Third and Long: A Sports Romance

by Caitlyn Maxwell

  As usual I get to our spot in the library well ahead of Nayvee, Bailey and Kimber. By the time they roll in, obviously hungover, I’ve got my laptop set up with some basic ideas going for the etiquette app. The Party Girls sit down at the table and immediately get on their cell phones, ignoring that I’m already working.

  “So would you gals like to get started?” I ask.

  “Oh my god,” Nayvee says, “did you hear the news?”

  “About Logan Oliver?” Bailey asks.

  “Logan? What’s up with his sexy ass? I’ve been in Cabo all weekend,” Kimber says.

  “Logan’s getting engaged to Katerina Prescott!” Bailey says.

  “Shut up!” Kimber says. “I love Katerina. She’s so funny.”

  “I know. I am so fucking jealous of her,” Nayvee says.

  “I would kill to be her. Marrying Logan? Oh my god!” Bailey says.

  “Do you guys think it’s true what they say about him?” Nayvee asks.

  “Uh yes!” Kimber says. “I know at least two girls who can confirm. The biggest.”

  “Bullshit,” Bailey says. “How’s he running around in those tight little football pants with a monster like that?”

  “That’s why he never gets sacked. Third leg and all,” Nayvee says.

  I’m sitting there starring over the top of my laptop, and I want to scream. This is literally the most surreal thing that’s ever happened to me. The Party Girls debating Logan’s—uh—merits, while I’m sitting here like chopped liver.

  Then it hits me. A way to get their attention. A blurry mess of a terrible picture unless you know what you’re looking for.

  I hop on the Internet and pull up the Dirty’s website. That’s when my plan goes slightly awry. The first half of the page is now taken up with pictures of Logan and Katerina. Apparently his dad invited the local news out to their mansion for a photo shoot.

  There’s pictures of Logan and Katerina riding Surefire and Daisy, another picture of them down in the entertainment room, and lastly a picture of them testing out Jeffrey’s latest batch of beer. All the places he took me. I find myself awkwardly feeling for the engagement ring that isn’t there. It’s back in my nightstand. Talk about awkward.

  I try not to get choked up, yet at the same time this terrible sense of betrayal comes over me.

  “Hey Tamber are you okay?” Bailey asks as my lip trembles.

  I turn my laptop around and show them the blurry picture of Logan and me. I’m sure they saw it on the Dirty, but they never would have suspected that I’m the blurry girl.

  “What is that?” Kimber asks. Then she focuses. Nayvee and Bailey focus too. Someone turns a light bulb on in their head.

  “Wait is that you Tamber?” Nayvee asks.

  I nod my head.

  “This was like a week ago!” Bailey says. “Oh shit were you dating him?”

  They study the picture for ages, verifying that it is, in fact, me. The irony is that I can’t even tell them the whole story. They’d never believe a thing about my weekend.

  “We went on a date,” I say, shrugging my shoulders.

  “So?” Nayvee asks excitedly. She puts her fingers together and slowly starts spreading them out, measuring my reaction.

  I indicate she should keep going. Everyone giggles like an idiot when I finally tell Nayvee to stop once her fingers are approximating Logan’s size.

  “Holy shit,” Kimber says.

  Suddenly I’m the star of the fucking show. They can’t help but ask me a million questions about Logan. For once they also want to know about me. They want to know how a bookworm like me met Logan. I tell the track story and they love it.

  Two hours go by and we’re still talking about Logan. We’re losing all track of time. When I notice how late it’s getting, I start to freak. After all this time, I’ve finally got these girls to pay attention to me, and we’ve barely managed to get anything done!

  It takes a little coaxing to get them back on track. Finally they all take out their laptops, so I can share the document with them.

  “Okay here’s our product. It’s an etiquette app, so…”

  “So if you’re out on a date with a rich guy like Logan?” Kimber asks.

  “Yeah, and…”

  “And if he takes you out then you know what to wear?” Bailey asks.

  “Right and…”

  “And if he wants to fly you to France you know which fork to pick up first?” Nayvee asks.

  That’s all it took. A little nudging and the ideas are finally flying right out of them. I actually can’t believe it. They blather on with idea after idea. If I knew that all it took was mentioning that I’d gone on a date with Logan, I’d have done that days ago. I’d have lied about it weeks ago!

  In thirty minutes we have the entire product mapped out. The one saving grace of this semester is that Professor Asshole doesn’t need us to actually make the product. A design document is enough, however, the hard work from here on out is figuring out how to market it on social media. That’s where The Party Girls’ expertise lies. They spend their entire lives online.

  We divvy up the work and agree to meet in one week. Despite their enthusiasm, I still volunteer for the most time consuming part. I’m going to need something to take my mind off Logan anyway. By the time Katerina actually leaves, I suspect he’ll have forgotten all about me. That’s why I didn’t respond to his text message. If his parents are insistent on marrying him off to her then there’s no reason to make things hard on ourselves.

  Logan Oliver III. The one that got away?

  He’s a special guy. He’s special, I had him, and I let him get away.

  I don’t love Logan. I can’t. Not after all this.

  No I don’t love Logan. There was a brief window where I could have loved him, but I don’t. I can’t.

  He’s getting married to Katerina now. Meanwhile I’ve got a project to finish.

  The Party Girls gather their things and take a selfie with me, the girl who dated Logan however briefly. They forward the selfie to me. It’s a cute picture, and I’ve got the weirdest smile on my face.

  Then I realize that I was smiling because I couldn’t help but think about Logan’s touch and his tongue.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Logan

  When Alabama’s nose tackle crushes me into the dirt for the second time in the third quarter, I realize that this game is not going to go my way. We’re on the road in a stadium that hates us. Alabama is the only SEC school that can take our spot in the national championship, and right now they are playing like they want it more.

  To make matters worse, Katerina is up in the stands watching me instead of Tamber. Being the incredible idiot that I am, I waited until Friday to invite Tamber to the game. I’m sure she took it as an insult. She never returned my call.

  Granted she must have seen the pictures that they took of me with Katerina all week long. The Dirty created a whole feature just for me and my would-be wife. I had no choice. Her parents and mine set up an entire itinerary for us. We went to Houston to see the sights, and we also visited my dad’s oil fields. To make matters worse we went to Marquise Steakhouse, the same place I took Tamber, and this time there were a dozen paparazzi waiting out front for us.

  The local news is spinning it as a royal engagement. The king of Rome and the princess of New York City. If anyone bothered to look close enough they would see that I’m not smiling in any of the pictures. Each time they make me hold hands with Katerina, or kiss her on the cheek, all I can think about is Tamber. I want my short, mocha-haired, workaholic more than anything.

  Cam helps me up off the ground after Alabama’s nose tackle drilled me down into it. We lost the ball since that was third down. We had twenty yards to go anyway. A first down seemed beyond hopeless. This isn’t my best game. In fact it’s my worst game.

  We sit on the bench and Coach Ainsworth hands me a tablet with some plays on it. He’s showing me what’s working and what isn’t working
. Normally this is where I excel in the game: studying, learning, figuring out their defense. However, right now I can’t focus. All I can think about is Tamber. We were never just friends. We were always more than that.

  I offered to fly her and Gwen up here for the game. I even sent a message to Gwen and neither of them responded. When I asked Cam to reach out to Gwen, he said she wasn’t speaking to him either, but that’s not unusual. Gwen’s a real love ‘em and leave ‘em type. At least Cam isn’t a big blubbering mess this time.

  “Hey Logan pay attention,” Cam says, and I realize that Coach has been talking for a minute.

  “I’m good. I heard,” I say. There’s no way I can admit to Coach that I wasn’t paying attention.

  Our defense manages to stop Alabama. We’re only down by two touchdowns, so we’re definitely not out of this yet. Beyond my engagement, the sports media decided that this had to be a statement game for me. Now that I’m cleaning up my act and getting engaged, the narrative became that a win will show that I’ve put my party boy days behind me. Well here I am, and I’m losing badly. Ironically, I’d give up every party for the rest of my life for Tamber. But she’s not waiting in the stands. Katerina is.

  “You straight man?” Cam asks as our defense rushes back to the bench.

  “Can’t get her out of my head, man.”

  “Katerina or…”

  Cam knows full-fucking-well that I don’t care about Katerina. Still I have spent the past five days with her, and Cam only needed to take one look at the New York socialite to start lusting after her. For a guy that drinks Gatorade all the time, he sure is thirsty.

  “Tamber, man, come on, get your head in the game,” I say.

  He laughs. “I’m not the one who needs to get his fucking head in the game. How about you try throwing to me some time today?” he asks.

  “Next play, let’s do it.”

  “Damn man, now you’re talking.”

  Our special teams runs the punt back very far. They get us to midfield. That’s as good a spot as any to start my comeback. I put my helmet on, and then make the mistake of looking up into the stands.

  Katerina’s sitting directly behind our bench. She blows me a kiss. All week long she’s been pretending to be the biggest football fan in the world, while at the same time she’s been asking me nothing but questions about my dad’s business, my plans for the future, and how we’re going to spend our billions. Most of the time I couldn’t even answer her because they were questions that I’ve never asked myself.

  She doesn’t see that I have a real choice between my dad’s company and football. Meanwhile Tamber absolutely understood my choice, but she told me to take the easy way out and marry Katerina. Part of me knows that Tamber didn’t really mean that.

  I take the field and my offensive line is already set up and ready to go. Cam is in position. I take a look at him, and he signals that he’s ready to run a crossing route. The defense looks porous because they’re set up to stop the run. This should be easy.

  While I should be setting for the snap, I can’t stop thinking about how bad I fucked up with Tamber this week. Every time I tried to send her a text message to let her know how things were going, Katerina was there to get in my way. No time to worry. I have to snap the ball!

  “Hike!” I scream over the deafening roar of the Alabama fans.

  I take two steps back, standing tall in the pocket. Cam crosses over, and as the ball leaves my arm, I see the safety rushing up. I didn’t notice him before, but he obviously noticed me looking at Cam. I can’t stop the ball from leaving my hand, my motion is too strong, too fast. By the time the ball leaves my fingers, I know that it doesn’t stand a chance of reaching Cam.

  Alabama’s safety snatches it right out of the air. Interception.

  The safety breaks right past our line. I rush as fast as I can over to him, but he stiff arms me into the ground. Shit. Clear sailing.

  Alabama touchdown.

  I should have seen him.

  What did Tamber say about getting distracted?

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Tamber

  He didn’t text me all week, and at first I tried to understand. His parents put him in an impossible situation with Katerina. Even as all the pictures circulate around the gossip blogs and TV shows, showing the “happy couple” out on various dates, I keep telling myself that Logan is only doing what he has to do.

  I start doubting that when he takes her to the Marquise Steakhouse. Of all the places he could have taken Katerina, he chose our place. I take that as a sign. Between that and the lack of contact, I assume that Logan decided to settle. Why go for me: the girl with the mess of a family history when the beautiful and equally rich Katerina Prescott is right there for the taking?

  All week long Gwen tries to talk me down, reassuring me that Logan will call me as soon as Katerina is out of the picture. That seems less and less likely as the weekend approaches. It hit me Friday night that our little tryst at his parents house was just that: one last jaunt for him before marriage.

  He used me. He brought me to his parents house because he wanted to fuck one last girl before his parents married him off to Katerina. With a little hindsight now I can see how stupid the whole “fake engagement” plan sounds.

  It was fake all along.

  So why is it hurting so bad now?

  I went to his parents’ mansion to get away for the weekend. It was a lark, a favor for a nice guy, a friend. We were playing around. Then it turned into something more. I fell hard for Logan. Against all my better judgment, I actually started to love him.

  We didn’t have sex, but I would say that we made love. His kiss, his touch, his muscles, his power. Love. But it wasn’t real.

  Gwen and I have big plans to go to a bar and watch Logan’s game against Alabama. Then Friday night comes, and Logan finally texts me.

  Come watch me in Alabama? I’ll fly you in.

  I show Gwen, and she nearly throws my phone across the room. Talk about uninviting someone. It would have been better if Logan never sent anything at all.

  Talk about short notice. Typical Logan: ask me to drop everything just for him. Gwen and I both know that Katerina is going to be at the game. This whole last minute invite from Logan is nothing but guilt on his part. What an asshole.

  At that very moment, I decide that I have better things to do than worry about watching Logan Oliver the Third play his stupid game. I can’t believe I actually started to care about football.

  In the end Logan turned out to be the very thing I assumed he was all along: a distraction. And he distracted me long enough.

  My mother and my oldest sister both set the example. Never fall for a boy. They’re nothing but trouble.

  On Saturday afternoon, I find myself with a lot of free time since I’m not watching the game. Gwen has plans to get drunk anyway, so I head over to the basement of the college library with my laptop and a game plan of my own: finish my part of the project once and for all. On Monday, I’m meeting with The Party Girls one last time where we’ll be putting everything together.

  For the past two hours I haven’t thought about Logan at all. Instead I’ve been going into way too much detail about how our etiquette app will actually work. If I knew someone that could program, they’d be able to take my design and turn it right into something usable. That’s how focused I am.

  Professor Asshole is probably going to be so annoyed that I’m going into this much detail, but when I get mad there’s two things I do: run and work. And right now I’m working my butt off. I hope I piss off Asshole with the depth of my work. He’s the one who assigned the longest most difficult project ever for my last semester of college. Serves him right if he has to read thousands and thousands of extra words.

  Gwen was begging me to go drinking with her, but I’d never be able to relax until I get this project done. As it’s going along very smoothly despite the complexity I’ve added, there may be some hope for a drink tonight after all.


  Ever since I’ve known her, she’s been trying to get me laid, but tonight she’s more than happy to help me swear off men forever. Then Monday, I’ll be running mad. I’m going to wake up at 5 a.m when it’s nice and cold outside and run until my legs fall off, and my brain forgets the name Logan Oliver III ever existed.

  My fingers are typing away at my keyboard faster than they’ve ever typed before. I’m eight pages into a document detailing how the etiquette app is supposed to work. The only thing I don’t have at this point is a name. And wouldn’t you know it, but The Party Girls left it up to me to come up with a name.

  Not that they aren’t pulling their weight finally. They’re designing the social media campaign to promote the app. It is a marketing class after all. Somehow telling them that I went on a date with Logan made them my biggest fans. Now they won’t stop Snapchatting me pics with Katerina and him.

  Even if I wanted to avoid the gossip news and Logan, I couldn’t. He’s everywhere. Every college kid feels like they are getting ready for the biggest party of all time if indeed Logan’s going to have a bachelor party before the end of the school year.

  Then it hits me: Party-Kit, the Etiquette App. I search the name online assuming it’s already taken as all the good ideas usually are. No hits. I might have actually done it.

  Somehow my best work happens when I’m the most pissed off. First it was Jessica Oliver grilling me about my parents, and now it’s me sitting in the bottom of the library stewing in my own special mixture of sadness and anger.

  Talk about angst.

  I text Gwen letting her know that I’m wrapping up my work. There isn’t even a second of hesitation in her reply. It’s one of those moments where she replies so fast that it almost seems like she sent the message before I sent mine.

  Good girl. Now let’s get WASTED!