by Celia Loren
Fuck. I just let some two-bit rushers get the jump on me, and all because I was distracted by some fucking girl. I shake my head to clear it. Nothing like getting sacked on national television to get me refocused.
Despite my fuck-up, the game ends in a blowout for us. I'm swarmed by the press, and I give my best aw shucks smile and bland answers to the reporters' questions. I'm already playing the long game, thinking about my endorsement deals when I turn pro. Companies want someone who can be the face of the brand and prove that they won't make some major off-field screw up that will tarnish their product.
When I can finally head back to the locker room, I glance at Coach McKay, who's still giving interviews. That asshole never says anything positive about me to reporters. I'm his star QB, but it's like he wants me to fail.
Whatever. I stop just outside the tunnel and sign a bunch of autographs for little kids and some groupies that also thrust their numbers toward me. Back in the locker room, a celebration is already going on, and Adam points at me as I enter, then runs at me. I leap up and we bump chests, our pads crunching together in the air.
"Fuck yes!" he yells. "That's how you start a season!" We head toward the lockers and everyone starts stripping off their gear.
"Hey, how'd that dirt taste?" Devon calls from across the room, ribbing me about my sack.
"You looked a little distracted there," Adam chimes in. "And I bet I know why...you were thinking about all that pussy you're gonna get tonight!"
"Fuck yeah," I agree. I'm not about to get into the real reason.
"Phillips, you can have that blonde cheerleader, by the way," Devon says.
"Oh, can I?" I ask sarcastically. "I think I already did. Twice," I point out, whipping off my jersey.
"Naw, man. I'm saying I got my eyes on someone new. You see that girl that Coach was talking to in the stands?" he asks, and a rumble goes up from the players around us. He wasn't the only one checking Britt out.
"Who was she?" Adam asks. "She must be a frosh, 'cause I'd remember a body like that."
"I bet she's a reporter for the school paper," Devon offers. "That's how come she got those seats, and she was asking him for a quote."
I frown. I guess that he could be right, but currently all I care about is that everyone stop talking about her.
"Let's call the paper, invite her to the party tonight," Adam suggests. "We'll tell her we'll give her an interview."
"Dude, when she bent over the barrier like that," Devon imitates her, ass sticking up in the air. The guys around him laugh. "I just wanted to get up right behind her…" He mimes thrusting into her.
I feel my jaw clench. "Don't talk about her like that." I grunt, then back off slightly as I see the guys around me staring. They're not used to hearing me stick up for anyone, much less a woman. "I'm just saying, she doesn't seem like some groupie."
"Oh, you got a problem with how I'm talking?" Devon asks. "Well, how about if I tell you that she's got those kind of lips that I can just picture wrapping around my big ass cock and—"
I start toward him, but I'm too late. A blur moves past me, coming from the direction of the tunnel. Devon slams back against the lockers, Coach McKay's hand around his throat. Devon has six inches on him, but Coach looks like he's about to fucking explode.
"What did you just say about my daughter?" he grunts. The locker room goes completely silent.
Daughter? Britt is Coach McKay's daughter?
"Shit, Coach, I didn't know, I swear," Devon gasps. Coach stares at him, his hand tightening, and then releases him.
He turns around and slowly locks eyes with each and every one of us. "If I ever catch any one of you so much as looking at my daughter, you will never take the field again. You'll be warming the bench for the rest of the season. I don't care who you are, how many points we'd lose, or how it screws up your chances to get drafted. Stay away from her, you hear me?"
A chorus of "yes, sirs" greet his pronouncement. He lets it hang in the air for a second, and then storms out.
"Fuck," Devon murmurs, rubbing his throat.
"I don't care how hot his daughter is," Adam murmurs to me, shaking his head, "no pussy is worth riding the bench."
Chapter 9
Britt
"You going out again?" I ask Danielle nervously as I watch her line her eyes in thick black liner. She blacked out almost all of last Saturday night, and I haven't told her the details, figuring I'd spare her some embarrassment. Specifically, I left Hunter out of the story, and just let her assume I escorted her back to our room myself somehow. I thought that she might curb her partying, but it seems like I was wrong.
"Heck, yeah!" she exclaims. "I'm so pumped from the game today. And I heard that when we win, the parties are even crazier, so I'm sure tonight is going to be epic."
"Wait, you're going back to the football frat?"
"Sure. I mean, I know I overdid it last weekend, but now I know more about my limits."
"Right," I say, turning back to the notebook on my desk. What if she runs into Hunter, and he mentions something? I have to clue her in. "Danielle, there's something I didn't tell you about last weekend," I say, turning my chair around to face her.
"Uh oh, I don't like the sound of that," she replies, turning in her chair to face me, too.
"It's nothing too bad," I assure her. "I just didn't want you to feel weird about it."
"Okay…"
"The thing is, when I went to get you, you were passed out in the bathroom, right?"
"Yeah, I sort of remember that," she nods along.
"And I was really freaking out, because, you know, I don't really drink and I've never seen someone so drunk before. And I didn't know what to do, but then...Hunter Phillips came along."
Her eyes widen. "And?" she asks breathlessly.
"Here's the part you're not going to like. He, um, helped you stick your finger down your throat to make you throw up, and then carried you back here," I blurt out quickly, like I'm ripping off a Band-Aid.
"Shut. Up. Are you freaking kidding me?" she exclaims, her eyes practically bugging out of her head. She gets up and pitches herself forward onto her bed with a moan.
"I wouldn't have told you, but if you're going back there tonight, you might see him and—"
"Oh my god, did he see that?" she asks, pointing to the photo of him above her bed.
"Um, maybe," I reply. "I'm honestly not sure."
"This is the most mortifying thing that's ever happened to me," she groans.
"I'm sorry. I tried to handle it myself, but he insisted."
"Well, I'm never going back to the football frat, that's for sure," she sighs. "You were right to tell me."
"Okay, good."
"So, he insisted on helping you? That was nice, I guess. He must have felt like it was his duty to help his coach's daughter," she reasons.
"No, that wasn't it," I tell her, coming to sit on my bed across from her. "I never told him who my father is."
"Interesting…" she muses. "So he sees a beautiful damsel in distress, and steps in. You being the beautiful damsel, obviously."
I laugh. "That's silly. I'm not, I mean…" I think about how the night ended, and frown. Could he think I'm beautiful? Am I beautiful?
"What?" Danielle asks, coming to sit next to me on my bed. "There's something you're not telling me, isn't there? Oh god, did I do something even more embarrassing?"
I knit my fingers together nervously. I've been dying to tell someone about what happened, but I don't really have anyone to talk to.
"It's okay if you don't want to tell me," Danielle says. "But, well, I would like it if we could become friends. I know I can come off as just some flaky party girl, and probably last Saturday didn't help that impression, but I party just to let off steam. My major is pretty heavy," she explains. "I'm studying to be a teacher specializing in special education, and sometimes it's overwhelming. But I'm a really good listener, I promise. And I'm good at keeping secrets."
I sm
ile at her. Maybe I have misjudged her. I had no idea what her major was, and just wrote her off as some party girl.
"I'd like to be friends, too," I tell her. "And I have been dying to talk to someone about what happened. But you can't tell anyone. I mean, my father would absolutely die."
"Cross my heart," she says, motioning across her chest. I quickly fill her in on when I peeped on Hunter in the locker room, and watch her practically drool.
"I'm not sure if he remembered me from that or not. But then when he was carrying you back here, he was actually really nice to talk to. Not at all like how my father described him. And then, after you went to sleep in your bed, well, he kissed me." Danielle squeals and claps her hands together. "You're not, um, jealous or anything? I mean, you have his picture…" I point to the calendar above her bed.
"No, girl. That's like how Channing Tatum is my screensaver. It's just a fantasy. Hunter Phillips is totally out of my league."
"And mine! I couldn't believe it when he kissed me! And then he asked to see me again."
Danielle laughs. "Do you not see yourself when you look in the mirror, Britt? You're fucking gorgeous! The day we moved in, I honestly assumed you would be a bitch, just because I've never met someone that looks like you that was actually nice."
"Um, thank you?"
"I just mean, you're even prettier than the popular girls at my high school, but you're not mean like them," she clarifies. "So it doesn't surprise me at all that Hunter Phillips would be interested in you."
"Thank you," I reply quietly, trying to absorb this information about my looks. It's a bit disconcerting that the image I've been putting out to the world is so different than the one I thought.
"So how was the kiss?" she asks, leaning in.
I blush. "It was…There are no words, really."
"And then what happened?"
"I kicked him out."
"What! Why?"
"My father specifically warned me away from Hunter! He told me that he's 'rotten to the core'. And just because Hunter was nice to me for a little doesn't mean that's really what he's like. My father knows him a lot better than I do."
"Hm, maybe. I have heard he's a major player. But he did really help you, and me, out. Plus, he asked you on a date. Maybe he actually likes you."
"God, I must have come off as so rude," I realize. "He rescues my roommate, and I abruptly kick him out with no explanation."
"You could always apologize," Danielle suggests.
I consider for a moment. "No, I think that I shouldn't engage him anymore. Nothing good can come from it. If my dad even knew that I'd spoken to him, he'd hit the roof."
"Alright," Danielle says with a shrug. "Well, I'm going out with some girls from my program tonight. I'll convince them to go somewhere besides the football frat. You want to join us?" she asks hopefully.
I smile. "Thanks, but I'm just going to head over to the library. I found a nook on the fourth floor that I really like to study in."
"You work too hard, you know that?" Danielle says, shaking her head as she goes back to her desk chair to finish her makeup.
"I know, but if I'm going to make Phi Beta Kappa by my junior year, I have to," I reply, shouldering my backpack.
"Okay, but just be careful you don't burn out!" Danielle calls after me as I shut the door.
Chapter 10
Hunter
I'm swarmed by people the second I step foot on Frat Row. They follow me all the way to the house, and then gather on the front lawn as I go inside. Usually I love the attention, but when my body's aching as much as it is right now, I find it exhausting.
A groupie hands me a beer, and I down it as she watches. "Got another one?" I ask, and she quickly waves a friend over, who hands me one. I down that one, too. "The best non-prescription painkiller out there," I explain.
"You played so amazing today," the taller one purrs.
"We're really big fans of yours," the other one agrees, placing her hand on my bicep and allowing her fingertips to slide under the end of my t-shirt sleeve. "Both of us are."
I know I'm one sentence away from locking down a threesome, but for the first time in my life, I'm just not interested. "Maybe later," I tell them. "Thanks for the beers."
I wander over to a couch and sink down into it. I disappear for a second in the low light, and I can see everyone for a while without them seeing me. That's the strange thing about being a celebrity on this campus, I'm always being watched. For a few minutes, I watch everyone on the dance floor, and the jockeying for position in line for the kegs. I feel strangely unattached and empty.
"The fuck's the matter with you?" Adam asks, sinking down next to me. He grabs a girl passing by and pulls her down onto his lap as she giggles. "You forget that we won today?" I look over at the girl as she smiles at me. Have we slept together? I can't even fucking remember.
"Yeah, I know. I think I just need to clear my head," I say, standing up. Suddenly, staying here seems like an impossibility.
"Alright," Adam replies, frowning. "You coming back later?"
"Sure," I call back over my shoulder as I walk away. I glance out the window at the front yard. It's absolutely mobbed, the party spilling out into the street. I hug the wall and make my way around the living room and into the kitchen, then slip out the back door. There are some people out in the alley, but I fix a frown on my face. That’s the thing about being six foot five and weighing 240. Sometimes I look like one scary fuck, and no one's inclined to bother me.
Away from Frat Row, I feel myself relax a little. It's a beautiful night, and Nashville isn't such a big city that its lights obscure the stars. Still, it was a big change from the small football town in Texas where I grew up.
I walk aimlessly around campus for about twenty minutes, or so I think. When I finally look up to see where I am, Calhoun dorm is right in front of me. I run my hands through my short hair. What am I doing here? I don't even have her number, and I don't have access to her dorm.
And that's not even taking into account that she's Coach McKay's daughter. Now that I think about it, they both have blue eyes, though Coach's are much darker, and they both have this way of looking at me like they know everything about me. In Britt's case, though, I actually find it kind of comforting, like it gives me the sense that we've known each other much longer than we actually have.
I sit down on the top step by the dorm's front door, next to a tall white column that supports the portico. If I'm interested in a relationship, there have to be other girls that I could go after. Problem is, I'm familiar with a vast majority of the girls on this campus, and I haven't been interested in dating a single one of them. In fact, I haven't even gone on a date since I was fourteen. That was before I became the star of my high school football team, when I actually had to work for girls to sleep with me.
But Britt is Coach's daughter. And that prick already hates me. He'd probably bench me for even being here, and then I'd have no chance at being drafted in the pros. He'd have to make up some story about why I'm not playing anymore – I don't think my pursuing his daughter would cut it – but I wouldn't put it past him.
I'm jeopardizing my entire future by just sitting here, so why aren't I leaving?
Chapter 11
Britt
Freshman campus is eerily quiet as I head back from the library. I hear the echoes of some partygoer's laughter against the buildings, but mostly people are already out at parties for the night. I feel a slight pang of loneliness and frown down at the paved walkway in front of me.
I'm lost in thought, and head up the first step of my dorm before I see him. Hunter Phillips, sitting just next to the door. He stares back at me as I gape at him.
"Hi," I finally squeak out.
"Hi," he says. My heart races as he stands and I feel myself flush. I've never felt so out of control of my body.
"Look, I was rude the other night," I start, "and I owe you an explanation."
"No, I understand now. I know you're C
oach's daughter."
"Oh. Well…" I drift off. "How?"
It's dark, but I think I see a rueful smile cross his face. "You were...noticed at the game today, and Coach made it clear we're all meant to stay far away from you."
"I can't believe he did that," I grimace, but then look up at him. "So he warned you away, but here you are."
"Here I am," he echoes, his deep voice seeming to rumble around in his chest.
We both glance toward the quad as a large group of wasted co-eds spills onto campus. There must be thirty or so of them, and they're all in black and gold Vanover football jerseys and headed right for us.
"Shit," Hunter sighs. "I'm really not in the mood."
"I thought you liked the attention," I say, turning to face him.
"Usually," he says with a shrug. "I just—" He breaks off as one of the women in the group shrieks. She's spotted Hunter, and is leading her friends toward us at a sprint.
"Come on," I say, hurrying around him and swiping my card to let us into the dorm. "We better take the stairs," I tell him and he follows me into the stairwell. I run up the stairs, while his long legs allow him to take them two at a time without seeming to be in a rush at all.
Laughing, we burst into my room, and I lock the door behind us. As I catch my breath, I begin to become more aware of the situation we're in, alone together in my dorm room. I'm surprised to see that Hunter seems to feel a little of the awkwardness, too.
"So, how's your roommate?" he asks, nodding toward her empty bed and stuffing his hands in his pockets.
"Recovered, thanks to you," I tell him. "Though very embarrassed. You played well today, by the way."
"Thanks. I'm hurting a little now, though," he replies, sitting on my bed.
"Yeah, I saw that sack right before I left."
"I got distracted."
"By what?"
"You."
"Hunter, we can't—" I begin, but his huge hands wrap around my stomach and he pulls me to him, opening his knees so that I'm pressing against his tree trunk of a torso. With him sitting on my bed and me standing, I can actually look into his dark brown eyes and see the tiny specks of gold in his irises. All of a sudden, I'm having trouble breathing.