In football, timing is everything. When the quarterback does a three-step drop and throws a slant, the receiver needs to shed the defender and hustle his ass to the center of the field to catch the throw that’s coming about two seconds after the center hikes the ball.
The other night, my timing had started moving in the right direction with Jamaica. Then Finn and that bunch of jersey chasers he lets hang off his arm showed up and blew up the play. Or maybe it was only the one jersey chaser who was the problem. Jamaica didn’t react much until Tory opened her whiny mouth.
Usually, I catch Jamaica sneaking peeks at me several times during the hour we’re in class together. I won’t lie: catching her looking at me makes my pickle puffy, as my buddy Wyatt Baxter likes to say. Yesterday in class, I didn’t catch her glancing my way even once. Doesn’t take a genius to figure out she thinks I have something going with that spoiled little sorority chick—and she’s not impressed. Right when I dispel one of her stereotypes about me as a football player, something else comes along to reinforce a different one. In this case, that football players only date jersey chasers.
I shoved my gear into my oversize duffel bag, slung it over my shoulder, and headed out of the locker room. As I made my way up the tunnel to the exit into the parking lot, Finn fell into step beside me.
“Hey, what put that Debbie Downer expression on your pretty-boy face, ’Han? You can’t look like that when we’re playing the Trojans this weekend. We are going to mess. Them. Up.” A joyful laugh accompanied his words as he punctuated them with three not-so-easy punches to my shoulder.
“Dude, do you get any schoolwork done when you ‘study’ in the library with that pack of freshman and sophomore hyenas you let hang around?”
We stepped out the doors of the sports complex and headed across the parking lot to the bus.
“Wait, is that what’s bugging you?” A feral grin slid over his features. “It’s that curly-haired hottie you were with. Now that I think about it, you were sitting with her in the library one night last week too.”
“Knock it off, Finn. She’s my partner for my lit-class project.” I slung my bag into the compartment in the undercarriage of the bus, resituated my backpack over my shoulder, and headed for the doors.
“You won’t mind then if I make a run at her the next time you’re studying with her in the library.” He tossed his duffel in beside mine and followed me onto the bus. “What’s her name?”
“Don’t even think about it, asshole.”
His chuckling didn’t stop even after we were seated in our usual spots toward the back, across the aisle from each other. “So that’s how it is. You got a hard-on for your project partner. Can’t say I blame you. That girl is a smoke show.” He pretended to fan himself then he eased his seat back and stretched his legs in front of him.
One of the perks of playing on a winning team was we brought in enough ticket sales and alumni money to buy two buses for road trips. Everyone could stretch out, which made a difference when your best friend stood 6’5” and weighed 270. It also made a difference if you didn’t want to sit across from him and listen to his razzing for a three-hour bus ride. I stood up, but Finn stuck one of those long legs of his in my way.
“Relax. I was only giving you a hard time, bro.” He pulled his foot back in when I sat back down. “I should have figured something was up when you showed absolutely zero interest in that group of jersey chasers who left no doubt they wanted to take turns getting you off after we hit the ice-cream shop last week.”
“That group is bad news, Finn. You should be careful with them, especially with Tory Miller.”
A slow blink accompanied his raised brows. Right then, Bax made his way down the aisle between us. With a sigh, he threw himself into his seat behind me.
“What’s buggin’ you, Baxter?” I asked, happy to shine the spotlight on someone else.
“Coach’s dress code is no fun at all,” he said with a pout.
Finn and I burst out laughing. Turning in my seat, I said, “He caught you trying to sneak on the bus in a T-shirt instead of a dress shirt again, huh?”
“I even tamed it down this time.” He smirked. “I had on my best tux shirt—the one with the long sleeves.”
“The one that says across the back, ‘Everything I want is either too expensive or won’t text me back.’ That one?” I laughed. “You thought he wouldn’t notice all those words?”
Bax crossed his massive arms over his understated baby-blue button-down, stretching the fabric to within an inch of Hulking out. “It was worth a shot.” A tiny grin tipped up the corner of his mouth.
“You keep torturing Coach like that, you’ll have us all doing burpees at practice on Monday,” I warned.
Finn shot Bax a glare. “If we end up doing burpees because of you, Bax, I’m dumping all my dirty laundry in your room for the next two weeks.”
“Good luck with that. Especially if your dirty laundry includes a certain group of freshmen jersey chasers.” Leaning forward, he directed his comment at me. “Good thing you skipped Stromboli’s last night.” Gesturing toward Finn with his thumb, he said, “Ole Finnegan here had five of them crowded around him in a back booth. I couldn’t tell for sure, but it looked like two of them were taking turns giving him a hand job while the other three giggled and stuck out their boobs and asked if he was going to order more pizza.”
I slid a glance at our roommate whose face had the common decency to look like a tomato. He should be embarrassed about letting a posse of freshmen fawn all over him like that.
Running a hand through my hair, I stared at him. “Jesus, dude, I hope they’re all at least eighteen.”
“They were Delta Chi sisters.” Finn shrugged. “Maybe a couple of them were pledges. I wasn’t checking their sorority status or their IDs. Sue me.”
“That’s the trouble, buddy. You step out of line with one of them—or she says you did—and poof!” I made an exploding gesture with my hands. “There goes your football career before the NFL scouts can even take a good look at you. Is a hand job in a pizza joint worth it?” Narrowing my eyes at him, I said, “Wait. Did you even consider you might get yourself kicked out of Stromboli’s?”
“That would be a tragedy,” Bax chimed in.
“Knock it off, already. I didn’t get a hand job in Stromboli’s, okay?” Finn slunk down in his seat. “We waited until we were back at the house. Consensual between adults.”
It was my turn to raise a brow.
“Two sophomores.” Finn crossed his arms defensively over his chest. “One of them might have been Tory Miller,” he mumbled.
“I’ve been warning you about her since last year.” I said.
“When you weren’t so discerning about freshmen?” Bax teased.
“Let’s just say, I learned my lesson.” Aiming a stare at Finn, I added, “I tried to do my good deed of the year and pay it forward. But it seems some people can’t be helped.”
As we were talking, the rest of the team boarded the buses. The coaches deliberately split us up between starters and backups, offense, defense, and special teams. It was part of their team cohesion program, not that it mattered to the three of us. We had two defensive players—Bax and Finn—and two offensive players—me and a new receiver on the team, Danny Chambers—living in our rental.
Though he was a freshman, Danny was the same age as the three of us since he’d recently come off a tour in the Air Force, which meant he didn’t have to live in the dorms. He’d needed a place to live, and we’d needed a roommate after Deshaun graduated last year, so we’d offered him our open room. But for some reason, he didn’t ride our bus. That was too bad because if he’d been sitting with us, maybe I could have warned him about the jersey chasers Finn preferred to entertain.
Coach interrupted. “Settle down in the back, ladies. It’s time to put on your game faces, think about what’s important here.” He swung into his seat near the front while Coach Ainsworth, the defensive coordinator, called off the roll. Satisfied we were all where we were supposed to be, Ainsworth smacked the rail behind the bus driver twice and we headed out of the parking lot.
As usual, the three of us sat back in our seats, slid on headphones, and did what we always did on the way to a game. Finn watched videos on his iPad, Bax slept, and I did homework. On this trip, I’d brought along the study guides for my Social Media Sports Marketing test next week, homework for my stats class, and Persuasion. Catching a glimpse of that book put me back in class with Jamaica yesterday, and the thought of her ignoring me left a sour taste in my mouth.
I got that we didn’t know each other well—yet—but I also had the impression she was as attracted to me as I was to her. Those sneaky glances all through class the first week and the way her breath hitched when I ran my toe up the side of her calf under the table at the library the other night told me of her interest even if she wasn’t ready to admit it. The flirty way she played me when I walked her to her dorm after I caught up to her following her shift at the sweet shop made me smile. She acted like I was only some jock her nemesis professor had stuck her with. But something else was bubbling beneath the surface, something I could sense ran hot and deep.
That all changed after Finn and his entourage showed up.
Not only did she not look at me in class, but she was out the door of the auditorium almost before I’d had a chance to stuff my iPad in my backpack. Her buddy Axel had shot me a wide-eyed stare and hustled after her. We didn’t have a meeting scheduled for last night, but I looked for her at the library anyway. I knew I’d be missing class today with the team on the road—which also meant missing the chance to see her, maybe even figure out what the problem was.
Resting my head against the back of my seat, I closed my eyes. This was why I hadn’t pursued a woman since I’d arrived on campus. This was why I kept everything to casual hookups and never two in a row with the same girl. Women were distractions who took too much headspace away from what was truly important: finishing school, playing hard, and landing a contract in the pros. I didn’t have time to figure out what the hell weirdness was crashing around inside Jamaica Winslow’s gorgeous head.
Beside me, Finn snorted a laugh at something on his screen.
That was another thing. Now we were one year closer to our goals, we all needed to distance ourselves from the jersey chasers—at least the young ones who could cause real trouble. The guys who took women with them when they went to the pros didn’t take jersey chasers. Not the smart ones, anyway. Finn laughed again, and I shook my head. After his recent antics with the Delta Chi underclassmen, the jury on his intelligence remained out.
Dragging my stats book from my backpack, I flipped it open to the chapter for next week’s classes, cranked up some Avenged Sevenfold on my headphones, and forced myself to think about something else. Anything besides flashing green eyes and how desperately I wanted to sink my fingers into a headful of brown curls and lose myself in kissing a pair of plump, rosy lips.
“That was one hell of a good time,” Bax said as we threw ourselves into our seats on the bus. “My favorite meetup spot in the whole world is with their quarterback in the backfield.” He high-fived Finn. “How many sacks did you have anyway?”
“Two and half, but I’m happy to share that last one with you, buddy. Teach that dumb fuck Prescott to run his mouth in public before games.” Finn’s laughter was pure evil.
I loved it.
“That sweet block you threw for Danny when Coach finally let him in the game should make all the highlight films, ’Han,” Bax added, offering me a fist bump.
“Nah, the way you stuffed that corner into the turf on your way to that touchdown in the second quarter should play on SportsCenter. I don’t think the dude stood up until our kicking team jogged out onto the field for the extra point.” As a defensive end who loved to hit people, Finn’s eyes glowed with appreciation for my offensive smackdown of the Trojan defender.
“That one did feel pretty sweet,” I admitted. “But the pressure you guys put on their offense all afternoon was a thing of beauty. Bet the drinks are on Coach Ainsworth at the coaches’ bar tonight.”
Finn leaned out to look up the aisle to where the defensive coordinator sat, caught his eye, and with a massive grin on his face, gave his coach a cheesy thumbs-up. The usually staid Ainsworth returned the gesture with a grin of his own, which told me I was right about who was buying drinks for the coaching staff after we made it back to campus.
“Since we all were superstars in this one, guess we’re all pitching in for beer and pizza at Stromboli’s when we get home, huh?” Bax said.
“Or we could play for who’s buying.” I produced a deck of cards and a sleeve of poker chips from my backpack.
In the seat in front of me, our prize kicker, Dalton Sneed, groaned. “I might as well just hand you my credit card now,” he said as he turned in his seat to join us.
“Or do what ’Han does when he plays—keep your cards plastered to the top of your thigh and lean down low when you need a refresher of what’s in your hand,” Baker, our punter, said from his seat across from Dalton. “That way we all can’t see what you have.” He snickered.
My roommates and I had all redshirted our freshman year, so technically we were seniors, not juniors. Dalton came in on scholarship, a blue-chip recruit who started his freshman year. We should have broken him in easy, but what would have been the fun in that? Three road trips into the season, and he had yet to win a hand.
“Didn’t you ever play when you were in high school?” Baker asked.
Dalton shook his head. “Our road games were only ever about twenty or thirty minutes away, so there wasn’t time to play poker.” With a sigh of resignation, he said, “Deal the cards, ’Han.”
I had to hand it to the kid: he didn’t back down from a challenge. “Tell you what, Kicker, I’ll spot you ten chips for that fifty-yard field goal you nailed in the first quarter. That sucker ignited the whole game.”
Following my lead, Bax, Finn, and Baker chimed in that they’d spot him five of their chips to start, so Dalton had basically won the first pot before I’d even dealt a card. In the end it didn’t matter. Luckily for him, he was too young to buy the beer, but the mound of pizza we enjoyed after we arrived home did a number on his credit card all the same. At least we only made him buy for us. The jersey chasers who appeared as if by black magic about five minutes after we ordered were on their own.
By accident—or a stroke of pure luck—I was seated smack-dab in the middle of the semicircular booth in the back that the team always commandeered when we hit Stromboli’s together. When the girls showed up, Tory gave the seating arrangement a narrow-eyed once-over then aimed a snotty glare at me.
Ignoring her, I reached for the pitcher of beer Finn had set directly in front of his plate and topped off my glass. Beer sloshed over the rim when I went to take a drink and Bax bumped my elbow simultaneously.
“What the hell?” I started before I clocked four girls crowding into the booth with us from both sides. Before I knew it, I was squashed so tight between Bax and Baker I could barely lift my glass to my mouth.
“Ladies, ladies, ladies,” Finn said, laughing as Tory all but sat on his lap. “This booth is only built for six normal-size people or five football players. Pull up that table over there if you want to join us.”
“But we want to sit with you.” The way she ran her nails along Finn’s chest said one thing, and her eyes on me said another, but her words sounded whiny rather than flirty—as usual. From my experience with her, whine was her default tone.
“Yeah, well, we need some space to eat here,” Baker said, a growl in his voice. If I could have moved, I might have kissed him for that. “Grab that table before someone else does.”
One of the freshmen hopped up from where only one of her ass cheeks clung to the edge of the booth and stepped over to the empty table. Right as she went to grab a chair from it, a group of people showed up. Two of them slid into the empty chairs and claimed the table.
“Oops. Looks like we have no choice but to join you,” Tory said with a self-serving smirk.
“Don’t worry about it. We’ll find another table.”
I glanced up to lock eyes with the pair of greens that had started haunting my sleep the last few nights. What were the odds that Jamaica and her friends were seating themselves at the table beside ours? Yet when her eyes landed on Tory and the other girls, her face clouded, and she stood up so fast she almost knocked her chair over.
“I don’t think there are any other tables,” said one of the guys who remained seated.
Jamaica jerked her gaze from mine and glanced around the bar, stopping on a spot toward the front. “A table’s opening up by the door. I’ll claim it.” Without waiting for a response from her friends, she spun on her heel and marched away.
“Hey, Jamaica—”
She kept moving.
While I enjoyed the sweet sway of her ass in a pair of tight jeans, I didn’t appreciate that she hadn’t even acknowledged me. A hello would have been polite, at least.
“You know that girl?” Bax asked, his stare caught in Jamaica’s wake.
“Yeah.”
“You wanna introduce me?”
“Not even a little bit.”
Bax shot me a wounded look. “What the fuck? I’m a nice enough guy.”
“She’s not your type.” I glanced down at his T-shirt that read: “Boobs. Proof that men can concentrate on two things at once,” then I stared hard into his eyes. “Trust me.”
A knowing grin spread over his face. “You’ve got a thing for her.” He waggled his brows. “Can’t blame you, man. She is hot.” His fanning-the-flames gesture lost some of its heat when done close to his chest in our current squished-together situation.
“Jamaica’s a bitch,” Tory said as though it were common knowledge.
“Takes one to know one,” Axel said as he and the other two guys with him moved away from the disputed table. He shot me a “what the hell, dude?” shake of his head and headed in Jamaica’s direction.
“Jamaica, huh?” Bax knocked his shoulder into mine. “Pretty name. How do you know her again?”
“Study partners.” Finn smirked.
Tory’s eyes shot daggers first at Axel’s retreating back, then at Finn, then at me. “You can do so much better, Callahan. You know that, right?”
“I’ve had enough pizza.” I glanced at my friends. “Anyone else up for relocating to the Slide?”
“The Slide? But they card.” Tory’s whine hit my next to last nerve.
Staring her straight in the eye, I said, “Guess that’ll give us some elbow room to enjoy our beers then.”