Third and Long: A Sports Romance

by Caitlyn Maxwell

  The cheerleaders take a seat on either side of me. The last time I had a steady girlfriend was my freshman year. We went at it for a while until I realized that I don’t need to be a one woman man. Why would anyone choose that life willingly? It feels like everyone in my life wants to know when I’m going to settle down. All the flavors of ice cream in the world, and they want me to choose vanilla for the rest of my life.

  I’m not wired that way. I win on the field and off the field.

  The waitress lines up a row of shots for the three of us. A couple of other girls flank Tiffany and Kelly, but hell if I know their names. They get shots of their own. I wouldn’t have a Friday night any other way. My teammates don’t know how I do it: party all night and play the next day. With the right motivation a guy can do anything. And I’ve got all the motivation I need on either side of me.

  Tiffany and Kelly press their bodies into me, and I can feel myself getting hard.

  “Oops, sorry,” Kelly says as her hand bumps into my leg. She grazes quickly across my waist and giggles. Nothing but a grin on my face. These girls have been on the squad all year, so I know they’ve heard the rumors about me. Every girl says I’m the biggest they’ve ever seen. It’s a rumor I’m more than happy to let grow. So to speak.

  Even though Tiffany and Kelly are all over me, I keep thinking about that cute girl from the track. She had the most amazing ass popping in those tight running shorts. Just thinking about her gets me even harder.

  I shouldn’t play with Tamber. She seems really sweet. Not in a million years would a girl like that actually go for a guy like me with a history like mine. All she has to do is ask around. Everyone will tell her that I’m a player. That I’ll break her heart. She’s a challenge. I never back down from a challenge.

  Damn, why am I even thinking about that girl when I’ve got these two babes hanging all over me? My cheerleaders are tall, big-breasted blondes. Meanwhile Tamber’s short, diminutive almost. Then I remember her awkwardly cute smile and her toned runner’s legs, and my cock gets hard all over again.

  “Shots, shots, shots!” some random guy yells out. I’m more than happy to oblige. Drink up and stop thinking about the girl with the cute booty and the mocha brown hair.

  When I throw the shot back, Tiffany grabs my cock. If only she knew I got hard thinking about some other girl. I drop the glass and kiss her. The taste of Jaeger lingers on her lips. Then I turn around and kiss Kelly who shoves her tongue down my throat.

  Everyone shouts my name.

  “Logan, tell us a story,” Tiffany says clawing at my shoulder. What she really wants is time alone with me. She wants me to take her back to my place and show her my infamous body. In particular my most infamous body part. She’ll want me to bring Kelly too.

  “What kind of story do you want?” I ask.

  “A sexy story,” she says.

  “I’ve got nothing but sexy stories, babe,” I say.

  Some guys cheer and order me another round. I give them what they want, and they give me what I want. Terrible burden being a star.

  My smart watch buzzes, letting me know that it’s well after midnight. Pre-game practice is going to be hell tomorrow. Playing with a hangover has never stopped me before, and I intend to grind Auburn into the ground. From here on out all of my games will be scouted by the pros, so you’d think I’d be at home getting rest like a good boy. A couple of ibuprofen, some Pedialite, and a few of gallons of water will have me straight by 9 a.m.

  Now the confidence boost a night like this gives me? Invaluable.

  Without football, Rome would be the sleepiest little backwater in the world. Before the university was built decades and decades ago, the only thing that existed to properly call “Rome” was a gas station. As they say Rome wasn’t built in a day. A tiny schoolhouse sprung up near that gas station. That turned into some lecture halls. They added dorms. After the dorms came the research facilities. The original specialty was agriculture.

  Then one day football came to Rome and completely took over the town’s way of life. Rome isn’t sleepy anymore. It’s Texas’s own city that never sleeps. After the bars close, all these guys will head out to the after parties which will move right into tailgating tomorrow. Unfortunately, I’ve got to catch a few winks between now and then because following the tailgating, I’m the star of the show.

  Coach always says that it’s my job to represent the university with my off-the-field behavior. When twenty other guys in the bar all take shots and shout my name, I figure I’m representing quite well. There’s another guy in my life that’s always yammering on about how I present myself. My dad. Except he’s more concerned with how I represent the family. Another responsibility that I like to ignore.

  Responsibilities are easy to ignore when you’re me. If you ever got attention like this, you’d understand. Kelly takes a turn grabbing at my rock hard cock, and I think about getting out of here. May as well take these two babes home while they’re ready to play ball, or play with my balls actually. They’re all waiting for my sexy story when I turn to Tiffany.

  “How about we go home and make a sexy story?” I ask.

  “Oh baby, that sounds nice,” she says, sliding her tongue in my mouth and down my throat.

  Kelly pouts and wants a turn of her own.

  “Do you mind if we bring company?” I ask.

  “Mind? We come as a package,” Tiffany says.

  “Is that right?” I ask.

  “Would you like to find out?” Kelly asks.

  “Damn!” I scream to the rafters.

  There is no one in the world I’d rather be than me right now. We get up and head to the exit. There’s no bar tab to pay and no tips to leave because no one will take them. All they want is a win tomorrow for the Southern Texas Lions. Bring more glory to Rome. Keep Rome on the map, and it’s people will keep taking care of you.

  “Kill ‘em tomorrow Logan!” the bartender yells on my way out.

  “You got it, bro,” I say.

  The liquor hits me hard when I get to the door. Tiffany and Kelly are stumbling around grabbing onto my arm. It takes two tries to grab the handle of the door, but finally we push out onto the street.

  Camera flashes. Dozens of them. A paparazzi ambush! I’m taken off guard, stumbling from the liquor and the sudden flash of lights.

  “Logan Oliver! Don’t you have a game tomorrow?”

  “Have you been drinking?”

  “How is this going to affect your play?”

  “Do the other girls in your life know about these two?”

  I can’t see the photographer, but I know that last question comes from the South Texas Dirty. Bullshit gossip magazine. They’re always giving me shit about my love life.

  The media is going to have a field day with this. Logan Oliver III stumbling out of a bar at midnight on the eve of a big game with two cheerleaders on either arm.

  Coach is going to kill me.

  My dad is going to pop a gasket.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Tamber

  I should be doing work on my marketing project. Instead Gwen convinced me to go to the football game. Jokes on her, there’s quite a lot of work I can get done on my phone. Not that The Party Girls will be checking their email anyway. While Gwen succeeded in pulling me away for the game, I’m sure those girls tailgated beforehand and are planning a trip to the clubs after.

  The stadium is deafening. I can’t remember the last time I actually went to a game. That makes me a total black sheep in Rome given that this is an SEC school. Football is life here.

  We take our seats in the student section which takes up more than half the stadium. A sea of red erupts in endless applause when the Lions take the field. I had to dig a ratty old red Lions shirt out of my closet that I bought when I was a wide-eyed, eager freshman. I hadn’t become quite so cynical yet.

  Back then I assumed that everyone else at college had the same drive and expectations as me. Gwen set me straight on that right away
.

  “Did you see the news this morning?” Gwen asks.

  I shake my head. Legitimately did not. Too busy.

  “Oh my God you nerd! Logan was caught drunk with a couple of bimbos. Apparently Coach Ainsworth is pissed. They say he might not play today.”

  The name strikes me as familiar, but I have no idea who she’s talking about. At any rate as the teams line up for kick off, I’m going through emails hoping that at least some of my idiot group members got their shit together this morning. Of course not. It’s the week we play Auburn. The school may as well be closed given how big a deal this is to everyone except me.

  Football is a luxury I wish I had. But I don’t. One false step, one bad grade, and I lose my scholarship. If that happens, then I end up back where I started in Eden, Texas. The most Podunk miserable little excuse for a town that I’ve ever seen. There were about ten kids in my graduating class. Most of them went on to get jobs at the local prison or the oil wells. That is not the life for me.

  “You have no idea who I’m talking about do you?” Gwen asks.

  “Sorry babe. Like you said, I’m a nerd,” I say.

  “Oh my God. Logan Oliver the third. Billionaire party boy? Our school’s quarterback? The guy every girl wants to fuck, and the guy every other guy wants to be?”

  I think about it for a minute. No way could it be that Logan. There’s no possible way the quarterback of our team was hitting on me yesterday morning.

  “Billionaire?” I ask in disbelief that an honest-to-god billionaire is our university’s quarterback. That seems like something I should know. I’m sort of out of the loop if you couldn’t tell already.

  “He doesn’t have the money yet. His dad’s a billionaire. How do you not know this?” she asks.

  I shrug, so Gwen points to our offense as they take the field. Actually, I was vaguely aware that we had a rich-as-fuck playboy for our quarterback. It’s a fact that’s essentially impossible to ignore when you live near campus although I do my best.

  Gwen and I were freshman dorm buddies, and we’ve been besties ever since. She knows the basics of my life although there’s some details I won’t tell anyone even her. She knows my parents aren’t exactly rich, but she doesn’t know the whole story, the reasons why I have a complete and utter fear of failure.

  A lot of that is rooted in my mom. She had all the talent in the world, all the promise, all the goals. She threw it all away for a boy, my dad. By the time she realized my dad was not who she thought he was, she already had two kids with me on the way. In the end she wound up stuck in Eden with three girls and a worthless husband.

  That’s never going to be me. I’m never going to end up in a backwater town like that, and I’m never going to give it all away for a boy, no matter who he is. My life is my own.

  “I’ll be damned. He is playing. Number 3, see?” She grabs my head and points it toward the mass of bodies that all pile up after the Lions run a play.

  It’s impossible to tell if it’s the same Logan, but the quarterback is certainly tall enough to be the Logan I met out on the track. Not that it matters. I have work to do. Two seconds after I go back to my email, Gwen snatches my phone away.

  “Hey I need that!”

  “Girl, you can take one break. You can have one afternoon where you aren’t working. It’s gonna kill you some day,” Gwen says.

  “What is?”

  “Your workaholicism.”

  “My workaholicism,” I say imitating her voice, “is the only thing keeping my scholarship.”

  “If the rest of the campus worked half as hard as you, we’d all be national scholars,” Gwen says.

  “You can go out partying every night and still get decent enough grades to keep your parents paying for you. That doesn’t mean I can do the same,” I say.

  “True, but it also doesn’t mean that you have to be a dateless, ice queen that hasn’t felt the joys of a nice hard cock in years.”

  “Not sure what cocks have to do with anything.”

  “I’m saying a good, hard fuck would help you in so many ways,” she says, pointing at the email app on my phone.

  Gwen constantly tries to psychoanalyze me. I’m about to respond to her when Logan Oliver III completes a huge pass down the field. She grabs my hand, and we jump up and down in our seats. Uncharacteristic of me but Gwen’s enthusiasm is absolutely infectious.

  It occurs to me that I didn’t even get Logan’s last name. I guess in between talking about his cock and my ass it never came up. I’m also fairly certain I never gave him my last name, Long. He would have an awfully difficult time figuring out my phone number without it. Seems like I’m going to win that bet.

  From my phone Gwen starts reading the story from The South Texas Dirty about our quarterback’s late night. Apparently, he racked up quite a large bar tab that he expected someone else to pay. Typical jackass, billionaire behavior. They don’t get that rich by spending their own money.

  “He has to be hungover. How is this possible?” I ask as he completes another perfect pas. Really and truly, I can’t believe it. The last time I drank until the wee hours of the morning, I couldn’t even get out of bed the next day.

  “Anything is possible with that guy. If it was any other guy Coach Ainsworth would have benched his ass. But Logan? You do not bench the number 1 draft pick. Especially not when his dad owns half the state.”

  “He’s that good?”

  “Sure. He’s going to be a name you hear for a long time.”

  “Not if he keeps getting caught out late on game night,” I say.

  “You are such a stiff! People don’t really care about that. It’s just good gossip. Not everyone is as cautious as you.”

  “Caution is good. Fail to plan, plan to fail,” I say. The only wise words my father ever said. Shame he couldn’t follow them himself.

  Gwen gives me a hard look. She’s ready to call me out on my pessimism when the student section goes berserk. Somehow Logan rushes right up the guts of the defensive line. He bursts into the end zone carrying two guys on his back. A more impressive display of manliness, I’m not sure I’ve ever seen. That’s not the kind of athleticism I would expect from someone born with a silver spoon in their mouth.

  The Lions offense takes the bench, and the special teams handle the point after and the subsequent kick off. Then the defense takes the field. Gwen loses interest at that point. She asks me how the project is going. I tell her all the dirty details, and she promises for the third time to kick the asses of The Party Girls.

  It’s the product. We need the perfect product. The last time I actually got together with The Party Girls the only thing they could come up with was a sturdier version of the red Solo cup. When I told them that already existed, they summarily gave up and went back to browsing Instagram.

  “How about you guys market a douche for men,” Gwen says.

  “Uh what?”

  “You know they keep making gender-specific products. How about a douche for men?”

  “I can think of a few reasons,” I say, trying to picture how such a thing would even work.

  “I’m just saying I have too many fuckboys in my life, and a few of them could stand to take a douche.”

  “Sure Gwen. I’ll run it by the group.”

  When we met as freshmen, Gwen was undeclared. That’s how she lives her life: undeclared. At all times she waits for someone to notice that she’s twisting in the wind, but she’s so gorgeous and fun that some charitable person takes her under their wing.

  I was that charitable person freshman year. My path to an MBA had been set since my junior year of high school. I turned her on to dentistry. I can’t remember the exact series of events, but by the end of our first semester, she jumped right into pre-med.

  “See the things that a nice hard cock can do for both your pussy and mind are fucking incredible. Specifically a football player’s cock,” Gwen says, completely changing the subject. Her mind typically goes in eight different dir
ections. I’ve never met anyone with a dirtier mouth. That’s why she’ll make a great dentist I suppose.

  “Remember when I dated that football player?” she asks.

  I do.

  “He’s the wide receiver out there. Cam Phelps. He’s like this with Logan.” Gwen crosses her fingers.

  “So what happened?”

  Gwen thinks about it for a moment. She jumps from one guy to the next so frequently that there probably isn’t a specific reason. We’re complete opposites which is why we like each other even though her laissez-faire attitude gives me the hives most days.

  “It doesn’t matter what happened. What matters is what went down.”

  “Do go on,” I say, knowing that she’s going to tell me all the dirty details anyway.

  “In bed, athletes are a totally different species. Sure, you can fuck a musclehead at the gym if you want to feel those big biceps and huge pecs, but athletes have drive. It didn’t matter what time of day, what day of the week, Cam was always willing to give it to me raw and dirty. In the kitchen, in the living room, in the bedroom, in the shower.”

  “Shut up, shut up, I remember.” In fact Cam is the reason that I bought noise-canceling headphones. While they were dating, I took to spending a lot more time at the library.

  “He’d never settle for one position, and you know I’m so indecisive, I loved that. He could fuck me standing up! He could flip me over and we could sixty-nine like that with me in mid-air!”

  “Sounds like the perfect guy so…”

  “So what? They act that way all the time. It’s so intense. They come off the field sweaty and jacked up on adrenaline, ready to rock someone’s world. You can only take that for so long. I’m talking like the fear of getting ripped in two when they’re really horny. I’m not endorsing marrying an athlete, but I am absolutely saying you should date one. Change your life. This whole no men thing is unsustainable babe. Gonna make yourself crazy. If you haven’t already.”

  The Lions offense takes the field again. It’s almost half time. This time Logan Oliver III rolls out from under center. He rushes to the sidelines. Right before the cornerback tackles him, he dips back toward center and then sends a strike right over the middle to Cam. Gwen can’t help but cheer. She’s the kind of girl that never really breaks up with someone. I couldn’t live that life. The anxiety of running into exes would kill me.