by J. Sterling
“Stay.” He gave me a look that spelled out exactly what would happen next if I did as he’d asked.
We’d kiss, he’d grab my hand and move it toward the bulge in his pants—why do guys do that, by the way?—we’d eventually wind up naked, and then it would end … with only one of us satisfied, exclaiming how amazing it was or how badly they’d needed that.
Hint: that person was not usually me.
“I have a lot of stuff to go over and prep for. I should go home, so I can get started,” I lied, bracing for at least some sort of argument from Jared. Not only because he had been raised in the same place I was and we didn’t give in without a fight, but also because I could stay and do my work here. I didn’t need to leave, and we both knew it.
“Fine. Go home then.” He flicked his wrist in a wave before staring up at his ceiling.
I stood there, momentarily shocked, as I fought back the sick laugh lodged in my throat. Jared had just dismissed me like I was an annoyance. And instead of feeling angry about it, I actually felt relieved.
That can’t be a good sign.
Tutor Girl
Chance
My “new friend” had left the tutoring center before I could even ask for her number. That was what friends did, right? They exchanged phone numbers and sent each other text messages of kittens doing funny stuff and shit. Part of me thought she had done it on purpose—escaped before I gave her a reason to stay. Any reason. She had done us both a favor by leaving. The last thing I needed was to start thinking about her the way I already was.
Thank God she has a boyfriend.
That fact alone made it easier for me to keep my distance. I wasn’t the type of guy who poached on someone else’s girl. Hell, I wasn’t the kind of guy who poached on any fucking girl, but here I was, thanking God she was taken so I could put the possibility of having her out of my mind. At least, that was what I tried to convince myself of as I loaded up my bag and drove back home.
I parked my Bronco in the driveway and headed toward the door of the baseball house before noticing Mac sitting on the front step, drinking something out of a glass bottle.
“Are you waiting for me?”
“Maybe.” He looked up and winked.
“Stop being weird,” I complained before sitting down next to him and taking the bottle out of his hand. I almost took a swig but stopped myself before studying the label. Thankful I’d looked at it first. “Kombucha. Really? Ugh.”
“Don’t talk shit about my kombucha. It’s delicious.”
I rolled my eyes before shoving the bottle back into his hand, wanting it as far away from me as possible. “It tastes awful.”
“It does not. I love it,” he whined, almost offended, like he’d personally invented the nasty stuff.
“Shit almost killed me the first time I tried it,” I said, sounding like a complete pussy, but I had taken a giant gulp my first time and thought I was going to immediately puke in my car. I was lucky the stuff hadn’t sent me to the hospital for poisoning or something.
“Not my fault you can’t handle the ’bucha.”
“Jesus. You did not just give it a nickname.” I stared at him, my head shaking. “I’m sure whatever chick you hook up with next will love it. You two can share all the ’bucha together.”
“Speaking of chicks to hook up with.” He wagged his eyebrows before sitting there, staring at me, not finishing the rest of his sentence or thought.
“Um …” I cocked my head back and gave him a look. “What are you talking about?”
He started laughing. “Dude, your tutor girl! She’s hot! Even with the all-black getup. Still hot.”
The hair on the back of my neck instantly bristled, and I hoped like hell it didn’t show. I’d been so preoccupied with Danika being a girl and all that I’d forgotten that the rest of my teammates were in the same room at the same time with their own tutors. I tried to play it cool and pretend like I wasn’t affected by the mere mention of her, but having Mac bring her up rubbed me in all the wrong ways. “Is she? I didn’t notice.”
He laughed out loud. “You can’t possibly be that blind, Chance. I don’t care if you’re not into chicks or dating or whatever, but you have eyes!”
“You’re right. I do have eyes,” I agreed in my most neutral tone.
He took a drink of his shit tea and shook his head. “At least admit she’s good-looking.”
“Why?”
“Because I need to hear you say it. Tell me you think your tutor is hot.”
He pushed and pushed, and on any other day, I wouldn’t have been rattled, but apparently, today was not like every other day because I. Was. Fucking. Rattled.
“You think everyone’s hot,” I argued, trying to steer us away from this topic.
He gave a noncommittal shrug. “We both know that’s not true. But even if I did, Tutor Girl is on another level. Admit that you noticed.”
Why is he pushing?
I was trying not to think about her, not to do anything when it came to her, and Mac was making it damn near impossible.
When I refused to answer, he continued his verbal vomit, “Oh shit. Did she flirt with you? Is she a cleat chaser? Is that why you don’t like her?”
He knew damn well that Danika wasn’t a cleat chaser. The girls who liked baseball players made it overly obvious. They showed up to every game and party, wearing practically nothing as they threw themselves at any player who would entertain their advances. Cleat chasers wanted to screw a player and weren’t at all particular about who they did it with as long as the guy was on the team. The hope was that one of them would stick and turn into boyfriend material. But that rarely, if ever, happened.
Listen, ladies, once you start sleeping around with multiple players on the same team, all hopes of becoming a girlfriend are off. Whatever guy takes that risk will get ridiculed to no end. Not to mention the fact that he’ll have to look his teammates in the eye every day, knowing that they fucked his girl. Not happening.
“Dude, she has a boyfriend,” I finally said, hoping he’d take the hint and shut the hell up already.
“So what?”
“Mac,” I growled.
“Maybe I’ll ask for her number then. I mean, if you’re not interested,” he said, and I wanted to explode.
My body buzzed with something foreign. Jealousy maybe? I couldn’t be sure because I’d never been jealous before. Not over a girl anyway. Baseball was another story.
“She might not be happy in her relationship. I feel like it’s my civic duty to at least find out,” Mac said with a smirk, and I got the impression that he knew he was pushing my buttons.
There was zero chance I’d be letting him anywhere near Danika without me around. He would not be adding her to the list of chicks he’d hooked up with at this school. I must have made some sort of pissed off face because Mac put his free hand in the air.
“Fine, okay. I won’t go near her. But don’t get upset if she comes near me. I can’t control how the ladies react to all this.” He waved a hand around his body.
I pushed up from the ground and looked down at him. “Stay away from my tutor. I don’t need you fucking this up or making it harder than it already is. I wasn’t supposed to have a female tutor in the first place,” I practically spat before storming inside the house and slamming the front door.
Dammit.
I’d just done the worst thing I could possibly do. I’d lost my cool for no good reason at all. This girl was already embedded in my head and screwing me up, and now, Mac knew it too. I’d all but confirmed it for him.
I’d slept like shit. Tossed and turned all night, Danika’s hazel eyes showing up in my dreams whenever I was blessed enough to fall asleep. She haunted me. I’d known her less than twenty-four hours, and she was already fucking with my peace. Mac saying that she might not be happy in her relationship was like a seed he’d planted in my brain. It had grown all night long, sprouting branches and leaves.
I’d never even
considered it before … the state of her relationship. Danika didn’t strike me as the kind of girl who stayed in something for the sake of staying. She was too full of piss and vinegar for that, all New York attitude mixed with fire. But then again, I didn’t really know the girl at all. Maybe she wasn’t at all how she seemed. Now that we were friends, I guessed I could always find out.
A knock on my door before it opened had me annoyed. I must have forgotten to lock it after I’d gone into the kitchen for water in the middle of the night.
Mac popped his head in. “Good, you’re awake.”
“What do you want?” I sat up, propping my pillows up behind my back.
“How long until you have class?”
I grabbed my cell phone from the nightstand where it was charging and read the time. “Not for a few hours. Why?”
“Can you come with me to the cages? I need you to look at my swing.”
I sat up in bed, leaning my back against the cold wall. “What’s wrong with it?” I sincerely wondered because Mac’s swing was just fine as far as I knew.
“I’ve been looking at videos, and I want to work on my power. Just need to make sure I do it right and don’t get into any bad habits,” he explained while I nodded along.
That made sense. Hitting for power gave you an advantage over other players. If you could prove that you could hit home runs, scouts looked a little harder in your direction when the time came.
“Give me ten minutes to shower, and I’ll come get you.”
“Thanks,” he said before leaving, closing my door behind him.
I tossed off my covers, raked my fingers through my hair, and headed into the bathroom. My focus drifted the minute I stepped into the hot water and started running my soapy hands over my dick. Danika’s eyes flashed in my mind. Her red lips parted. I imagined her on her knees in front of me, taking me into her mouth, moaning with delight at the control she had. She owned me, and she knew it. Reveled in it as she sucked and pulled at me, her hands working in unison with her lips.
“You like that?” she asked, and I couldn’t even speak a response.
I worked faster, tossing my head back, still imagining that it was Danika’s mouth sucking me off and not my hand doing all the work.
“Fuuuck,” I said under my breath, and I knew I was close.
Her lips formed a small smile as she looked up at me, her hazel eyes filled with desire and the need to please me.
Faster. I worked my hand faster, jerking and pulling, and still, her face was all I saw. I quickened my pace until I exploded. The white liquid flying out, coating my fingertips, dripping down my dick as I slowed down and finally opened my eyes to survey my otherwise empty shower.
My breathing evened out, and my heart rate steadied as post-orgasm reality crashed down around me. Before I could berate myself for getting lost in a fantasy with someone else’s girlfriend, I convinced myself that it was completely normal … that I hadn’t done anything wrong because none of it was real. It was just pretend. But it still ate me up inside as I finished the rest of my shower.
After getting dressed, I tried to force it all from my head. I walked down the hall toward Mac’s room and knocked on the door before opening it like he’d done to me.
“Ready?” I asked, and he perked up.
“Yep.” He hopped off his bed and reached for his baseball bag.
“I’ll drive,” I said without thinking, my distracted mind obviously ruining my life.
“Well, that’s good, considering I don’t have a car.” Mac laughed, and I knew I had been caught daydreaming or whatever. Thankfully, he didn’t call me out on it.
I blasted the radio as we drove, hoping to drown out the possibility of any uncomfortable questions from Mac, but it was all for nothing because Mac wasn’t even thinking about interrogating me. He had no idea the war that was raging in my own head. I was being paranoid and stupid.
When I parked the Beast, we hopped out and grabbed our bags before heading toward the cages. I saw the familiar shadow before he saw me.
“Hey, Dad,” I said, and he turned around immediately, a grin on his face, his baseball cap pulled low.
“Son. Mac. You guys are here early.”
“I need to work on my power swing, Coach,” Mac jumped in.
My dad nodded. “That’s good, Mac. Your swing is real pretty already, but it never hurts to add power. Show the scouts you can hit the long ball.”
“Exactly,” Mac said before hitting my shoulder. “That’s exactly what I’m talking about!”
“I’ll let you two get to it. But, Chance,” he said, and I refocused my attention on him, “you’d better schedule a dinner with your mom before she shows up here and decides to eat at the baseball house.”
“She wouldn’t dare,” I said jokingly with a little trepidation because that was something my mom would do.
He laughed. “She would, and you know it. She’d also bring your sister along just to torture you,” he said before frowning. “And to make me crazy. Jesus, Chance, call your mother!”
“I will!” I shouted back.
I did not need my mom coming to the house and bringing my boy-crazy sister of all people with her. I’d never hear the end of it from either side. The guys on the team would tease me about both of them, and Jacey would never shut up about who she thought was hot.
“Tonight. Call her tonight,” he added, and I knew we were both rattled.
“Promise,” I said and watched as my dad started mumbling to himself, kicking the dirt as he walked away.
“That was fun,” Mac added with a small laugh.
“Shut up and load the tee,” I demanded with a frown as he leaned down for a baseball and placed it on top.
After an hour of hitting with Mac, we cleaned up all the stray baseballs, putting them back into various buckets before we headed for our classes. We walked away from the baseball diamond and toward the large buildings in the middle of campus in the distance.
“Do you have tutoring tomorrow?” Mac asked, and my body instantly tensed, like I’d been caught doing something wrong.
I kept walking, ignoring the looks and gestures from the handful of girls who passed us in the opposite direction.
“Yeah. Why are you going anyway? You pass all your classes with ease,” I said, shooting him a look.
Mac always passed his classes with little to no effort. He was really book smart and great at memorizing concepts, which helped him pass tests. At least, that was what he’d told me once during our freshman year. I’d never forgotten it.
“I’m struggling already in Business Principles. Just reading the syllabus gave me hives. I just want to make sure I stay on track and don’t slip up. If I get lost at the beginning of the semester, I’ll be lost the whole time, you know?”
“Are you even taking Business Principles?” I teased as I pulled my baseball hat lower.
He scoffed at me, “Yes, I am. Why would I fake needing help? It’s not like I have a hot-as-fuck tutor working with me like you do. Have you even seen my tutor? I don’t think he even goes to this school.”
I almost tripped over my own damn feet but said nothing in response because, no, I hadn’t seen his tutor.
“You’re going to get drafted this year, Chance, but the rest of us need a backup plan, whether we want one or not.”
I stopped moving and held my breath. I hated when anyone insinuated that my getting drafted was a done deal that could never be altered. Anything could happen before the draft next June. Anything.
“Mac, you remember Bubba Watkins?” I asked, my breath coming out in waves of frustration as we both stood still.
“Yeah, of course,” he said, annoyed with my question. He continued, “He thought he was getting drafted and—”
“No, everyone thought he was getting drafted. The whole division assumed he was getting picked up. We all thought he was going,” I interrupted, wanting to make my point crystal clear.
“Yeah, I know. Everyone thoug
ht he was getting drafted,” Mac repeated, mimicking my tone.
“But what happened?” I asked, my jaw clenching so tight that I thought I might give myself a headache from the pressure.
“He didn’t get the call,” Mac said as he started walking again, and I followed suit.
“Right. He didn’t get the call. And then what?” I baited, knowing exactly what came next in the story because I’d thought about it a hundred times before.
“Then, he couldn’t play the next season because his grades were so bad that he wasn’t eligible. There wasn’t anything he could do to pull them up in time, and he lost a whole year of eligibility. His last year.”
“Exactly.” I never took baseball for granted. Nothing in life was a sure thing until it was actually happening and you were living it. Until then, fate could change her mind and completely fuck you over at any time. “Bubba thought he was getting drafted, so he stopped caring about his grades. Didn’t make them a priority. And when that didn’t pan out like it was supposed to, he lost his scholarship and his spot on the team. I will not be a story like Bubba Watkins. I refuse to be a life lesson whispered about for future Fullton athletes.”
Mac blew out an annoyed sound. “Oh, come on, Chance. Bubba Watkins wasn’t talked about on ESPN the way you are. He wasn’t rated in the top ten national rankings or on every scouting leaderboard across the country.”
“That doesn’t mean anything.” I shook my head, not wanting to sound like a dick because to guys like Mac, it did mean something. It meant everything to the players it wasn’t happening to.
But that type of publicity was exactly the kind of thing I couldn’t afford to pay attention to. If ESPN talked about me all the time, I didn’t need to know about it. I couldn’t care. That stuff made guys lose focus. It stopped being about the way you played and turned into being all about what the network was saying. Ego had a way of ruining things for not just athletes, but also people in general. Which was why I maintained strict focus on my game and pushed all the rest to the sidelines.