watch.”
Returning my face to my phone, it was my turn to be serious. “You’ll have to use your imagination. There will be no strip shows or any photos of choice naked parts of me on your phone.”
“Babe,” he whined. “It would only be for me.”
“Until one of your buddies swipes your phone and shares it with the class. No thank you.” I pulled my blanket back over my chest. “You’ll have to rely on your overactive imagination.”
“Or memories. Take last night, for example. Watching your pretty titties bounce while you rode me filled my spank bank right up.” His grin was positively wicked.
My face heated. “You might be the naughtiest man I have ever met,” I huffed.
“Admit it, Island Girl. You like it. You like me.”
I shrugged. “Maybe.” A pause. “A little bit.”
His rich laughter filled my room as though he were sitting in it with me rather than reclining on a bed in a hotel a state away.
Thoughts of our night together played in my mind, and fire flashed through me, arrowing directly to my center. I slid my hand between my crossed my legs, holding onto sensations as I remembered the intensity of Callahan’s eyes as he’d stared into mine while I took charge.
“Now you’re the one with naughty thoughts.” The expression on his face only added to those thoughts.
A door slammed and Finn’s voice interrupted our conversation right as it was starting to sizzle. “Jesus, fuck, O’Reilly! Get your hand out of your pants!”
Callahan pulled the phone into his chest, and I heard a muffled, “Fuck you, Finn!”
When he returned to the screen, he blew out a breath, a sheepish expression on his handsome face as he changed the subject. “You’re going to watch the game tomorrow night, aren’t you?”
“Wait.” My brow shot up. “Were you jacking yourself a minute ago.”
“Jamaica.”
The idea that he’d been getting himself off as we talked about my state of dress left me hot. “You were.” I flashed him a smile. “Put your phone up to your ear.”
His brow knitted, but he did as I asked.
“If you must know, I was touching myself too,” I whispered.
“You truly are trying to kill me here, aren’t you, Island Girl?” A pained expression accompanied his words when his face filled my screen once again.
I shrugged. “You started it.”
“Seriously, fucking killing me.” He shifted on the bed. “You haven’t answered my question. Are you going to watch the game tomorrow night?”
“Axel, Drake, and I will be sitting at our usual table in Stromboli’s, eating pizza, drinking beer, and maybe glancing up at the TV occasionally while the game is on,” I teased.
“You are a cruel, cruel woman, Jamaica Winslow. How can you wound me like that?” He exaggerated covering his heart with his hand, and all I wanted to do was kiss that spot on his chest.
Giving him a pouty moue, I said, “You poor thing. Only twenty or thirty thousand fans are going to cheer for you tomorrow. However can you stand it?”
His eyes dialed up the intensity. “I only care about one.”
I stopped playing with him. “I doubt I’ll hear anything my buddies say except maybe at halftime.”
“Because—”
The side of my mouth tugged up. “Because I’ll be too busy watching you pancake opposing linemen and catching passes and making touchdowns. Satisfied?”
“Not even close.” His lips twisted. “But it’ll do until I see you again on Saturday night.”
“You’re seeing me on Saturday night? Did we have a date?”
“I’m making it now.”
Giving him narrowed eyes, I waited for the ask.
“We’ll get back to town midafternoon, go to film immediately after we arrive, and then I have the rest of the weekend free.” Clearing his throat, he said, “I’d like to spend that time with you. Would you like to go out for dinner Saturday night?”
I pretended to check my calendar and Callahan shot me an “are you kidding me?” stare from beneath his brows. The corner of my mouth kicked up at his response to my antics, but what I said was, “Yes. I’d like that very much.”