Finn slid into the passenger seat of my truck. “Man, you need to pull your head out of your ass before Coach runs all the muscle right off you.”
He’d been waiting for a ride for at least twenty minutes while I did burpees until I thought I would puke. Coach was “helping” me remember how not to fuck up nearly every play I’d run in practice all week.
“What’s going on with you? You let that sophomore on the scout team own you on the line on almost every down,” he oh-so-helpfully pointed out.
“Leave it, Finn.”
Muttering to himself, he ran a hand through his hair and stared out the window.
We’d rolled about five feet out of my parking spot when I slammed on the brakes. “What was that about Jamaica?”
He hunched down in his seat. “Nothing.”
Jamming my truck into park, I turned in my seat, facing him. “No, you said, ‘I never should have said anything to Jamaica.’ What did you say to her?” I demanded.
Finn blew a breath at the floor. “I was half-asleep when she came downstairs last week. I might have mentioned how she was the reason you could lose your sponsorship.”
Before he could turtle down even further in his seat, I smacked him upside the head. “What the fuck, man? Can’t you keep anything to yourself?” Glaring at him, I said, “She is not the reason for my problems with my sponsorship.”
Holding his hands in front of him, he faced me. “Don’t blame me. She saw a text on your iPad and asked me about it since you wouldn’t be honest with her.” He pulled his backpack up from the floor between his feet and set it on the seat between us. As barriers went it wasn’t much, but it made his point.
I jerked my ball cap off my head, ran my hand through my hair, and tugged it back on. “Tory Miller is the reason for my sponsorship problem, which I’m handling. For the thousandth time, you don’t need to worry your pretty little head about it. None of you will have to help me with groceries, all right?”
I put my ride back in gear and eased out of the parking lot at the field house. At least now I had a clue about why Jamaica had walked away from me last week, avoided me in class, and refused to return my texts or voice messages. My tough girl thought she was doing me a favor.
After we arrived home, I ignored Finn’s invitation to dinner, ran upstairs to my room, and shut the door. Out of habit, I tossed my backpack on my desk, toed off my shoes, and threw myself on my bed. When I pulled out my phone to see if Jamaica had responded to any of my texts today, I almost fell off the bed to see a voicemail waiting in my inbox. Desperate to hear her voice, I jammed my finger on play and plastered my phone to my ear.
“Um, hi. I’m sorry. You must be in practice. I hate to bother you. Our project is in trouble with the dean. Um. Call me?”
Her voice sounded so distant, like she was barely hanging on. While her words made no sense, I couldn’t miss the fear in her tone. Before I consciously knew what I was doing, I’d dropped down the stairs two at a time and slammed out the front door. As I fired up my truck, I hit speed dial. “Hello, Island Girl? Are you at your place?”
“Yes.”
It killed me how small her voice sounded.
“Be there in ten.”
It was all I could do to maintain the speed limit as I drove to her dorm. Whatever was going on, she was in trouble. That she’d reached out to me gave me hope. She’d shut me out when she thought she was saving me, but when she was in trouble, she’d come to me. I had no idea what that meant, but I clung to it like a raft in a storm.
The front desk clerk in her dorm had just called to let her know to come get me when Tory Miller appeared out of nowhere like a bad dream.
“Hello, Callahan. Have you come to your senses yet?” she asked as she sidled up to me.
This bitch was toxic, and I was done trying to play nice with her. “I wasn’t aware I’d lost them.”
“You lost your sponsorship with Copper. I would have thought you’d catch a clue.”
“From what I’ve seen on the socials, after that stunt you pulled at Fitzy’s party I would have thought you’d catch a clue,” I countered.
Her little posse exchanged wide-eyed looks. The entourage flanking her was substantially diminished from the number of freshman following her every move earlier in the semester. Might have had something to do with one of them outing her for trying to set me up. That capsule of blood she popped when she smacked her hand to her mouth had me convinced I’d hurt her when I’d desperately been attempting to avoid her. I needed to find out who that girl was because I owed her a big one.
Of course, Tory hadn’t been as patient or as smart as her sister. Pulling that stunt in the middle of a crowded party meant there were other witnesses too, which came out on the socials as well. Her grinding herself against me while I turned away from her as I talked on the phone to Jamaica. Her following me even as I sidestepped her and kept my hands to myself. Her poking and pushing at me until my conversation on the phone collided with her greedy hands and I swung around too fast with my elbow sticking out at the wrong height and angle. All of it ended up online with enough commentary to bury someone who wasn’t Tory Miller. The girl had no shame and no boundaries whatsoever. Guess her daddy’s money shielded her from what would send a normal person under a rock for the foreseeable future.
“Yeah, well, it won’t be long before you won’t have any reason to visit truck-stop trash in this dorm. Maybe then you’ll wake up and come to me at the Delta Chi House.” She twirled a blonde curl but the expression in her eyes was pure venom.
Dread filled my chest. “What are you talking about?”
“Ask her.”
“Ask me what?” Jamaica asked as she walked into the lobby, her tone flat.
“Nepotism only works when you have the money to back it, Jamaica. Guess you’ll learn the hard way.” With that cryptic comment, Tory spun on her heel and headed toward the stairs, her girls obediently following in her wake.
“Jamaica?”
The bleakness in her eyes leached their vibrant green right out. “Let’s have this conversation in private.”
Without waiting to see if I followed, she headed back down the hallway to her room. After she keyed us in, she walked directly to the window and stared into the darkness beyond.
“Jamaica? What’s wrong?”
My hands itched to touch her, to curl around her and pull her against me, wrap my arms around her and hold her tight. But the brittle set of her shoulders warned me she might shatter into a thousand shards if I laid a finger on her, so I stuffed my hands in my pockets and waited.
“I was summoned to the dean’s office today.” Her voice sounded hollow. “Turns out my father is married to Dr. Dair’s sister. Dr. Dair has known who I was from the first class I took from him. It seems there’s a question about the grades I’ve earned in his classes.” She wrapped her arms around herself, her nails digging into the sides of her sweatshirt. “Because of this our project is on the line.” In a whisper, she added, “My scholarship is on the line.”
That did it. In one step, I was beside her, turning her and folding her into my chest. “Ah, babe. You didn’t know?”
“Didn’t have a single clue,” she said into my hoodie. “I’m sorry I’ve dragged you into my mess. You already had enough on your plate.”
“The only thing I have going on is helping you fix this.” I pulled back enough to stare into the eyes I knew I’d dream about for the rest of my life. “What do we have to do for our presentation on Monday?”
“Not much. Only present the best project the entire college has ever seen.” Tears filled her eyes, and she buried her face in my chest again.
Running my hands up and down her back, I said, “Is that all? Pssht. Child’s play. The dean wants to see a kick-ass project? We are exactly the right pair to show her one.” Then a thought occurred to me. “How does Tory Miller know about your relationship to Dr. Dair?”
Jamaica stilled. “That’s a really good question.”
My brow shot up. “Isn’t it though? First her dad threatens me. Now the dean is threatening you. I don’t think that’s a coincidence.”
“Axel said you lost your sponsorship.”
The pain in her eyes killed me.
“It was a mutual decision. Copper was too high-class for me. None of my friends could afford to go there with me, so I usually had to eat there alone. That worked out great for the owner because I could give all my attention to the wealthy fans who showed up on my appointed nights.” I pushed a wayward curl from her brow, fingering the softness of her hair. “But even with my discount, it was a big expense.”
“You shouldn’t have taken me there.”
“I should take you there every weekend.”
The massive eye roll she gifted me let me breathe fully for the first time in nearly two weeks. We’d been on hiatus, not broken up.
“What are you going to do?”
I grinned. “Make a commercial for Stromboli’s tomorrow with Fitz and Bax and a couple of other players.”
Her pouty lips formed an “O” I desperately wanted to kiss. “You have a new sponsorship?”
“I told you I was handling it.” My tone might have been a bit harsh, but my girl needed to believe me when I said I could take care of things. “When Buzz Miller made his demands, I called my agent and asked her to work something out with Stromboli’s. It doesn’t pay as well as Copper, but it’s more my kind of people—and there are no strings.” Covering her hands resting on my chest with my own, I pulled them up around my neck. “I know you think you were helping me by walking away, but I’ve been a wreck without you.”
It had been ten fucking long days since I’d had my lips on hers. Before I could work out the details of how to fix our academic dilemma, I needed her breath in me. I brushed my mouth over hers, once, twice, then pressed into her. Her arms tightened around my neck, her curves molding to my body. On a sigh she opened up and gave me the lifeline I needed. I took my time tasting and exploring her, imprinting her with my arms coiled around her.
Something like hours later, I rested my forehead on hers while we panted in air.
“I missed you so much, Hotshot. But I couldn’t be responsible for you not going high in the draft because your sponsor dropped you.” She sounded miserable—which after that kiss absolutely would not do.
“You had nothing to do with it, babe. No matter how her dad throws his money around, I wouldn’t date Tory Miller if she was the last woman on earth.” Pressing my lips to hers again, I said, “You’re the only woman I want.” One kiss morphed into four or five more. “I’m in love with you, Jamaica Winslow.”
Burying her face in my neck, she squeezed me hard. “I never meant to date you.”
Chuckling, I said, “I know.”
She stared so deep into my eyes she had to have seen into my soul. “I never meant to fall in love with you, but I love you, Callahan O’Reilly. I love you so much.”
I couldn’t stop the smile that broke over my face. Her answering one was sunshine after a long, dark winter. For several minutes, we stood in the middle of her tiny dorm room smiling our asses off at each other and being in love and knowing that love was reciprocated.
Then sadness clouded her pretty green eyes again. “So what are we going to do if I’m kicked out of school?”
“Pack your bag for the weekend.”
She blinked. “Excuse me?”
I let her go and looked around for her backpack. Spying it draped over her desk chair, I grabbed it and held it out to her. “Are you on call this weekend?”
“No…” There was a question in her tone.
“Right. Perfecting our presentation is going to take time, what with the ten days of catching up on touching you and making love to you I have to do.”
A laugh snorted out of her. “Am I a chore then?”
“More of a reward.” With a grin of pure happiness at having her back, I pushed her pack into her hands. “Get on it, babe. We don’t have all night for you to pack.”
A few minutes later, I’d shouldered her backpack and linked her hand with mine as we walked out to my truck.
While I showered and dressed for the commercial shoot, Jamaica slept. After we’d spent most of the night showing each other how much we’d missed each other, how much we loved each other, she’d passed out and hadn’t moved. Her responses through the night left me feeling like Iron Man and Captain America wrapped into the superhero of all superheroes.
With a grin, I scrawled a note and propped it on the nightstand beside her phone. Silently, I let myself out of my room and headed downstairs.
Bax was leaning against the sink drinking coffee when I stepped into the kitchen. “You’re back with your lady, huh?”
“Sure am.” I didn’t even bother to hold in my grin when I opened the cupboard beside him, pulled out my travel mug, and filled it with most of what was in the coffee pot.
“About damn time.”
I shot him a look from beneath my brows.
“Now maybe you won’t be such a bear to live with.” He sipped his brew. “And such a fuckup in practice.”
“Asshole.”
He smirked. “You driving?”
“Don’t I always?”
When we arrived at Stromboli’s at 7 a.m., I was starved, but Bax had warned me not to eat because we’d be downing slices for as many takes as necessary to do the commercial. The heavenly aroma of fresh pizza greeted us at the door, along with a woman who directed us to a set of chairs where Fitz and Johnson were already being fussed over by a guy wielding a brush and a palette of makeup.
My stomach rumbled loud enough to be heard through the entire bar, and Fitz cracked a smile that had the makeup guy growling at him to remain still. We settled into our chairs, and as if by magic two more makeup artists appeared, throwing capes over our matching Stromboli’s T-shirts and going to work to make us camera-ready.
This shoot was more fun than anything I’d ever done for Copper. First off, I was doing it with my guys. Second, we were selling pizza and beer, which didn’t take any effort whatsoever. Third, the director made sure we all had a great time. By the time we wrapped up, six hours had passed in a blur, and it was time to eat lunch for real.
We’d commandeered our usual booth in the back and ordered a couple pitchers of beer when Bax stole all the good vibes by mentioning Buzz Miller. “At least he didn’t wreck your career before it even started,” he said as he poured a glass with a perfect head—his specialty—and handed it to me. “And you pulled your head out and made up with your girl, which is good for all of us.” His comment included Fitz and Tarvarius Johnson, our star running back and the class clown for the shoot today.
When Bax mentioned Miller, though, all good humor left our friends’ faces.
“You ready to do something about that dick-shine, ’Han? Don’t get me wrong. I’m stoked you joined our crew to promote Stromboli’s.” Reaching a beefy brown fist across the table, Fitz bumped mine. “But that asshole has already ruined one guy’s draft. He’s trying to ruin yours. We all pay for it because he taints the team.” Drawing down half a pint of beer in one pull, he wiped his thumb and forefinger along his mustache and continued. “I’m tired of some entitled white prick thinking he owns us—any of us. We aren’t studs for his nasty daughters—or his ticket to an NFL party he’ll never get invited to otherwise.”
“He’s not wrong, ’Han,” Bax chimed in.
“I heard there’s another daughter coming next year,” Johnson added. “That puts all of us on the list for next year’s draft in a fucking scary place—unless we do something about it now.”
My gaze jumped between Fitz and Johnson. Beside me, Bax leaned back into the plush leather booth and sipped his beer. I didn’t need to see his face to know he was on board with whatever our friends were thinking.
Tory’s smug face when she’d mentioned nepotism last night in the lobby of Jamaica’s dorm flashed through my mind. Fuck! That bitch was behind Jamaica’s serious problem too. Jesus, how could one person be so fucking ugly?
“I’m in. What’s your plan?”