Their First Fall_Trucker and Keeka's story

by Mj Fields

  “Didn’t we go out on a date once or twice?”

  “Here we go.” Reda grins.

  “Possibly once, but I wouldn’t make the same mistake twice.”

  His buddies laugh then shout out their drink orders—beer, all beer—while he stews.

  “You want to make as much as you did this afternoon, you need to work on your flirting.” Lou chuckles.

  I hand the dark-haired one back his change, but he shakes his head.

  I smile, turning to Lou while holding up the ten-dollar bill. “I think I’ve got it all under control.”

  The same group of guys continue coming back to me, waiting longer than necessary.

  “What would you say if I asked you to marry me?”

  My reply: “Nothing. I can’t talk and laugh at the same time.”

  “Haven’t we met before?”

  “Yep, I think so.” I nod.

  He looks back at his friends and smiles. By the sour looks on their faces, I get the impression he just won some kind of bet.

  I can’t let that happen.

  “I’m a receptionist at the local STD clinic. Gonorrhea, right?”

  They all laugh, and his head hangs low. After I fill his drink order and hand him back his cash, he drops a ten on the bar.

  I hear Lou chuckle, and I can’t help laughing, too.

  When I see Links and Trucker walk in, I look away so he doesn’t see me smile. As good as that moment, those moments, made me feel, I can’t allow myself to get swept up in a fairy tale that will inevitably be overshadowed by reality that will possibly cause me to crash. I never want to crash.

  I steal a glance and see him sitting with the group of guys who have been coming up one by one and tossing lines at me. Then I look away when he glances over and laughs.

  “Hey, baby, what’s your sign?”

  When I look up and see Links, I roll my eyes. “Do not enter.”

  He laughs. “Our win today probably has a lot to do with that. I‘ll take five double Jacks on the rocks.”

  I place the glasses on the bar. “To do with what?”

  When he laughs again, I look up at him and push the drinks toward him.

  “Testosterone build up?” I ask.

  He lays a hundred-dollar bill on the bar, and I grab it to make change.

  “Keep it.”

  I shake my head. “That’s too much.”

  “Comes with strings, Keeks.”

  I look up at him.

  “Don’t hurt him.”

  “Don’t hurt who?”

  He rolls his eyes and answers, “My brother.”

  “Your brother? You mean Trucker?”

  He nods.

  “I haven’t seen him in a week. How could I hurt him?”

  “He’s been busy. Practice, school, avoiding you.”

  “Avoiding me?”

  “Don’t hurt him.” He winks.

  Don’t hurt him? I think as I fill order after order, wondering how the hell it’s even possible to hurt a man like him. A man who was strong enough to be knocked down by an entire line of opponents, sacked twice, once hard enough to knock his helmet clean off his head, yet he still jumped up, looking eager for more.

  “I’d really like to get in your pants.”

  “No thanks. There’s already one asshole in them.”

  I look up to find Trucker laughing.

  “Sorry. I thought you were one of them.”

  “So, does that mean I can get in your pants?”

  “I’m wearing shorts.”

  He leans over the bar, brushing his shoulder against mine, and looks down. “And still no bra.”

  “Hey.” I nudge him, and he laughs. “You were looking at my shorts.”

  “I’m looking at all of you,” he whispers as he leans back.

  “What can I get you?”

  “Your number,” he says, looking at my eyes, my lips, my boobs. Every part of me he looks at feels as if it’s being caressed.

  “Out of minutes.” I shrug.

  He lays a fifty on the bar. “Get more.”

  When he turns to walk away, I call out his name, and he turns around.

  “Great game today.”

  A near blinding smile fills his face. “You watched?”

  I nod and point to all the TVs.

  “Thanks, Little Ray.” Then he looks at me that way again, the way that caresses me. “You want to know what I was thinking when I ran down that field and made the game-winning touchdown?”

  I nod, maybe a little too eagerly, because his eyes and smile look at me with amusement as he walks back to me.

  My body stiffens as he leans in toward me and whispers in my ear, “The end zone, Ray, was you spread wide for me, and I couldn’t get there fast enough. When I spiked the ball, that was me bringing it home the way I will when that day comes. When you’re ready.” He steps back as my brain scrambles to say something, anything to shoot down the line he just gave me, one I bet he uses on everyone. Then he leans in again and kisses my cheek as he whispers, “But you told me not to hurt you, and right now, I can’t promise that, because all I want to do is own you.”

  Stepping back slowly, he gives me a wink that’s just as slow as he reaches between his legs and adjusts himself, just like he did after he spiked the ball. But then he does something else, something different. He holds up four fingers and points at me.

  I watch his back as he walks toward the table where all the guys are now cheering. He reaches in the middle of the table, grabs the ever-growing pile of cash, shoves it into his pocket, and then gives them all high-fives.

  That son of a bitch just won some sort of twisted bet, one I know without question had everything to do with me.

  Chapter Seven

  B’s

  Trucker

  Leaning against my truck, I wait outside the bar for her to come out. When she does, I yell to get her attention, because after I made my intentions clear to her, she wouldn’t even look at me.

  She looks back, her eyes shooting daggers. “Go away, your highness.”

  I hurry toward her as she puts the key in the door to the upstairs. Before she turns it, though, I reach around and grab her hand, stopping her.

  “Where do you think you’re going, Little Ray?”

  “It’s been a long day,” she replies, batting at my hand with her other one.

  I don’t let go, not yet. Instead, I spin her around to face me. “It’s gonna be a longer night.”

  When she pulls her hand back this time, I let go, because Ray has that I’m-not-playing look on her face. One I have seen used on other guys, but never me.

  “Still not trying to fuck you, Little Ray. Just wanted to take you out for breakfast.”

  “I’m not hungry,” she retorts, backing up until her back hits the door.

  “I’m starving.” I look down to see her barely B’s starting to pebble.

  She snaps her fingers in front of my face. “Eyes up here.”

  I look up and lick my lips that suddenly feel like the Sahara Desert.

  “I’m not a stupid girl. I know what you and your boys were up to tonight. You already won, so why don’t you run along and find the next victim of your childish little games.”

  When I smirk, she shoves me. “I’m serious! Just leave me the hell alone.”

  “I didn’t come to your bar after a week of fucking my hand, thinking about you, to play a game.”

  “Save it, your highness.”

  When she starts to turn, I stop her. “I have saved it. Haven’t even allowed anyone to so much as suck my—”

  She covers my mouth with her hand. “The truth, Trucker.”

  I step back, and she places her hand on her chest.

  “I mean …” She shakes her head. “You don’t …” She pauses again, turning her back to me. “Just forget it, okay?”

  Jesus, she’s more of a mess than I am.

  “You’ve gotten the truth from me, and nothing but. When I walked in tonight and fo
und them all talking about the hot Latin piece of ass behind the bar, I wanted to wreck the place.”

  She looks over her shoulder, confused.

  “Logan reminded me that you aren’t mine. Reminded me that no one could be, because the truth is I’m gonna do everything I can to go pro and won’t be here after May. Even if I don’t go pro right out of college—”

  “You will.” She smiles shyly looking away and nods. “You will.”

  “When those fuckers were hitting on you, it pissed me off. But as Logan reminded me, you don’t seem like the type of girl who just wants to fuck, keep for cuddle season, or—”

  “Cuddle season?” Amused, she turns fully toward me.

  “After football season ends, we like to let shit go. Eat, drink, veg out… you know. We watch pro ball and get chunky and shit. But we still like to fuck.”

  She sighs loudly and rolls her eyes.

  “You want the truth or bullshit, Little Ray?” I ask.

  “The truth.” She nods.

  “Some of the guys keep the same chick around until the end of the fall semester. Most because it’s easy ass. We find it lazy as hell, but …” I stop mid-sentence, because what I’m about to say might come off as offensive as fuck, and I don’t want to offend her. I want to own her while I’m here. “I don’t know … A girl like you sure as fuck isn’t easy. You’re no bullshit. And, to be honest, Ray, I’ve never laid eyes on something as fucking perfect as you.” With the hard part over, I take a deep breath and continue, “But I can’t promise you shit.”

  She looks down.

  “That’s not true. I can promise you the truth, and the best fucking sex you’ve ever had, or ever will.”

  “That won’t be hard to beat,” she whispers then looks up at me. “I’ve never—”

  “If you’re about to bullshit me, pretend I didn’t even come here. I don’t need you to play the virgin card, Ray. As a matter a fact, you tell me you’re a virgin, I’m gonna walk.”

  “Then you better walk.” With that, she turns her back to me again.

  “Truth or tale!”

  She turns back and looks at me again as she swallows hard and says, “Truth.”

  I see it in her eyes. I do. Little Ray, the twenty-one-year-old bartender who can toss lines like she was raised in a fucking truck stop, is a virgin.

  And my cock is stone.

  “I think I’m gonna come in my pants.” I turn around and walk to my truck. As I open the door, though, I look back at her standing there, looking at me. “You work tomorrow?”

  She nods.

  “What time?”

  “Six to close.”

  I look at my phone to see the time. “Gives me nine hours to try to jerk off enough to drain my dick or pull the fucking thing off trying.”

  “What?” She laughs.

  “Be ready at noon. I won two hundred bucks tonight because of you. I’m taking you out.”

  “Trucker, I’m not going to have sex with you,” she says as I get in my truck.

  I roll my eyes. “The only person who’s gonna rid you of that cherry is me.”

  I shut the door and start the engine. When I start to put it in gear, she runs up to my door.

  I roll down the window as she asks, “How much have you had to drink?”

  “Did I kick any of their asses tonight for hitting on you?”

  She shakes her head.

  “That’s because I didn’t drink.”

  She smiles, and it’s makes me even harder.

  “Ray, get that sexy ass inside or you’re gonna witness an eruption the size of—”

  She turns toward the door, unlocking it before stepping inside. Then she looks back at me and waves while I unbutton my pants with one hand and grab tissues out of the glove box at the same time.

  When a light turns on above the bar and I see her watching me, I stop my hand from pulling my cock out of my jeans.

  “Well, we’re gonna have to take this on the go.”

  When I walk into my place, it’s wall to wall ass.

  “There he is,” Sarah, a girl I played with last season, comes up and plants one on me. I grab her shoulders and push her away from me.

  “What’s wrong, Trucker?” She reaches for my dick, but I step back.

  “It’s been drained tonight already,” I tell her, turning around.

  “You nailed that hot little ass from Lou’s?” Mitch holds up his hand to high-five me, and I start to see red. “Trucker wins the kitty!”

  I grab him by the collar and push him up against the wall. “Talk about her one more fucking time like that, and I will make sure you’re pissing in a bag.”

  I feel a hand on my shoulder pulling me back, and I raise my arm to swing on whoever the fuck it is who dared touch me.

  “You got a fucking minute, brother?”

  I stop myself mid-swing when I see Logan is the one who would have been wearing my fist.

  “Come with me.”

  I follow him back to his room where he shuts the door behind me.

  “You need to chill the fuck out.”

  “I need to chill the fuck out?”

  “Yeah, you need to chill the fuck out!” he yells back at me. “The guy you just pinned against the wall blocked your ass this afternoon so you didn’t get sacked.”

  “It’s his fucking job,” I snap.

  “It’s not a job; it’s a fucking choice.”

  “He wants to win, it’s his job!”

  “That’s not you talking, man. That’s not SU’s captain talking shit about his fucking team. That’s straight-up stupid. And we’ve avoided stupid for years by not letting pussy get in the way of a game.”

  He’s fucking right, but I’m pissed, so I hit him where I know it will leave a mark.

  “Well, I guess it’s a good fucking thing it wasn’t London Fields he was talking about.”

  He looks at me and shakes his head. “You know that’s not even the same.”

  “She’s something you want but can’t fucking have. So, yeah, it’s the same.”

  “She’s a senior in high school with a father and brother who’d kill me. Plus, I don’t want London.”

  “So, we roughed up that kid who asked her to junior prom for what?”

  “Because he didn’t deserve her,” he answers, looking away.

  “Well, those fucks don’t deserve Ray,” I tell him, and his head snaps back.

  “Ray?”

  “Fuck,” I sigh out.

  “Her name’s Ray now? Or is that a cute, little pet name a week into meeting her? That’s not the Trucker Cohen I know.”

  I explain, “She was a bitch to me, so I was fucking with her and called her a ray of sunshine to fuck her back.”

  “Freudian slip?”

  “Fuck you, man.” I laugh.

  “That’s a good damn point, Trucker. You get all frustrated, you fuck with me, not them. They don’t know you like I do. They don’t give a shit if you go pro.” He pokes me in the chest. “So you get pissed, need to vent, let of steam, you fuck with me.”

  I laugh. “Freudian slip?”

  He sighs. “You know what I mean. I know you and love you. I fucking get you. Those guys, they don’t. But scouts are gonna start coming after the game you played today. They’re gonna watch you and how you work within this team, our fucking team this year. They see anger, hostility, you’re fucked, Trucker. Is that ass worth losing a dream over?”

  I shake my head.

  “Good. Now go make nice with Mitch. Tell him you are dating her, seeing her, fucking her, or whatever, but end the shit with, I’m sorry for being a dick.”

  I scowl at him. “It won’t be honest.”

  “Then fake that shit.”

  I wake up to a pounding headache and a mouth full of cotton as I roll over to look at the clock. It’s twelve thirty, which means I’m fucking late.

  I hit the shower, using the good-smelling shit, skip the shave, and throw on clothes.

  Heading out of my
room, I see I’m not the only one just waking up. Logan is just walking out of his room, too.

  I see one of his regulars walk out of the bathroom and am shocked.

  “She stay the night?”

  He looks around and sees her. “If she did, she slept on the couch.”

  I give him a fist bump.

  “Where you heading?” Logan asks as we walk out to the kitchen.

  “He’s going to see bar titties.” Downs chuckles.

  Everything goes red.

  Downs continues, “I swear Lou made her sign a contract. No bra allowed with those fine little things.”

  I feel a hand on my shoulder and hear Logan say, “A little respect, man.”

  “Respect?” Downs laughs. “This is the pounding palace. We don’t do respect here.”

  Logan responds quickly, “Yeah, respect. If that were a friend of mine, or my sister, I sure as fuck wouldn’t want anyone shit-talking her.”

  I look at Logan, and he nods to the door. “See you later.”

  Turning off my truck, I see it’s twelve forty-five. I’m really fucking late.

  I jump out and jog to the door. When I turn the knob, it’s locked.

  I knock and wait a few seconds before knocking again, this time louder.

  “You lost, Trucker?” I turn to see Lou smoking a cigar with a key ring the size of his hand, walking past me and toward the bar door.

  “No, I’m not lost.”

  “Warned you not to mess with my girls,” he comments, flipping through the keys.

  “Not messing with her. Just taking her to do some shopping.”

  “She goes with Reda on Mondays when we’re closed and takes a taxi to the farmer’s market on Saturday mornings.”

  I look over at him.

  “She’s a nice girl, Trucker. I swear—”

  “I know she is. No need to threaten me.”

  “Already made the threat once.” He pushes the key into the doorknob. “You hurt her, you’re done on Marshall Street.”

  I respect the old man, but he’s stepping over a line. Before I can tell him so, he’s inside the bar and the door is shut.

  I knock on the door, louder now. Then I hear Reda.

  “She left about half an hour ago, Trucker.”