Kicked: A Bad Boy Sports Romance

by C. M. Stunich

  I tried to smile, reaching down and taking hold of my own shirt, pulling it back into place.

  “How was your first time, Abi?” Flor asked, wrinkling up his brow and looking down at me. The obvious innuendo in his words wasn't lost on anyone, not even my dad.

  “When did this happen?” my father ground out, his fingers curling too hard around the stem of his wine glass. Even balding, even in a pair of thick rimmed glasses and a mauve tie, my father could be intimidating. “And how could you keep something like this from me, Abigail?”

  I felt my cheeks growing hot, even though I knew I had nothing to be ashamed of. I was eighteen, going on nineteen really. I had my own place, a killer GPA, and … I relied on my father's generosity to keep going to school at the U of O. Shit.

  “I, uh, it was sort of a … I wanted it to heal before I showed you, you know, so you could appreciate it.” I moved around the kitchen island, all eyes on me, and scooted past Rhonda and my stepmom, proudly lifting my shirt as my dad wrinkled his brow and lowered his wine glass.

  “A deer?” he asked, obviously not pleased by the tattoo, the placement of it, or the design. “I didn't think you were big on hunting, Abigail. Don't you and your liberal friends picket against that sort of thing?” I groaned and Florian laughed, drawing my dad's ire back over to him. If my stepmom hadn't moved forward and placed a gentle hand on his wrist, I don't know what might have happened.

  “If she was going to go forward with it, which is her choice,” she said, emphasizing the word, “then at least we know she was in good hands. If you're going to get a tattoo, who better than your older brother?”

  My lips twitched at the words. Older brother. Yeah. Yeah. Great.

  “It's a beautiful piece,” Addison chimed in, popping a green olive in her mouth and dropping the toothpick in glass bowl my stepmom had set out for that explicit purpose. “I've never seen anything like it.”

  I dropped my shirt and tried to keep smiling, but my nerves felt pulled taut, stretched thin. I almost couldn't breathe.

  “I'm just gonna step outside for a minute,” Florian said, flashing my dad another smile he didn't mean. I watched him walk to the French doors in the back of the kitchen and open them, letting in a rush of cool air and the sound of crickets. Once he was gone, the atmosphere in the room seemed to settle.

  “Well, you know I don't like tattoos, honey, but I also know that you're an adult and I can't do anything to stop you. But I beg you, don't get any where any decent employer is going to see it.” My dad cast a look at Florian's mom and I just knew, if she hadn't been in the room, he would've added one of his signature anti-Flor barbs, something like you don't want to end up like your brother, do you?

  I sighed and nodded, letting my dad think he'd won for the moment.

  As he moved away, taking Rhonda and my stepmom with him, I paused and stared through the glass of the back doors, searching for Florian. He was sitting on some patio furniture, staring off into his mother's garden. His inked fingers clutched the cigarette and brought it to his lips, leaving me to wonder what it was he was so upset about. Obviously there was something going on with him.

  I shook my head.

  I didn't know why I was even thinking about it; Florian would never confide in me.

  I turned around and found Addison watching me sadly. Was I that obvious, that pathetic?

  “Come on,” I said to her, feigning a cheerfulness I didn't feel, “let's go eat.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  “It was the worst family dinner in the history of bad family dinners,” Addison was saying with a laugh as she shuffled a deck of cards and passed out a hand to me, Patrick, and Dorian. “I mean, after we sat down at the table, it was all about Rhonda,” Addi scoffed and then shook her head as she continued, “and her relationship with Florian. Not that he offered up much of anything but a grunt. Abi's dad and Flor's mom just grilled her for like an hour and then it was over. I've never been so relieved in my life.”

  I frowned and picked up my hand, pretending I didn't care that she was right. It was a horrible dinner. I looked up and smiled at Dorian, glad that I'd let Addi convince me to invite him to the Ducks game. She'd also been right about that; it had been a blast. Dorian was so considerate and funny and sweet, everything that Flor wasn't. His only flaw – and I was trying really hard not to see it as a flaw – was that he hadn't tried to kiss me yet. Not once. Not even close.

  Hmm.

  It had been awhile since I'd had sex and even then, I'd only done it maybe six or seven times. I have to say, it was a hell of a lot easier to forget about sex when I'd never had it. Now that I had … I shook my head and tried to bring myself back into the conversation.

  “Abi?” Addi asked, leaning over and peering into my face with a raised brow.

  “Yeah, uh, what?” My best friend sighed at me.

  “Whatever happened to Flor's dad?” The question took me by surprise. Flor's dad. To be honest, I actually knew little to nothing about him. Flor didn't talk about him and his mom had only ever mentioned him in passing.

  “He was a client of hers,” I said, knowing how taboo that was. Flor's mom was a psychologist and her patients … well, I have no idea how she'd ever ended up with one of them. I explained that to the others and watched their expressions as they all thought about it, about a forbidden love, one that crossed boundaries and made people uncomfortable. Just like my attraction to Florian. “I guess a few days after Florian was born, he went off his meds and disappeared. I don't really know anything else about it.”

  “Eight years later, she met your dad, fell in love, and then they became that couple,” Addi said, digging her fingers into a bag of Doritos and swiping a handful. “The lovey-dovey, way too perfect, together forever kind, so sweet they make you sick.”

  “I mean, that's good, right?” Dorian asked, looking down at his cards and then up at me. His green eyes were pretty, but they didn't hold any heat. I made myself smile back at him. “You have stability, parents who actually give a damn about one another, that's pretty rare.”

  “It would be a good thing,” Addi continued, slightly buzzed on a beer too many. “If Abigail wasn't in love with her stepbrother.”

  “Addison!” I shrieked, kicking her under the table. “I am not in love with him.” The words sounded like a lie, even to me.

  “Okay then, well you want to fuck him, at least.”

  “Addison,” I moaned, doing my best not to make eye contact with either of the boys at the table. “You must be worse off than I thought. No more beer for you.”

  “Abi, look, I'm just trying to get this out there, so Dorian knows what he's getting himself into.” I felt heat creeping into my cheeks and raised my gaze to find Dorian looking at me with curiosity, not judgment. Thank God. If I was honest with myself, that was the thing I feared most: being judged on my feelings for Florian. “All I'm saying is that you're not the innocent little lamb that you appear to be. Live a little, okay?”

  An hour later, Addison and Patrick had disappeared into her bedroom, leaving me and Dorian on the couch in the half dark. The overhead lights were off, but the white Christmas lights that Addi liked to keep year round illuminated the large space, hanging in loops on the bricks across from us.

  “Tell me more about yourself,” Dorian said, his right arm wrapped around my waist, his fingers brushing the bare bit of skin below my shirt, right over my tattoo. His touch was warm, but not scalding. I felt comfortable, not like my skin was about to split in half and leave me a bleeding, ruined mess on the floor. It was an interesting change of pace. “I mean, what do you want in life?”

  I giggled a slightly alcohol induced giggle.

  “Is this where you ask me what my major is?” Dorian laughed and pulled me closer, clearing his throat in an awkward sort of a way that made me think of my high school boyfriends.

  “Well, uh, what is your major?” he asked and I laughed again, loving the way the booze was going straight to my brain. I refused to let
my mind think about my mother, how she'd been an alcoholic. What she'd done didn't have to affect me, not one bit.

  “I haven't exactly decided that yet,” I admitted. “I'm just focusing on my gen ed right now, and I'll figure out the rest later. What about you? A degree in computer science is – ” Dorian cut me off with a kiss, leaning over and pressing his lips to mine. I was a little surprised, but I kissed him back, my body desperate for the touch of another. Not just another, but Flor. I pulled Dorian closer, opened my mouth and encouraged him with my tongue.

  When he groaned and pushed forward, laying me against the couch cushions, it wasn't him I was thinking about, but my stepbrother. Instead of pale green eyes, I saw sharp ones, and instead of red hair, I saw ebony, curled my fingers in that thick darkness and pulled. Dorian was putting his hand up my shirt, feeling my skin, touching my tattoo. He moved his mouth from mine and started kissing my neck as he settled himself between my legs. Already I could feel his erection pushing hard and insistent against me.

  He wants me, I thought, dreaming of Flor, thinking of Flor, aching for him. I know he does.

  “Oh, Flor,” I whispered, realizing when Dorian froze what I had just said. My eyes widened as Dorian pulled back, removing his hands from under my shirt as he stared down at me. There it was, in his dilated pupils and slack jaw, his parted lips and frustrated facial expression: judgment.

  “Wow,” he said, climbing off the couch and straightening out his shirt. I followed after him, fixing my own clothes and running my tongue along my swollen lips.

  “Dorian,” I said, but when I reached out to touch him, he pulled away. “Dorian, wait.” He turned away from me and moved towards the front door, grabbing his boots off the floor and his coat from the rack. “I'm sorry. Look, can we start over? Can we just talk.”

  He just shook his head at me, grabbed the door handle and glanced over his shoulder.

  “Look, Abi, you're a nice girl, but you need some serious help.”

  And then he was moving outside and I was standing there with my mouth hanging open and sweat beading on my lower back. What have I done?

  “Abi,” Addison said, stumbling into the kitchen in her shirt and underwear. She was smiling only as long as it took her to realize that Dorian was gone. “Where'd he go?” she asked, looking around and blinking like she was confused.

  “He left,” I whispered and left it at that. Come tomorrow, both Addi and Patrick would know what I'd done.

  No matter what I tried to do, how I tried to get away, Florian had me trapped in some kind of web that I couldn't escape.

  Not even if I wanted to.

  I sat on the living room couch after convincing Addi to go back to bed. My heart was pounding and my body was … furious. I wrapped my arms around myself and tried to still that aching pulse inside of myself. When it refused to dissipate, I tried retreating to my bedroom and touching myself before I realized this wasn't just about sex. I mean, it was but it wasn't. I wanted to be held, touched, kissed.

  “Shit.”

  I sat up in bed and then, in a sudden, desperate ploy, reached out for my phone and called Max. He answered after one ring.

  “Hey Abi,” he said, sounding wide awake and full of energy despite the late hour. In the background, I heard voices and music, a dull distant throb that made me wonder where he was at. “What's up?”

  “I, uh,” I felt suddenly stupid calling up my brother's best friend. For all I knew, they were out at some club together. Still … “I wanted to know what you were up to. You know, if you were free?”

  Max laughed as I bit my lip and wondered what I'd said that was so funny.

  “Are you booty calling me, Abigail Ingram Sharp?”

  Oh my God. I so totally was.

  “No!” I said indignantly, crossing my left arm over my abdomen. “I just … I wanted to ask you if you knew where Flor was?” Nice. Tie everything in your life back to your stepbrother. I stared into the darkness of my room, trying to let my eyes adjust to the murky gloom.

  “Yeah, he's right here. Want to talk to him?”

  Before I even knew what was happening, the phone was being passed over and Flor's sharp voice was cutting through the line.

  “Who the hell is this?” he asked, in usual Florian fashion. I swallowed hard and tried to come up with a good lie on the spot, fidgeting with the sheets and biting at my lower lip.

  “It's me,” I said and then clarified, “Abigail.”

  Florian snorted at me.

  “I know your voice, Abi,” he said and my blood thrilled. Why did the simplest things from him get me so excited? “What is it? It's late. Don't you have school tomorrow?” I pursed my lips tight and felt that familiar anger at him bubble up. “And why are you calling Max's phone?”

  “I tried yours, but you didn't answer,” I lied, hoping to God that he either didn't have it with him or it was dead. After a moment, he responded and I felt my stomach drop to my feet.

  “Uh, I don't see any missed calls from you. What's wrong? Are you in trouble or something?” I sat there for another ten seconds or so in silence, listening to the clamor coming from the other end of the line. Of course he'd think there was something wrong. It was three in the morning and I was dialing him out of the blue. “Is it Mom and Dad?” he asked again, alarm lacing his words. My stomach plummeted to my feet like it was encased in ice, shattering around my toes.

  “No, it's not Mom and Dad,” I said quickly, not bothering to correct him. Stepmom. “I, uh, I … ” This is so stupid. Why am I sitting here and lying like this? I'm an adult for God's sake. “Actually, all I really wanted was to talk to Max.”

  I could practically feel Flor's frown through the phone.

  “Why?” he demanded, and I could tell he already knew.

  “Because I want to see him. We broke up a few months ago, and I … I miss him. Can you please give him the phone back?”

  “No.”

  And then Flor hung up on me.

  I sat there for several seconds in silence before dialing Max's phone again. No answer. I sent a quick text telling him to call me and then tried Flor's phone. Not surprisingly, he didn't answer either. I sent him a text, too, this one warning him not to freak out about this. Knowing Flor, he'd take the whole situation and just let it blow up in all our faces.

  Relaxing back into my pillows, I closed my eyes and waited, only to fall asleep and reawaken to the sound of someone knocking on the door. Immediately, I assumed it was Florian and had a small freak-out. I wasn't in the right state of mind to deal with his shit.

  I took a deep breath, marched to the front door and flung it wide only to find … Max.

  “Oh,” I said, a little shocked to see him alive and well. “It's you.”

  “Of course it's me,” he said, coming into the apartment and grinning at me. “Who did you expect? I mean, you did booty call me?” I blushed as Max grinned and stepped up close to me, too close. I looked down at the tattoos on his arms, a good portion of them Florian's work, and tried to keep my breathing steady. “I would've called, but your asshole of a brother threw my phone in the garbage.”

  My head snapped up and I met Max's brown eyes. He was smiling and leaning close to me, making my pulse race. I would never admit this to anyone, but I knew, just knew that one of the reasons I'd gone out with him was because he reminded me of Flor. No matter how hard I tried to deny that, my heart knew better.

  “He threw your phone away?” I asked as Max laughed and glanced around the apartment, taking in the furniture, the empty beer bottles from earlier, the rumpled couch.

  “Yeah, uh,” Max began, leaning back and shaking his head. I watched as he ran his fingers through his hair and grimaced a little. “Whatever you said to him, he was pissed. I didn't want to get into it at the club, so as soon as I realized he was mad, I left and came over here.”

  “I didn't ruin any hot dates for you?” I blurted, wondering if Rhonda had been at that club with Florian. I don't know why I cared anyway. If n
ot her, then it would be someone else, someone that he picked seemingly at random, just to torture me. Or at least it felt that way.

  “You're the only hot date I need,” Max said, reaching out and taking me by the hips. My body thrilled at the touch and even though I knew he was full of shit, that I was falling back into the trap I'd gotten out of just a few months back, I couldn't help myself.

  I hooked my arms around Max's neck, kissed him hard and fierce, and then led him into my bedroom.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  I was sitting in my forensics chemistry class trying to ignore the girl sitting next to me. She kept whispering things under her breath that made me want to stab my pencil into her leg to get her to stop.

  “Hah,” she growled, pushing her blue ballpoint pen into her notebook, “this class is a joke. If the professor can't even get his units of measurement right, how can he expect to teach us anything? A mole is actually six point zero two two – not six point zero two – times ten to the twenty-third power.”

  I curled my fingers around my pencil and did my best to ignore her. A mole is actually six point zero two two one four one seven nine, but this is called rounding, you annoying bitch. The worst part of it all was that I didn't think she was actually trying to talk to me anyway, just babbling to herself. In fact, even though we'd had to do several labs together this term, she had yet to actually speak directly to me. Oh, and last week, she'd nearly spilled a beaker full of hydrochloric acid on my bare arm. I almost sort of, kind of wanted her … dead. Okay, so maybe not dead, but at least I wished she'd drop out. If I hadn't had calculus right before this class, I'd have come early just to make sure I didn't have to sit next to her. As things stood, I always ended up cutting it close and grabbing the last seat. Next to the camouflage wearing weirdo in the corner. Being a nerd was okay; acting like a know-it-all when you didn't really know much of anything was hard to stomach.