Kicked: A Bad Boy Sports Romance

by C. M. Stunich

  I was starting to lose hope when I heard a sound, a small sad noise that I recognized with every fucking fiber in my being.

  Teagan.

  That was Teagan.

  I started to panic, to freak as I kept moving forward, searching every nook and cranny for her. At first I thought maybe she'd gotten drunk and stumbled out, but then I rounded the corner and caught a glimpse of two figures pressed tight against an alley wall.

  Teagan, with her red hair shimmering under the streetlights. Mason, with his dark oily hair and his shark smile.

  There was blood on Teagan's face, on Mason's hand, the hand that was caught up in her skirt. The other was desperately fumbling at the buckle on his black belt. I stared at them for all of a half second, registering every little detail, the way Teagan's eyes drooped and her body slumped, the predatory leer on Mason's face and the pinprick pupils of his dark eyes.

  It might not seem like a big deal to you, but when we touch, when we … do things together, I think about it all the time. It hits me right here.

  My breath whooshed out of my lungs; my feet started moving.

  A walk, a jog, a sprint.

  Teagan's eyelids flutter as she turned her head to look at me, a pleading desperation somehow etched into the slack features of her face. Our eyes met as I came up behind Mason, wrapped my arm around his neck and threw him down to the pavement in one single motion. I didn't make a sound, didn't say a word, just made sure that his pants were still on, that Teagan was okay, confirmed in my head that he hadn't gotten far, hadn't managed to actually go through with the rape.

  And then I snapped.

  As he struggled and screamed, I sat on his chest, using my few extra inches and pounds to my advantage. I put my fists together and then slammed them down on his face. Blood spurted, cartilage cracked, lips split. I didn't give a fuck. I lifted my arms up again, hit him. Hit him. Hit him. Mason was screaming, I think, but I couldn't hear anything above the pulsing pound of my heart.

  After everything we went through for you, because of you. Together. We were always together until we weren't.

  I smashed Mason's face in, knocked his teeth loose, and then when I was sure he wasn't going to get up, I stood above him, stared down into his dark eyes.

  Sound popped around me like a bubble being burst.

  “I'm going to fucking murder you!” he screeched, but the sound was warbled and wet and hard to understand. I glanced up at Teagan, slumped to the ground against the wall, shaking. I looked back at Mason, a coldness coming over me that I didn't like, but didn't know how to stop.

  Teagan is mine, I thought as I stared at the man on the ground without mercy. I love her. I've always loved her. I'm an idiot, but I want to stop being one. I want to kiss her awake in the morning and make love to her at night. I want to give her everything she never had and then some. I want show her that I can make the right choices, that I can be the man she needs and wants me to be.

  I want to prove to her that she is and always has been my number one, even if I haven't shown it.

  “Thanks,” I said to Mason, my voice practically unrecognizable. Empty. Dangerous. This was the power that made so good on the field, brought my enemies to their knees, left the Ducks undefeated this season. Here, this feeling inside of me. I wanted to fight and keep fighting. For Teagan. Always for Teagan. “You've just proven to me what I already should've known. I love her.” Mason groaned and rolled on his side toward me. I pushed him back with a sneaker to the chest. “And I won't let anyone take that from me.”

  I kicked Mason as hard as I could in the side and he doubled over in pain. Again. Again. And then I moved my foot to his throat, lifted it up, smashed it down. His eyes rolled back in his head and his back arched in agony. I would've kept going; I think I might've killed him honestly.

  But then I felt the softness of small hands on my arms, the gentle tug of fingers that should've been as familiar as my own but weren't, not yet.

  “Tyce, don't,” Teagan whispered, her voice weak and wavering. Broken. Fading. “Please don't. If you do this, I'll lose you. I can't lose you now.”

  I spun to face Teagan, catching her as she fell to her knees against the cement, her red lace dress fluttering around her bent legs. Her head drooped as I picked her up in my arms, a split second before Kai rounded the corner panting.

  “Oh my god,” he said when he noticed Mason lying comatose on the ground, breathing blood, shaking. “Oh my god, Tyce.” I looked up at him, Teagan going limp in my arms, and I felt myself start to shake, too.

  “Kai,” I said, and my voice sounded detached, like I wasn't even fucking there anymore. “Call an ambulance.”

  I sat in the hospital with my head in my hands and shook. I kept shaking until the doctors came out and told me that Teagan was going to be okay, that Mason had dosed her with GHB, some bullshit date rape drug that in the case of an overdose can kill people. He'd come close to overdosing Teagan. Close to killing her.

  I stood there in the center of that white room with my eyes glazed over and my hands curled into bloody, bruised fists that I couldn't bring myself to let go of.

  Killed her. Dead. Raped her.

  Mason almost raped and killed Teagan.

  He hit her.

  I wished I'd killed him.

  I sat back down in the chair after they left, listening to the buzz of the hospital, replaying the doctors' words in my mind. Her face is going to be okay. Nothing is broken. Just bruised and hurting. Bruised and hurting. Bruised. Hurting.

  “Tyce,” Kai said, reappearing after a while. Or maybe he never left. He was sitting right next to me. I glanced over at him, at the thick blond stubble on his jaw, his slicked back hair. I wondered why he was there, probably looking for his car. Or for me. Maybe he was actually worried about me? He looked terrified. “Do you know what this means?” he whispered, voice gravelly and hoarse. Scared. But he shouldn't have been. The only thing that I cared about was the fact that Teagan was okay, that she was unhurt. Alive. Whatever happened to me, it didn't matter.

  “No more football,” I said, trying to make myself breathe. It wasn't happening. All I could do was stare at the floor and shake.

  “Jail,” Kai whispered, reaching out and putting his hand on my shoulder. “Tyce, you could go to prison for this. You almost killed Mason. He's not getting up anytime, and even when he does … he might not play football ever again, dude. You did something to his neck.”

  “It's okay,” I told him, even though it wasn't. Not really.

  I folded my hands together, put my elbows on my knees, leaned forward.

  And tried to breathe. Breathe.

  Just breathe.

  The hospital sent me home while they held Teagan overnight. I didn't fucking want to leave that place, not without seeing her, but it wasn't actually a request or a choice. The cops came and went, took me with them, made me give a statement.

  Reliving the whole thing from start to finish almost killed me.

  The blood on Teagan's face. Mason's hand up her skirt on her thigh. His other hand at his belt buckle. If I'd been even a second later … I couldn't bring myself to think about that. So I told them everything over and over and over again, until I wasn't sure whether I was awake and telling them or asleep and dreaming it.

  After that, they sent me home with Kai, and I fell asleep in the car.

  In the morning, I woke up to a text from Teagan and a dozen missed calls from my QB coach.

  I put my priorities in order and left to take care of the most important business first.

  “Hey.”

  Teagan's roommate opened the door and let me in, shutting it softly behind me. I didn't ask any questions, just started down the hallway towards Teagan's room when a hand on my arm stopped me. I glanced over my shoulder and found the girl—I think her name was Chelease—crying. Tears were rolling down her cheeks in fat, wet drops as she stared at me like I was half-hero, half-villain. I didn't know which one I was supposed to be. I had no clue an
ymore. All I knew was that I needed to see Teagan, smile at her, hold her, tell her I was sorry for the very last fucking time.

  I blew my NFL career for her. Possibly my freedom. She was exactly what I always thought she would be, a vortex sucking me in, pulling me deep, fucking up my life until I didn't know which way was up or down.

  And yet … it was worth it.

  “Yeah?” I asked, trying not to sound impatient. But last night had been surreal and I was still trying to process everything. Right now, what I needed was to see Teagan.

  “I know I shouldn't say this, but … thank you.”

  I raised an eyebrow at her as she swept some braids over her shoulder and let go of my arm, taking a step back from me. Her brown eyes lifted, scanned me once, flickered with a grudging approval.

  “For saving Teagan. I know it might not seem like a big deal …” Chelease paused and took a deep breath, fidgeting with the white hoodie she was wearing as she stared at her bare feet. “But it is, no matter what happens to Mason Fenna. Shit like that, it cuts into your soul.” She looked back up at me. “And I'm still learning how to heal mine.” A hard swallow, a flicker of lashes as she struggled to maintain her composure. “How to deal with the fact that the guy that raped me goes to this school, transferred here just to torment me. Because he knows that with my tuition already paid, the strain it put on my family, I've got nowhere else to go.”

  Chelease lifted her hand up, squeezed my arm one more time and turned away. It took me a second to put the pieces together.

  Mason was from Texas; Teagan had told me Chelease was from Texas.

  A chill went down my spine as I watched her walk out the front door.

  Holy. Fucking. Shit.

  I rushed the rest of the way down the hall and burst into Teagan's bedroom, my right hand splayed open against her bedroom door. She was lying on her side with a bunch of Polaroid pictures scattered around her, gazing at them with a black eye, a swollen mouth and a swollen nose.

  I froze there for several seconds as she lifted her green eyes up and caught mine. I had no clue what to say or do, so I just stood there. My heart was pounding in my chest and I felt light-headed, dizzy. The image of Teagan last night, pressed into that brick wall was stuck in my head. I wanted it gone, wanted to break this tension between us, so I just blurted out the first thing that came to mind.

  “I didn't know Chelease and Mason—” I started, but Teagan was already sitting up and shaking her head.

  “Me neither,” she whispered, reaching a hand up to her puffy face and wincing. “Not until this morning anyway.” Teagan gathered up the pictures, clearing a space for me on the edge of her bed. I had no idea if that was her actual intention or not, but I moved over to her anyway and sat down. My weight caused the mattress to dip, bumping Teagan's shoulder against my own.

  My breath hissed out between my teeth at the contact and then I was just turning and wrapping my arms around her, pulling her into my lap and leaning us against the headboard. My right hand was shaking when I reached it up and cupped her head gently, stroked her silken hair with my fingers.

  I think we sat like that for a whole hour, neither of us moving or saying anything.

  “Tyce,” Teagan said, her voice low but strong, like there was no way in hell this was going to defeat her, break her down, make her feel less than human. “Thank you.”

  “Don't,” I said, because I didn't feel like I deserved any thanks. Part of me felt responsible for the whole situation, like Mason was only after Teagan because of me. But who the hell could possibly know something like that? It was stupid to place blame on myself, but I tried to do it anyway. “I don't need any thanks.”

  “Yeah, well, when I think about what might've happened if you'd left when I told you to, if I'd been alone with Mason in that alley …” Teagan's body shivered and I pulled her tighter, closer, squeezed her to me and kissed the top of her head. She smelt like antiseptic and shampoo, but it was the sweetest scent I'd ever smelled. Holy crap, I'm turning into a fucking sap already.

  But I didn't care.

  Right here, now, with the sun streaming in the open window, I felt like this was my last chance to be really happy, to hold her and love her and pretend for a second that I hadn't just gone batshit and almost killed somebody. That I'd definitely get suspended from the team, definitely fucked up my chances of ever getting drafted.

  The media needed that blood to be shed, and I'd delivered.

  They would crucify me. Mason, too, maybe, but his dad was rich as hell with friends all over the place. I had nobody. Well, I had somebody. The best fucking somebody. But she sure as shit didn't have any pull.

  As I held her, I reached down and took the fan of photos from her fingers, lifting them up and examining them. It was like staring straight into a time machine, a rabbit hole. A set of out of focus Polaroids with me, with Teagan, with Venus. I stared at them for a long time before I sucked in another breath. I guess I'd been holding it.

  “Would she have been proud of me?” I wondered as I slid the photos together until there was just one on top of the stack, a picture of all three of us together. “Not for beating the ever living crap out of some guy, but for … anything else?”

  My heart pounded as I laid there and stared at that shot, thinking of all the decisions I'd made, regretting some of them. But I guess they'd gotten me here, with Teagan in my arms, so it couldn't be all bad.

  Teagan sniffled a little and reached out, pulling the pictures from my hand and setting them back on the bed. Tucked up against me like this, with a cold stake of fear still shoved into my heart, it was hard to remember why I'd been so fucking afraid of her. What the hell is wrong with me? I knew we had stuff to work out, that saving her from some piece of shit rapist didn't automatically guarantee us a happily ever after, but at least it was a start. And a start was all we really needed.

  “If she'd turned on that TV and found you by accident like I had, Tyce, if she'd seen you in your element with the sun on your back and a helmet on your head and a ball in your hand … I know she would've been like me. She would've been awestruck and proud and excited for you all at the same time. She would've missed you like hell, and if she'd seen you, she would've hugged you until you couldn't breathe.”

  I closed my eyes for a moment and tried to get my thoughts in order.

  Venus was dead. And I never could make amends with her. I couldn't hug her or thank her for protecting me, going to jail for me, and I couldn't tell her that I loved her.

  But there was one other person I could tell that to, and she was sitting right fucking here.

  “Teagan,” I told her before I could act like a coward and back out of this or screw things up again, “I love you.” The words came out in a rush, like one single syllable. They almost hurt coming up, but not for the same reasons I'd thought before. It was like they were so long overdue that they were desperate, sliding past my tongue and falling heavy into the air between us. I didn't expect Teagan to say them back, although she kind of already had in her own way.

  As the silence settled again, I opened my eyes back up and stared out the window at the leaves of a nearby tree. I figured Teagan was still angry with me, and I couldn't blame her, so I continued to hold her for as long as she'd let me, to listen to the fluttering beat of her pulse.

  Teagan swallowed hard and nuzzled into me, sending my heart into a galloping beat, making my fingers curl more tightly around her, squeeze her closer. It was the best feeling in the fucking world—and I'd been stupid enough to run from it.

  “I love you, too, Tyce. Even though … we still have a lot to work out.”

  My breath caught sharply in relief.

  “We do,” I agreed as I closed my eyes again and felt the stress of the night wash over me. I was starting to fall asleep when she whispered against my chest.

  “But for now, can you just hold me?”

  And so I did.

  Tyce and I fell asleep on my bed, curled together though half the
night. I registered at some point that he was getting up, but I was too tired and groggy and sore to move. The drug that Mason had slipped into my drink had nearly killed me.

  I was still finding that impossible to believe.

  One minute, I'd been dancing, smiling, apologizing to that asshole, and the next … I sat up in bed, running my hands down my face and trying not to scream. That feeling of helplessness, it was like nothing I'd ever experienced before. Nothing. I'd never felt so low, so sick, so fucking terrified.

  Chelease.

  I couldn't believe the guy from Chelease's story was Mason Fenna, that he'd followed her to the U of O. What a psycho. A creep. And what Tyce did to him, it was only half of what he deserved.

  I started to get up, grabbing my phone off the nightstand and looking for texts from Tyce.

  There weren't any.

  A few seconds later, I got something even better.

  He opened the door and moved back into the room, shutting it softly behind him and reaching up to run his hands down his face. The amount of relief I felt at seeing him was almost criminal. Like he'd run away again after all of that. Doubtful.

  I'm still mad at him, I thought, and I kind of was. I mean, he still had that thing with Jia, and he still disappeared for four years, and he was definitely still kind of an asshole, but … it didn't seem like that big of a deal anymore. Teagan, I love you. He'd said it. Said it. Finally fucking said it.

  “Are you okay?” I whispered, feeling a little drowsy from waking up in the middle of the night. Outside, the trees rustled with an icy breeze and the orange streetlights cast strange shadows.

  Tyce paused, looking up at me like he was surprised to find me awake.

  “I'm alright,” he said, but he didn't look alright. He still looked scared, trashed, terrified. He looked like a man who was about to sacrifice himself for the person he loved and, although he'd never regret doing it, the moment was still bittersweet. “I just … I've been ignoring calls from my coaches all day. Texts from the guys. I'm scared to look at them or listen to my voicemail.”