Hard to Score

by K. Bromberg

  On the pain I still feel bone-deep after getting the news.

  “And now . . . fuck, Drew . . . after eighteen games of absolute goddamn brilliance, tonight looked like a fucking repeat of what your dad did all those years ago.”

  Drew, it’s your dad.

  “Please tell me you didn’t throw the game, Drew.”

  He was in a really bad accident.

  I meet Roger’s eyes for the first time and shake my head in disbelief. “How can you ask me that?”

  His legs locked up. He couldn’t control them. The doctors . . . he’s been diagnosed with ALS, Drew.

  “It’s what everyone’s going to be asking. You’ve got a second string QB dying to play and he had no problem connecting the dots and saying it publicly tonight. To the press. He’s talking about seeing you with a bookie in the parking lot after practice. He’s saying he watched you give him money.”

  “That’s total bullshit, Roger.”

  “The press is already having a goddamn field day with it and the game isn’t even three hours over.”

  Yes. It will kill him. I’m sorry to tell you right before your game, but I thought you’d want to know.

  “Do you think I threw the game?” I ask the man who’s been my biggest cheerleader since signing with the NFL. “I’ve played my ass off and my heart out for this team. Eighteen games to be exact. One full season and two more into my sophomore season with the NFL. How dare you stand there and even ask me that goddamn question.”

  “And yet I haven’t heard a simple yes or no from you.”

  I stare at him, fury raging and pulse pounding. He is the one person I thought had my back. The one fucking person who would believe me, and yet he’s asking questions. He’s letting the doubt seep in.

  After all the blood, sweat, and tears I’ve dedicated to this team in the short time I’ve been here, he’s still doubting me?

  One fucking bad game, and he’s already turned his back? What the actual fuck?

  My mom’s voice is in my head. Again.

  Just like it was during the game.

  It’s on goddamn repeat.

  Over and over and over.

  Every sentence of the conversation was like the cadence I’d give before a snap.

  Every word was motivation.

  I used the anger at first. The rage and the fury over her call to make me play like a wild man. To channel it through aggression.

  But somewhere around the start of the fourth quarter, it was like the life had been sucked out of me.

  Like I had lost everything.

  My will.

  My focus.

  My ability.

  “Your lack of explanation is concerning, Drew. What in the Sam Hill happened out there?”

  I grit my teeth and stare at him.

  I’ve overcome deficits, I’ve scrambled out of pockets, I’ve avoided blitzes . . . but this is one thing I can’t run from. This is one thing a fucking Hail Mary can’t fix.

  My dad is going to die.

  I stare at Roger and my stomach churns. The need to explain, to want to explain, is there and yet isn’t he proving my mom right? One bad game and the press is already coming after me. Already assuming the worst.

  Just. Like. Him.

  I shove away the feeling of betrayal. The hurt.

  Do not tell anyone, Drew. If the press finds out they’ll say it’s karma.

  They’ll say it’s justified. They’ll vilify him all over again.

  Mom, come on. Surely they won’t say that. Surely they’ll feel empathy for such a devastating diagnos—

  No, Drew. Do not tell the press. You have no idea the things they will say. The mud they will drag our family through. We protected you from it as much as possible back then, but now . . . now that you’re in the league that threw him to the wolves, I can’t begin to imagine the unwanted attention it will bring to your career. Do not tell anyone.

  “It all looks too goddamn suspicious. The Drew Hemmings out there today isn’t the Drew Hemmings who has played for the past season. He never showed up. Instead I got a bush-league rookie who looked like he was doing everything he could to lose. Put that hand in hand with you being spotted with—”

  “Fuck this.”

  “I need answers and I need them right now,” Roger thunders, his voice reverberating off the walls of the empty room and forcing the point home.

  He believes them.

  Over me.

  It’s amazing how he’s had my back when we were winning and now at the first challenge, the first bad outing, he gave up on me. I thought he believed in me—but now it seems he was only testing the waters.

  I stare at him, blinking, trying to comprehend how my world is falling apart and all he can think about is the fucking score.

  “Fuck this,” I repeat as I kick one of the stools and it goes flying into the wall. “Fuck. This.”

  And when I walk out of the Tigers’ locker room, I leave behind the name Drew Hemmings with it.

  DREW

  I LOOK AT THE CLOCK on the scoreboard and grit my teeth.

  Today has been a shitshow. Hobbs’s head is somewhere fucking else and it shows in his concentration and passes.

  I vibrate with anticipation that eats at me.

  That owns me.

  The crowd boos as Hobbs intentionally grounds yet another pass when he had two receivers wide open down the field.

  “Fuckin’ A,” my teammate, Pete Umansky, yells to no one in particular. “Make the fucking play!” I glance his way and our eyes meet. “You need to be out there.”

  I nod, frustrated that I’m not.

  “He’s wet behind the ears,” Umansky continues. “Playing scared. You can’t play fucking scared or they’ll eat you alive.”

  “Agreed,” I murmur as Justin hands off the ball to a receiver and bobbles it in the process so that the receiver loses his footing and goes down.

  “Hey Lonnie!” Pete shouts to our offensive coordinator.

  Lonnie looks like a heart attack waiting to happen when he slips one ear from his headset and turns our way. His face is red, his vein is pulsing in his forehead, and his scowl hasn’t changed once in the last half of the game. He throws his hands out to the side to ask what Pete wants.

  “Get him out of there. The Pats are eating the fucking kid alive. His nerves are wearing on the rest of the guys out there. Quinton doesn’t drop passes. Huxley doesn’t miss routes. He’s fucking up and it’s making us look like shit.”

  “He needs to learn,” Lonnie says as Hobbs jogs from the field when he fails to convert the down. But in true chickenshit fashion, he heads to the opposite end of the line so he’s as far away from Lonnie as possible.

  “And we need to fucking win,” Pete snaps back. “Let him learn from the sidelines. Put Bowman in. He’ll get the job done. It’s who should be starting anyway.”

  I do a double take at Pete’s words. At the unwavering conviction in them and the nods of the heads of the guys around him. I’m shocked as shit.

  I know the guys respect me. I know they joke at practice that I should be the one on the field with them. But I thought it was because they were being cool. I thought it was them trying to placate me.

  “Yeah, c’mon, Lon,” Jergen pipes in. “We’ve told you we want Bowie in.”

  But now I know differently.

  I meet Jergen’s eyes and he nods. Something to tell me he means what he says and it’s the push I need.

  I storm over to our offensive coordinator as he starts to walk toward Hobbs. “Goddammit, Lonnie, put me in the fucking game,” I demand.

  He holds his hand up for me to calm down—or shut up—as he presses his hand to his earpiece so he can hear what’s being said. He nods as if he’s in agreement with the coordinators watching the game from above in the team press box, who are helping call the plays.

  “C’mon, man. It’s my job to step up. He’s drowning out there and taking the rest of us with him.” I throw my hand out in frustration.<
br />
  “He needs to learn from his mistakes, Drew.”

  “He what?” I shout at him. “You’re going to lose another damn game because he needs his hand held? Are you fucking kidding me?”

  When I stalk off the field, it takes everything I have not to throw my helmet as hard as I can at the ground.

  But I can’t.

  Team solidarity. And all that shit. Why can’t this team get its head out of its ass and see that I should be playing? I should be on that field. I should be the one leading them.

  But I can’t see that changing any time soon.

  Fuck.

  Is it time I call my agent? Ask for what I want?

  DREW

  Brexton: That was a tough loss.

  Me: Hobbs is in a slump. In his own head.

  Brexton: You could come over. I could cheer you up.

  I groan at the invitation. At the desire to get lost in her tonight after being so fucking frustrated during the game.

  It pains me to type the response.

  Me: I thought we said we were taking it slow. Three weeks? Isn’t that what we agreed upon?

  Brexton: I may have been intoxicated when I agreed to that. Three weeks is a long time.

  Me: We can do it. This getting to know you stuff is fun.

  I laugh out loud when I hit send, because I can already hear her groan when she reads it. It’s the same sound she’s emitted every time I’ve walked her to the door and turned away.

  Brexton: Why three weeks? Why is that the time frame?

  Me: Because three is your favorite number.

  Brexton: You actually remember what my lucky number is?

  Me: You used to count everything in threes when we were kids. How could I forget?

  Brexton: Thank God it isn’t twenty.

  Me: No shit.

  Brexton: Is that really why? The three?

  Me: Yes.

  I take a sip of my beer, sink back into my couch, and put my feet up on the table. There’s a soft smile on my lips as I remember how bad we used to tease Bratty Brex about everything needing to be in threes. Skip over three cracks in the sidewalk. Three skips of a rock in the water were her only goal.

  Brexton: Slow sucks.

  Me: Depends on what we’re being slow at.

  Does she have any idea how bad I want her right now? How desperate I am to have my hands and mouth on her? My dick in her?

  It’s been two long weeks of grabbing coffee in that little café in Hoboken. Of phone calls where we talk so long the sun starts to lighten the sky. Of forcing myself to keep my hands off her to prove I want her for more than just sex.

  But sex.

  It’s been on my mind twenty-four/seven. A goddamn stiff breeze would make me hard at this point.

  Because that’s what she does to me.

  She turns me on with her words and her laughter and her intellect and opinions. She keeps me thinking and wanting. I can’t wait until these three damn weeks are over so I can give in to the need that grows each and every time we talk.

  Brexton: Is this slow enough for you?

  And when the attached image opens on my screen, it’s my groan that fills my entire house.

  Garter belts. Stockings. A lacy bra. No panties. Heels.

  All four are laid out on a bed with a card beside it that says: “Wish you were here.”

  Me: That’s cruel.

  So fucking cruel.

  Brexton: Good thing there’s only one week left out of the three.

  Me: Good thing.

  Brexton: Sweet dreams, Drew.

  I laugh.

  It’s all I can do as my mind fills with images of Brexton and exactly what I want to do to her in the near future.

  Too bad my immediate future entails a very cold shower.

  BREXTON

  “OH MY GOD, CAN YOU please stop talking and just kiss me already?” I ask as he grabs my wrist to try and prevent me from grazing over the denim seam of his crotch again.

  His laughter rumbles through the night air as he wrestles me onto my back on the blanket we’re on. The night is balmy and the car horns from stories below are loud, but this rooftop oasis in my apartment building is perfect.

  “Stop touching my dick.” He laughs.

  I keep struggling though until he sits atop me, his legs straddling my thighs, and pins my hands to my side.

  “Kiss. Me. Now.” I pout.

  “But I like getting to know you better,” he says and grins.

  “Drew. Seriously. Two weeks and six days of talking is enough.”

  “There’s still one more day to make it a full three weeks.”

  “We’ve talked on the phone more than I’ve ever talked with anyone in my life. About politics and religion and favorite animals and bucket lists and, and, and. Take me downstairs and, pretty please, will you have your fucking way with me?”

  His grin is taunting as it slides across his lips, his cock thick and heavy as it rests against me.

  Talk about torture.

  The man has done everything possible over the past few weeks to entice and seduce me. Like stopping by after a jog through the city to ask for a bottle of water since he ran out. So of course, he stood in my family room, shirtless, sweaty, and looking hotter than hell as he downed the bottle I gave him in one fell swoop, only to grin at me, say thank you, and then jog back down the fourteen flights of stairs and go back to his run.

  Or asking me to come over for some takeout at his house only to find him mowing the lawn—shirtless again—in a pair of gray sweatpants that just might have outlined every hard line of his cock as he walked around doing yardwork. The grin he wore told me he knew exactly what he was doing. My stubbornness told me I wasn’t going to let him catch me looking.

  But I looked. I definitely looked.

  It’s been one tease after another. A suggestive text. An oops, shirts are overrated so I might as well take it off. A knowing look from him that feels like he’s undressing me with his eyes.

  Sure we’ve gotten to know each other better than I ever thought possible, but in the interim, he’s created the sweetest, most torturous form of seduction. Knowing what he tastes like, feels like, and knowing that he won’t give in and let me have it.

  I’ve been strong.

  I’ve vowed to not beg or plead or open the door buck naked to prove the point that I want him—although that has been tempting to do.

  But when I opened the door tonight and found him standing there with wine and dessert with rumpled hair and a shy smile, I knew I’d reached my limit.

  I knew I was going to beg, borrow, cajole, or bribe to feel him tonight.

  “Only one more day though,” he says. “I looked up topics online to ask a girl you’re interested in. The kind that allows you to get to know them better, and so far, I’ve found that we’ve only covered about one of the four pages of topics. Should I go get the list from downstairs so we can make some headway on it?”

  “You’re kidding me, right?” I ask exasperated but giggling. The look on his face says otherwise. “Oh my God, you’re dead serious, aren’t you?”

  He nods. “The ones I picked to ask tonight are thought-provoking,” he says in his most serious tone.

  “You. This,” I say bucking my hips up, “is not helping the situation any.”

  “And what might that situation be?”

  It’s my turn to smile. “How wet I am. How much I want to feel you push into me. Fuck me. Lick me.”

  That definitely got his attention. His eyes widen and his breath hitches. “You’re naughty.”

  “Take me downstairs and have your way with me, Drew, and I’ll show you just how naughty I can be.”

  He tsks, and the sound elicits another groan from me. “Remember the rules? Extended periods of time indoors in places like residences where there are a lot of flat surfaces, are a no-go,” he says, reiterating the stupid rules he invoked when our kisses grew hot and heavy, and I almost broke him of this promise. “They are too conve
nient to accidentally fall into bed.”

  “Who needs the bed?” I dart my tongue out to wet my lip.

  “Or the couch,” he says.

  “There’s always the table. Or the kitchen counter. Against the wall like in Miami. The shower works too. Then there is the possibility of bending me over the coffee table. Or—”

  “Semantics,” he murmurs but his eyes eat me alive as I taunt him. And when he leans down, when I think he’s going to cave and finally give me what I want—his lips on mine—he presses a kiss to my cheek instead.

  I think my groan of sexual frustration could be heard all the way to California.

  “Let’s talk about favorite places to—”

  “No,” I shout out in laughter. “I already know your favorites. Your foods. Your routines. How you like to have one leg out of the covers when you sleep. How you have an ungodly time for a quarterback sprinting the forty-yard dash but you hate to run. How you love cauliflower but think broccoli looks like brains—something that makes zero sense. We’ve done this, Drew—way into the wee hours of the night done this . . . and now, kind sir, what I’d really like you to do . . . is me.”

  “Demanding, are we?” he says and lines the tip of his tongue down my jawline where his teeth tug ever so slightly on my earlobe.

  “Always.”

  He kisses his way down the line of my neck and murmurs against my skin, “I kind of like that about you.” His fingertips trace ever so slightly down my arms. “That and how you bite your lip when you’re frustrated with me.” He presses a kiss to my bare shoulder. “Or the way you try not to watch me when I know you’re watching me.” His tongue lines the shell of my ear and shivers chase over my whole body. “Do you have any idea how hard it’s been keeping my hands off you, Brexton? To see you, to want you, to tease you, but to not touch?”

  Is it sad to say I’m thrilled to know this was as hard for him as it was for me? That I’m silently rejoicing in the fact?

  “Drew.” His name is a sigh on my lips. A thank-you, not for the frustration, but the reason behind it.