by Elle Kennedy
“Alright. Down, boy.” Regaining my wits, I remove his hand and adjust my sleeve. Jeez, this guy should come with a warning label. “I think I get it now.”
“You’re ridiculously attractive, Taylor.” This time when he speaks, I don’t doubt his sincerity, if perhaps his sanity. I suppose someone like him doesn’t get around so much by being picky. “Don’t spend any more time believing otherwise.”
For the next few hours, I don’t. Instead, I give myself permission to pretend that someone like Conor Edwards is actually into me.
We lie there in the ridiculous cocoon of Rachel’s stuffed animal collection, talking as if we’ve been friends for years. There’s surprisingly no shortage of things to say, no lag in the conversation. We move from banal topics of favorite foods and our mutual appreciation for sci-fi movies, to more serious ones, like how out of place I feel amongst my sorority sisters, to hilarious ones, like the time his sixteen-year-old punk-ass self got drunk after a road game in San Francisco and dove into the bay with the intention of swimming to Alcatraz.
“Fucking Coast Guard showed up and—” He cuts himself off mid-sentence, yawning loudly. “Shit, I can barely keep my eyes open.”
I catch his contagious yawn and cover my gaping mouth with my forearm. “Me too,” I say sleepily. “But we’re not leaving this room until you finish that story because holy shit, you were one stupid kid.”
That triggers a wave of laughter from the Norse god beside me. “Not the first time I’ve heard that, and it won’t be the last.”
By the time he finishes the story, we’re yawning on a loop, blinking rapidly to try to stay awake. The stupidest, drowsiest discussion ensues as we attempt to find the strength to get up.
“We should head downstairs,” I mumble.
“Mmm-hmmm,” he mumbles back.
“Like now.”
“Hmmm, good idea.”
“Or maybe in five minutes.” I yawn.
“Five minutes, yeah.” He yawns.
“Okay, so we’ll close our eyes for five minutes and then get up.”
“Just rest our eyes. You know, eyes get tired.”
“They do.”
“Tired eyes,” he’s muttering from beneath thick lashes, “and I played a game tonight, got a bit bruised up, so let’s just…”
I don’t hear the rest of his sentence, because we’ve both fallen asleep.
4
Taylor
Knock.
Knock.
Knock!
KNOCK!
The last pound on the door jolts me upright. I squint and shield my eyes from the beams of light streaking across the room. What the hell?
It’s daylight. Morning. My mouth is dry, a bitter taste thick on my tongue. I don’t remember falling asleep. On a yawn I stretch my limbs, feel the muscles releasing. Then another sound stops my heart.
Snoring. Beside me.
Fucking fuckturtles.
Sprawled out on his stomach, Conor lies shirtless and in only his boxers.
“Hey! Open the door! This is my room!”
More knocking. Pounding.
Shit. Rachel’s home.
“Get up.” I shake Conor. He doesn’t stir. “Dude, get up. You need to leave.”
I don’t understand how he’s still here or when I fell asleep last night. A quick glance shows I’m still dressed with my shoes on, so why the hell is Conor practically naked?
“Get the hell out, assholes!” Any minute now Rachel’s going to start trying to kick the door down.
“Come on, get up.” I give Conor a stiff smack to the small of his back, which makes him jump in a bleary confusion.
“Mrrrmmm?” he mumbles incoherently.
“We fell asleep. My sister’s home and she wants her room back,” I whisper urgently. “You need to get dressed.”
Conor falls out of bed. He stands a bit unevenly, still muttering nonsense under his breath. Cringing, I unlock and open the door, where an irate Rachel stands fuming in the hall. Behind her, the entire house is awake, loitering in their pajamas and bed hair with mugs of coffee and cold Pop-Tarts. Sasha is nowhere to be seen, so I assume she wound up finding a concert in Boston and crashing with her friends in the city.
“What the hell, Taylor? Why was my door locked?”
I spot Abigail’s cruel smirk among the faces crowding the hall. “I’m sorry, I—”
Without letting me finish, Rachel shoves open the door and bursts inside, allowing everyone a good look at Conor shirtless, buttoning his jeans.
“Oh,” she squeaks. Her ire is quelled almost instantly by the sight of Conor’s immaculate body.
I don’t blame her for gawking. He’s exquisite. Broad shoulders and defined muscles. The perfectly smooth, inviting planes of his chest. I can’t believe I slept next to that and don’t remember any of it.
“G’morning,” Conor says with a smirk. He nods to the other sisters outside the room. “Ladies.”
“I didn’t know you had company,” Rachel talks to me but stares at him.
“My fault,” he says easily, then pulls his shirt over his sculpted chest. He steps into his shoes. “Sorry about that.” To me, he winks on his way to the door. “Call me.”
And just as suddenly as we became two unlikely allies, he departs. Every single gaze remains glued to the taut ass hugged by his jeans, until finally he’s out of sight, heavy footsteps thudding down the stairs.
I gulp a few times before speaking. “Rachel, I—”
“I didn’t think you had it in you, Marsh.” She looks surprised, of course. But also impressed. “Next time you slay a dragon in my room, be out before breakfast. ’Kay?”
“Sure. Sorry,” I say with relief. The worst is averted, I suppose. I live to fight better battles. And whether I courted it or not, whether this pries another thin sliver of my dignity from me in favor of my social standing, at least for today all these girls will live vicariously through my supposed exploits.
Then there’s Abigail.
While the others return to their morning cartoons and Cinnamon Toast Crunch, she lingers at the top of the stairs waiting for me. I want to push past her, ignore her, maybe trip her a little down the steps. Instead, like a dumbass, I stand there and meet her eyes.
“You must be pretty satisfied with yourself,” she says, arching one perfectly tweezed brow.
“No, Abigail, just tired.”
“If you think you proved something last night, you’re wrong. Conor would fuck a wet sock if it smiled at him. So don’t think this makes you special, Tay-Tay.”
This time I do brush past her. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”
“And he didn’t make a single move?” Sasha demands on Sunday morning after I’m done filling her in about Friday night’s exploits.
Unlike me, Sasha still lives in the Kappa Chi house, so she came to meet me for breakfast at Della’s Diner in town. Usually she’s too lazy to come to Hastings and coerces me into meeting at one of Briar’s dining halls, but I guess my vague text to her yesterday—“I’ll tell you when I see you”—was insufficient in satisfying my best friend’s curiosity. At least now I know what it takes to drag her lazy ass off campus: dirty details.
Or lack thereof.
“Nope,” I confirm. “No moves whatsoever.” I’m not worried about Sasha blabbing to any of the Kappas. I trust her implicitly, and there was no way I was going to allow my closest friend to think I’d hooked up with a notorious jock playboy. She’s the only one who even knows I’m a virgin.
“He didn’t try to kiss you?”
“Nope.” I slowly chew a bite of whole-wheat toast. I always order the same sad breakfast items at Della’s: brown toast, egg-white omelet, and a small fruit bowl. If “calorie counting” was a career option, I’d be richer than Jeff Bezos.
“I find this shocking,” she announces. “I mean, his reputation precedes him.”
“Well, he did flirt a bit,” I admit, reaching for my water glass. “And he pretended he liked
my body.”
She rolls her eyes. “Taylor, I guarantee he wasn’t pretending. I know you think men only get hard-ons from stick women, but trust me, you’re wrong. Curves drive them wild.”
“Yeah, curves. Not rolls.”
“You don’t have rolls.”
Thankfully, not at the moment. I’ve been diligent about eating healthy since the New Year, after overindulging during the holidays and putting on nearly ten pounds. In three months I’d shed about nine of those ten, which I’m happy with, but I’d love to lose more.
My ideal body goal is somewhere between Kate Upton and Ashley Graham; I tend to fluctuate between the two, but if I could get down to Kate size I’d be thrilled. I truly believe that all body types are beautiful. It’s only when I look in the mirror that I forget. My weight has been a source of stress and insecurity my entire life, so maintaining it is a priority for me.
I swallow the last bite of my omelet, while pretending not to notice how fucking delicious Sasha’s breakfast looks. A mouthwatering stack of chocolate-chip pancakes bathed in a sea of sugary syrup.
She’s one of those fortunate girls who can eat anything and not gain a single pound. Meanwhile, I take one bite of a cheeseburger and gain ten pounds overnight. That’s just the way my body is and I’ve accepted it. Cheeseburgers and pancakes taste great in the moment, but they’re not worth it for me in the long run.
“Anyway,” I continue, “he really was a gentleman.”
“Still can’t believe that,” she says through a mouthful of pancakes. She chews quickly. “And he told you to call him?”
I nod. “But obviously he didn’t mean it.”
“Why is that obvious?”
“Because he’s Conor Edwards and I’m Taylor Marsh?” I roll my eyes. “Also? He didn’t give me his number.”
She frowns. Ha, that shut her up fast.
“Yup, so whatever fantasy romance you were concocting in your pretty head, you can forget about it. Conor did me a favor the other night.” I offer a shrug. “Nothing more to it than that.”
5
Conor
If any of us harbored notions that Coach Jensen might take it easy on us after securing our berth into the NCAA Division One championship semi-finals, that delusion is quickly put to rest when we take the ice for Monday morning skate. From the first whistle, Coach has been on a rampage like he just found out Jake Connelly knocked up his daughter or something. We spend the first hour on speed training, skating until our toenails bleed. Then he calls a series of shooting drills and I take so many shots on net it feels like my arms might melt out of their sockets.
Whistle, skate. Whistle, shot. Whistle, kill me.
By the time Coach orders us to the media room to study game footage, I’m all but crawling off the ice. Even Hunter, who’s tried his damnedest to maintain a positive attitude as team captain, is starting to look like he wants to call his mommy to come pick him up. In the tunnel we share a pitiful look. Same, dude.
After a bottle of Gatorade and one of those jelly nutrition tubes, I’m feeling half-alive at least. The media room offers three semi-circular rows of plush chairs, and I’m in the first row with Hunter and Bucky. Everyone is slouched over from exhaustion.
Coach walks over to stand in front of the projector screen with the static image of our game against Minnesota bleeding onto his face. Even the sound of him clearing his throat gives me the jitters.
“Some of you seem to think the hard part’s over. That you’re just going to coast to a championship and it’s all champagne and afterparties from here on out. Well, I got news for you.” He slams his hand twice against the wall and I swear the whole building shakes. We all snap upright in our seats, wide the fuck awake. “Now’s when the work begins. You were running on training wheels until today. Now Daddy’s dragging you to the top of the hill and giving your asses a good shove.”
The footage rolls in slow motion on the screen. The D-line gets caught out of position on a breakaway and gives up a shot on net that pings off the post. That’s me there on the left, and watching my dumb ass scramble to chase down the shooter puts a pit in stomach.
“Right here,” Coach says. “We checked out mentally. Got caught puck watching. It only takes a second to lose focus and then bam, we’re playing catch-up.”
He fast-forwards the tape. This time it’s Hunter, Foster and Jesse who can’t string their passes together.
“Come on, ladies. This is basic stuff you’ve been doing since you were five. Soft hands. Visualize where your teammates are. Get open. Follow through.”
Around the room, we’re all taking hits to our overinflated egos. That’s the thing about Coach; he doesn’t suffer divas. For a few weeks now we’ve felt damn near invincible on our rise to the top. Now that we’ve got our fiercest opponents ahead of us, it’s time to get our feet back on the ground. That means taking our licks in practice.
“Wherever that puck is, I want three guys ready to take it,” Coach continues. “I don’t ever want to see someone standing around looking for an open man. If we want to square up to Brown or Minnesota, we need to play our game. Quick passes. High pressure. I want to see confidence behind the stick.”
My coach back in LA was a real son of a bitch. The kind of guy who burst into a room screaming and shouting, slamming doors and throwing chairs. At least twice a season he’d get ejected from a game, then come to the next practice and take it all out on us. Sometimes we deserved it. Other times, it was like he needed to exorcise forty years of shame and inadequacy on a bunch of dumb kids. No wonder the hockey program was shit.
Because of him I almost didn’t bother going out for the team when I transferred to Briar, but I knew the program’s reputation and had heard good things. Coach Jensen was a relief. He can be hard on us, but he’s never malicious. Never so focused on sport he forgets he’s coaching real people. One thing I’ve never doubted is that Coach Jensen cares about every one of these guys. Even busted Hunter out of jail last semester. For that, we’d follow him anywhere, toenails be damned.
“Alright, that’s it for today. I want everyone to check in with the nutritionist and make sure you’re clear on the meal plans for the next few weeks. We’re going to be pushing ourselves harder than we have all season. That means I want you guys taking care of your bodies. If you’ve got bangs and bumps, get with the trainers and have them evaluated. Now’s not the time to hide any issues. Every man needs to know he can count on the guy next to him. Okay?”
“Hey, Coach?” Hunter speaks up. He sighs, cringing. “The guys were wondering if we could get an update on the mascot situation.”
“The pig? You idiots are still on about the damn pig?”
“Uh, yeah. In the absence of Pablo Eggscobar, some of the boys are experiencing withdrawals.”
I snicker under my breath. Not gonna lie, I kinda miss our stupid egg mascot too. He was a cool dude.
“Jesus Christ. Yes, you’re getting your damn pet. Sometime in August, last I heard. There is an absurd amount of paperwork involved in the acquisition of a swine for non-agricultural purposes. Okay? Satisfied, Davenport?”
“Yup yup. Thanks, Coach.”
We all start getting up to leave, conversations breaking out while guys head for the doors.
“Oh, hang on,” Coach booms.
Everyone halts, like good little soldiers.
“Almost forgot. Word’s come down from the higher-ups that our attendance is required at some alumni grip-and-grin Saturday afternoon.”
Groans and protests erupt.
“What, why?” Matt Anderson calls from the back of the room.
“Oh, come on, Coach,” Foster whines.
Beside me, Gavin is pissed. “That’s bullshit.”
“What’s a grip-and-grin?” Bucky asks. “Sounds like we’re supposed to be jerking them off or something.”
“Essentially,” Coach replies. “Listen, I hate these things, too. But when the provost says jump, the athletic director says how high.�
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“But we’re the ones doing the jumping,” Alec protests.
“Now you’re getting it. These things are all about kissing ass for cash. The university counts on these little dog-and-pony shows to support things like athletics and building you princesses fancy training facilities. So get your suits pressed, comb your hair, for fuck’s sake, and be on your best behavior.”
“Does this mean I’m going to be getting my ass pinched by rich cougars?” The whole room laughs when Jesse raises his hand to speak. “Because I’m cool with taking one for the team, but my girlfriend is the jealous type and I’m gonna need a note or something on letterhead if she asks me about this.”
“I’d like to go on record as stating I find this premise sexist and exploitative,” Bucky chimes in.
In a flat tone that suggests he’s well sick of our shit, Coach digs his fingers into his eyes and recites from what I assume is Briar’s code of conduct.
“It is university policy that no student shall be required to behave in an unethical or immoral manner, or that which may conflict with their sincerely held religious or spiritual beliefs. The university is an equal opportunity institution based on high academic achievement and does not discriminate on the basis of gender, sexual orientation, economic status, religion or lack thereof, or the temperament of your girlfriend. Satisfied, everyone?”
“Thanks, Coach!” Bucky says with an exaggerated thumbs-up. Dude is going to give him an aneurism one of these days.
But Jesse and Bucky aren’t that off base. There’s something fundamentally broken about a system that has us paying fifty grand a year to still be treated like prostitutes. Those of us who aren’t here on a free ride at least, like myself.
If there’s one thing I’m good at, though, it’s playing the boy toy.
I’ll say this much for these bunch of goons, we sure clean up nice. The team came looking sharp in our best attire on Saturday afternoon. Beards trimmed. Hair gelled. Bucky even plucked his nose hairs, as he made sure to inform us all.