by Aubrey Irons
“It’s a doozy,” he says with a chuckle.
It was Mom’s favorite saying.
“Oh,” he claps his hands together. “Have you seen my travel garment bag since the move?”
I frown. “Going somewhere?”
Dad laughs and shakes his head. “The away game? At the Tigers?”
I cringe. “Oh, right.” I scrunch up my face. “Sorry.”
He laughs. “Hailey, I gave up on you knowing my game schedule a long time ago.”
“Dad-”
“No, no, I don’t mean that in a bad way,” he says with a wink. “You know I like that you’re your own person, right? It reminds me a lot of your mother.”
I smile, slowly nodding. “She’d like Heather, Dad.”
He grins and looks at the floor before glancing back at me. “Yeah, I think she would.”
“You want me to come to this game?”
He chuckles. “Nah, you’ve got work do. And hell, I can already spoil the ending for you.”
“Oh?”
“Oh, hell yeah. With Dalton Cole throwing QB, we ain’t losing a single game this season.”
I groan as my dad whistles. “I’ll tell you, honey, that boy’s got a damn golden touch.”
I cringe inside, heat flushing into my face.
“Honestly, it’s like he’s got magic hands or something.”
Please kill me now.
“Once that boy gets ahold of a play, there is nothing that stops him from going deep and driving it home.”
I’m going to be sick.
“Dad-”
“Alright, alright, no more football talk,” Dad grins at me, oblivious to the heat flushing across my face and my body.
“Hey, I love you kiddo, don’t you forget that.” He winks at me before he leans down and kisses the top of my head. “Dinner in thirty?”
“Sure.”
Just as soon as I go bury my head in my pillows for the next three months.
27
Dalton
“So, Ten-”
She smiles coyly at me, twisting a lock of her blonde hair around a perfectly manicured, glossed fingernail. Her tongue darts out, playfully wetting her perfectly painted, bright red lips.
“Can I call you Ten?”
Under normal circumstances - meaning, if I was being my normal, aggressively charming, shamelessly horn-dog self - there’s a few choice things I might say right then.
Baby you can call me anything you like.
How about we lock that door and I’ll show you something else you can call ten?
I can tick them off like a checklist in my head - the predictably inappropriate lines meant to both scandalize and charm the panties off of a girl. I’ve used most of them a hundred times, and I can run through them like football plays.
Except these aren’t normal circumstances, and I’ve somehow got zero interest in the very blonde, very painted, very dolled-up ESPN reporter sitting on the bench across from me.
Meredith is heading the T.V. crew that’s going to be covering my season.
Of course, she’s looking at me right now alone in this empty locker room like she’s more interested in covering me with her big fake tits and her painted mouth than she is with a story.
And like I said, under normal circumstances, I’d have this chick on her back with her Louboutin heels in the air.
You wanna call me ten, honey? I’ve got ‘ten’ to show you right fuckin’ now.
I frown, the thought souring in my head. Because these are not normal circumstances…I’m not normal.
Nothing seems to be normal after Hailey.
So instead, there’s no line. There’s no game. There’s no picking my best words to get her to suck my cock.
I just answer the stupid question.
“Yeah, I mean, Dalton works okay, ma’am.”
Meredith sticks the tip of her tongue out again, wetting her lips as she arches her brows suggestively at me. “Yeah but I’ve heard Ten is so much better.”
And they say subtlety is lost on modern media.
Meredith continues, “So, we’ve moved past game one with a win, which takes care of any second thoughts people might have been having about you.”
I grin as I shrug. “Well, that’s my job - to make sure we win and make sure I live up to my hype.”
I’m playing it by the book, because Coach is right - what I need to do is keep my head down and do the damn work. The NFL is a reality, but the NFL doesn’t give a flying shit which billboard models I’ve slept with, or how long I can do a keg-stand, or how big my damn cock is.
They just want results on the field, and results is what I’m after now.
Not banging star-fucking, fake-titted ESPN reporters.
“Word is among some of the sororities on campus that you are certainly living up to your hype,” Meredith says with an easy laugh. She’s recording this interview to write up later, and I have no idea why she laughs as if she’s on camera or something.
I shrug. “Well, I think most of that is just rumor.”
“Is it?”
Meredith arches her brow again as she drops her eyes to my crotch. She slides a little closer to me on the wooden locker-room bench, wetting her lips again and placing her hand on my knee.
As if she needed to clarify her reasons for requesting to do this interview alone in the locker room after hours.
I’m saved by Coach’s office door banging open. I look up sharply before I grin at the figure standing awkwardly in the doorway.
Must’ve felt her ears burning.
Hailey looks startled, as if surprised to see anyone actually in here. “Oh, sorry, I was just looking for my dad.” Her eyes dart between Meredith and myself, and then down to the hand on my knee. She scowls.
“Oh you must be the sister!” Meredith smiles broadly, tossing her hair over her shoulder as she stands and marches over to Hailey.
“Um, stepsister, and not really,” Hailey mumbles, shaking the reporter’s outstretched hand.
“So good to meet you!” Meredith says, giggling again.
She’s so blonde, and so bouncy, and kind of awful - basically my type, really. And it makes me feel like a smug asshole, but seeing Hailey’s face darken as she clearly sees what is not actually happening here amuses me.
“Need a ride home?”
Hailey’s eyes dart back to me over Meredith’s shoulder, but before she can answer, the bubbly reporter is giggling again and turning to wag a finger at me.
“Oh Hailey, how jealous are all your girlfriends with a man like Dalton Cole asking you questions like that?”
Hailey rolls her eyes and shakes her head as Meredith turns to wink saucily at me. The reporter whirls back with the little recorder in her hand, and Hailey’s suddenly smiling the world’s fakest smile.
“Oh, so jealous!” She gushes, her voice suddenly flippant and bubble-gum tinged in a way I’ve never heard.
“Oh-em-gee, isn’t Dalton just the greatest?” She flaps her hand and tosses her hair over her shoulder, and I grin.
She’s totally mocking Meredith.
“Oh he sure is!” Meredith turns back to me, missing the look of death Hailey flashes at her back.
“Well, Dalton, sugar, I’ve got to take off here.” She saunters towards me, “Unless you want to give me a ride home first and take off a few other things,” she husks, not nearly quiet enough for Hailey not to hear, judging from the sour look on her face.
I put on my most charming smile. “You know what, I’ve gotta finish up some stuff here, actually.”
Meredith shrugs, tracing a manicured nail over her lips. “Well then, I guess I’ll see you this weekend at the game to finish what we started.”
She takes the nail away from her lips and traces it down the front of my shirt, a bit lower than what you could possibly consider appropriate, before winking at me and turning to pick up her purse.
“Nice to meet you, Hailey,” she gushes, throwing her an air-kiss.
/> “Oh it was so nice to meet you too, honey!” Hailey’s full southern-bell accent oozes sarcasm, but the blonde woman doesn’t seem to pick up on it.
She turns back to me and winks one more time. “Bye, Ten.”
The locker room door shuts behind her, and I turn to see Hailey rolling her eyes, her arms crossed over her chest.
“What?”
“Oh, nothing, Ten,” she says in that same sing-song fake voice.
I grin, “See, I knew I’d have you calling me that sooner or later.”
Hailey rolls her eyes again and turns to leave back through her dad’s office.
“You don’t want that ride?”
“I feel like walking.”
This time it’s my turn to roll my eyes as she turns to leave.
“Hey, you coming to my game this weekend?”
Hailey stops and starts to laugh as she turns. “Um, no, Dalton.”
“Well, I mean, I’d hate to have you go and shock anyone by showing up,” I grin. “It’d really mess up that ‘give no shits’ attitude you’ve worked so hard for.”
She frowns at me. “I don’t ‘not give a shit’, I just have other plans.”
I smirk as I nod. “So, this has got nothing to do with you being all weird around me, huh?”
“Oh get over yourself,” she says flippantly, rolling her eyes. “Anyways, have fun with that reporter, Ten.”
“Oh, I don’t mix business and pleasure.”
Hailey laughs as she turns away.
“Hey, I do have standards, you know.”
“Oh, do you?” She turns back and gives me a look, “Could’ve fooled me.”
“Green is a mean color on you, darlin,” I say with a grin, stepping towards her.
“Oh, you wish,” she says with an easy laugh.
“Besides,” I shrug. “I’ll have plenty of other distractions there. I think they even booked me my own hotel room for after the game,” I finish with a wink.
Her eyes flare, and I get a sick little burst of smug satisfaction.
Your armor ain’t as strong as you’d like to think it is, darlin.
“So,” I lean against the doorframe to the office. “What are these plans of yours?”
She smiles coyly, “None of your business.”
“A good book? Some online gaming maybe?” I grin, “Ooo, is Comic-con in town?”
“A date, actually.”
My gut tightens, the gloating, teasing feeling going right out of me. I frown at her. “Really?”
“Mhm.”
“And now what does Paul think about that?”
Hailey’s eyes look up and to the side, avoiding mine. “Oh, we’re taking a break.”
Okay, she has my attention. I still know she’s bullshitting about this made-up boyfriend character, but I’m suddenly wondering if she’s actually going out this weekend.
“You’ve really got a date.”
“Yes, Dalton, I’ve really got a date. We’re going to a party.” She grins, her eyes twinkling as the corners of her lips curl up wickedly. She walks towards me, and before I know it, she’s patting me on the chest.
“Green is a mean color on you, Dalton.”
She winks as I stand there like a total jackass not saying a thing, before she turns and straight-up saunters towards the door.
“Have a good game.”
“Oh, don’t you worry, darlin. I’ll try not have too much fu-”
The office door shuts behind her, leaving me standing there like a dick with that last lame retort hanging in the silence.
28
Dalton
The Tigers game is a fucking disaster.
I mean, we win, but barely. Evan pulls out a last minute interception, and I get one lucky throw that goes wild before the receiver barely manages to get a piece of it in the end-zone.
So yeah, it’s a win, but a fucked up win.
My mind is everywhere but the game, thinking of everything but the plays I’m supposed to be calling or the marks I’m supposed to be hitting.
Well, no, that’s not true. My mind isn’t everywhere else, it’s very specifically someplace else.
On someone else.
I’m thinking of Hailey, of course. Through every damn play, during every damn pass, I’m thinking of her out at this party.
On a date.
My whole thing about not texting girls? Yeah, gone. I shoot her a quick one from the locker room right before we head out.
Have fun with your online gaming party - oh, I mean hot date.
It’s childish, and beta as hell, but I grin anyways as I start to tuck the phone back in my locker.
It buzzes again, and the picture I get back from her has the smirk wiped right off my face and my jaw on the damn ground.
She’s wearing this smoking hot little black skirt in the selfie she sends me. Scandalously short, with a strappy top, and fitted to every fucking curve of her body.
Oh, I will.
It’s followed by a winky-face emoji.
I frown at the phone as I thumb out a reply.
Not too much fun.
Her reply is instant.
Oh you have NO idea!
“Alright, line up, gentlemen!”
I throw the phone back into the locker and slam it shut at the sound of Coach’s voice getting us ready to head out to the field.
So yeah, that’s where my damn head is when I go out there to play ball - not on the field, or the other team, or the score.
It’s very firmly on the flirty black skirt, and the tight little top, and what I know is on underneath.
So that’s why we squeak out that win, and let me say, Coach ain’t pleased.
He singles me out in his post-game tirade about getting our minds focused and thinking clearly, and not thinking we’re going to coast through a season. And normally, I’d be throwing that shit right back in the authority figure’s face, but not this time. This time, I know he’s damn right.
“You got that!?” His eyes narrow at me, on one knee along with the rest of the sweating, heaving team in the locker room after.
“I got it,” I mutter out. “Sorry, Coach,”
“Don’t you damn apologize to me, son, you apologize to yourself and the rest of this team you almost let down tonight.”
We’re all getting changed and ready to get out later when Evan claps me on the back. “Hey, dude, it’s a win.”
“It’s a bullshit win.”
He shrugs, “Well, maybe, but that doesn’t mean we can’t go celebrate.” He grins, “C’mon, Cole, the Kappa girls bussed over for the game with all of their freshman pledges. Let’s go get your dick wet and get over this.”
Why the fuck not?
“Yeah, let me change.”
Evan grins, “There he is! Get changed man, time to get a taste of victory.”
The hotel party is a nut-house later, taking up probably half the fifth floor that the University booked out for us. I’m pretty sure the point of having us stay the night up here after the game is to avoid driving back late at night, not to guzzle beer from funnel tubes and take tequila shots off of bare coed mid-drifts.
But you try telling that to eighty-five college athletes hopped up on adrenaline and victory.
“Dude, the world is your oyster, bro!”
Jason is passing a bottle of expensive-looking bourbon my way as house music blasts through the suite. There’s a sorority girl shrieking and giggling on top of the kitchen counter as Ramirez licks a line of salt off her bare nipple before slamming back the shot of tequila nestled between her tits. Some other guy who isn’t actually on the team roars something about “turning it up” as he starts tapping a line of coke across some other girl’s panty-clad ass, and off in the corner, a second-tier lineman is getting his pants unbuttoned by two sorority girls.
Yeah, college hedonism at its finest.
And there are some hot girls here - ready, waiting, and eager for me. Hell, “bedroom eyes” doesn’t even begin to descr
ibe the straight eye-fucks I’ve been getting since the second I stepped off the elevator.
But I’m bored by it all. Bored, tired, distracted.
Goddamnit, Hailey.
She’s stuck in my damn head like this little barb under my skin, and it’s slowly driving me fucking nuts. I’ve looked at my phone about nine-hundred times since the game, feeling more and more like a total pussy every time. She hasn’t texted, she hasn’t called, and I’m acting like a little bitch by looking for it every five seconds.
The party rages around me, the music thuds and pulses, and the debauchery catches like fire as the liquor flows. I’m in my damn element here - booze, girls, craziness, and being the Goddamn center of attention. This is all for me, and yet I’m standing there feeling so far removed from it all and so utterly uninterested in even being here, that I don’t know how much longer I can stand it.
I check my phone again, glaring at the blank message indicator.
Fuck this. It’s time to go.
I know I should dive right into the madness around me, get rock-star drunk, break something, and then grab the first little honey that bats her eyes at me and fuck her senseless.
But I can’t. I just do not have any of that in me right now.
“Hey,” I turn to Evan, who’s chatting up the two brunette cuties hanging off his arms. “I’m gonna go top off my beer and find one of those new sorority pledges.”
He grins, “Well alright! Shit man, you didn’t look like you were having any fucking fun at all scowling to yourself over there.”
“Yeah, just going over the game in my head.”
“Fuck it, man. It’s a win, and we like wins, right?” He roars at the two girls in his arms who whoop and cheer “go Hawks” as I roll my eyes.
“I’ll catch you later.”
“Have fun, bro.”
Right.
I do refill my beer, and I do pound it down. And I do grab the bottle of bourbon back from Jason. But the groupies and the sorority skanks, and just the madness of the whole thing utterly turns me off.