by Abbey Foxx
“Right. Yeah, you know, I didn’t either. There was talk of a casino. We were out pretty late. What does he say?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“You two love each other right?”
“We’ve been together for three years.”
“Well then.”
“Well then, what?”
“You’ve got nothing to worry about.”
I only wish that were true. I only wish that I really did have nothing to worry about. Instead, I’ve got a football team falling apart in front of my eyes, my relationship doing the same. When was the last time I wasn’t worried about Topher and me? When was the last time we had fun?
I have a sudden urge to ask Jasper out for a drink or to go one better and just drive to the bar right now and insist he sit alongside me and get drunk. I want to feel free and easy and happy, what I don’t want to do is confront Topher about where he ended up last night. I’m sick of the conflict we have in our relationship. I’m sick of not knowing if that bastard is cheating on me.
We’re at Jasper’s hotel already and the moment has passed.
“You know one way you can keep an eye on me is to be there when I’m having a drink.”
“Maybe that’s exactly what I’ll have to do.”
“Just don’t tell your dad. I think he already hates me enough.”
“You’ll have to promise not to flirt with me.”
“I don’t make promises I know I have no chance of keeping.”
I have to ask. This is ridiculous and I feel ridiculous, but I have to ask.
“Jasper?”
“Yeah?”
“Why are you flirting with me so much?”
“Because you and I both know that you and I both like it.”
I let his response hang in the air to a curled smile.
“Thanks for the lift, Beautiful.”
“Don’t call me that, Jasper.”
“Thanks for the lift, Penny.”
“Ten o’clock tomorrow, don’t be late. You want me to send Topher?”
“You don’t want to come yourself?”
“I’m thinking that maybe I shouldn’t.”
“Enjoy the tape.”
“What?”
“The tape. It’s poking out of the top of your handbag.”
Motherfucker.
“Get an apartment, Jasper. You can’t live out of a hotel for a year.”
He holds his hand up in the air to acknowledge he’s heard me, but doesn’t look back. I guess he feels like he doesn’t need to. That asshole. I can’t believe he saw the tape in my bag. I can’t believe I’ve actually brought it with me either. It’s to see if I can spot Topher, but there’s no reason why I shouldn’t look again at Jasper, if only to point out he’s doing the switchback all wrong.
This is not over at all. If anything, I have a feeling it’s just begun.
Five.
Jasper
I want her. A thousand times over I want her. Penelope Grace Locke. Just another girl like any other, but completely different too. Out of my league, quite literally. At least for now. At least until she realizes that Topher is cheating on her again, or she has the balls to confront him about it and leave if she knows. I don’t know whether to tell her. I don’t give a fuck about bro codes, but I do care about her feelings. I don’t want to make things even worse for her than they already are. I need to think about it some more, not for me, because if it was for me I’d tell her straight away, but for her, for her relationship, her heart, her wellbeing.
But I want her, and every day I want her more. She’s cute, independent, intelligent, strong, weak, broken, fragile, delicate, imperfect and perfect all in one magical way. I have no idea how Topher can treat her the way he does - I don’t know how anyone can cheat on anyone else at all period, but this girl, this absolutely perfect girl that he has and doesn’t realize how lucky he is for having, I don’t know how he does it.
I don’t know what the hell is going on inside his head that makes him think that behaving the way he is is ok. She dotes on him too, at least that’s the version I get from Topher. She’s all over him with affection and he’d rather fuck someone else. He doesn’t deserve her. I don’t know if I do, but if I had her I’d definitely treat her with respect. I can be a bit of a handful, but I don’t cheat. I respect women and I’d definitely look after Penny. She’s one hell of a catch and Topher is obviously too blind to see it. I don’t know why he doesn’t just let her go if he wants to fuck other women. The problem is, he just wants to have his cake and eat it too, like the spoiled, middle class motherfucker he is.
I’m early to training every day this week. I even train on days we aren’t meant to, just to show Penny and Harrison I’m serious. I study his book too. I study it so fucking hard the pages begin to fall out. I even start coming up with my own plays, and even though Topher dismisses them I take them to the top. Harrison snarls, Harrison spits, but eventually he begins to listen.
“Where did you learn that?”
I tap the book.
“Good work, Jasper. Now get back to the field before I think you’re serious about changing.”
We work hard, all of us. Even Topher begins to animate himself again. He’s confident and cocky in the locker room, he’s boastful about the weekend, the bad press and the twins he fucked and didn’t get found out about. He cusses Penny and Harrison and I have to step up to him on more than one occasion to bring him back into line.
“Why are you still with her if you treat her like that?”
“Why are any of us still here? Sticking around is worth it, I told you that before. Plus Penny’s got a pussy so tight it makes you think she’s got a second ass-hole.”
That gets him a round of high fives.
I sack him six times on the field. The last time I put a knee high into his chest it winds him so much he has to lie on the ground for five minutes coughing his lungs back into position.
I take the ball and I run, and I don’t stop until I go through both sets of goalposts, thirty people giving chase and none of them able to catch up with me. I throw, I catch, I battle and I run my way through training, and I make every single member of that team respect me. I make them step up a gear too, it’s me that get them playing again, me that get them caring. Penny and Harrison watch on from the touchline, Penny’s eyes all over me, Harrison’s too, but in a different way, snarling, reluctant to give credit, happy, but surprised too, as though he’s unable to believe what he’s seeing. As though he doesn’t want to.
For the first time in a long time the team is organized. For the first time since I’ve been here they seem interested in training. The fuck up of last weekend seems a hundred miles off and I’m not the only one who can see the change. I feel like a fucking general on the field, and unstoppable off it. I’m focussed, and I’m getting everyone else around that way too. I’m going to make this team win if it kills me, and I’m going to win too. I’m going to win Penny if it takes me all year. I watch Topher wrap his arms around her, pull her tightly against his body and wink at me over her shoulder and I want to kill him.
I will. I’ll pull him apart when the time is right, but now isn’t that time. If Moxlin are going to win they need Penny, they need Harrison, they need harmony and equilibrium and they need their quarterback firing again even if I have to suffer because of it.
She’ll come to me, I have every faith in that. She’ll fall into my arms when the time is right, and when she does, nothing will be able to stop us.
Finally, in the last quarter of our second game, after Tate gets pulled off with a twisted knee, when every other option has failed him and the answer is staring him in the face, he reluctantly puts me on.
We are losing, of course. Not as badly as we did before, but the bears are arguably an easier opponent. We’ve actually played well so far, even though we are 28-3 down, Topher’s been sacked a bunch of times and not only Tate but Sparks too have both been pulled off with injuries. We look ragged, b
ut not as ragged as we did last week and certainly not as bad as the scoreline suggests. We’ve been upbeat but unlucky, organised but outplayed and Harrison has given me less than three minutes to make an impact. We are going to lose, there is no doubt about that, but I plan to make these three minutes the most memorable of any game yet this season or the last. Topher has other ideas completely though. For two of those minutes he doesn’t even look at me. Harrison sets a play to put me in and Topher changes up at the last minute, sending the ball on a third down high into the air and out of bounds. On the fourth down he dummies me a pass, and runs the ball himself, for a loss of two yards into a wall of opposition players.
When we take the field again, there are fifty seven seconds left, and we’re down another touchdown. This time, finally, after spitting a threat in his ear, he gives me the ball. It’s a simple play, not quite the switchback, but another similar one from the first few pages of the book. He dummies the ball to Jackson who runs into a crowd of people all of whom think he has the ball, while I spin around the defensive line, turning on my heels quickly to push into open space. Topher picks me out with a plumb pass that I pull out of the air with one hand, before spinning around two of their players, dodging another tackle that clips my heels and nearly sends me over and driving so quickly for the end zone that I don’t even give the clock time to tick past forty seconds before I’m standing underneath the goal posts.
It is Moxlin Tigers first touchdown of the season, my first touch of the game and the most points we’ve scored for two years. More than that, it’s a massive fuck you to Harrison, who stands at the end of the field clapping slowly, shock reducing him to absolute astonishment.
We haven’t won the game, far from it, but it feels like we’ve just won the superbowl. Our celebrations have to be cut short by the officials so the game can resume. I’m carried from the end zone, all the way back into my half and then off the field to the bench so the defensive unit can replace us. I’m hugged and high fived and then Penny comes rushing up to me, throws her arms round my neck and kisses me on the cheek. When she pulls herself away again, she’s a little red, embarrassed the moment’s overtaken her. Topher just smiles at us both, like it’s the most normal thing in the world, before Penny goes back to her dad, stands alongside him and flashes looks in my direction until the game is out.
We watch as the bears close in on our end zone quickly, before they are held at the fifteen yard line until the clock runs down. We’ve lost another game, but won so much on the way, and I’ve proved, in less than twenty seconds, that given the opportunity, I can do just about anything any one of these other players can do too.
I feel like I’m on top of the world.
Six.
Penny
It’s happening again. That fucking ass-hole is cheating on me. I can’t believe he’s stupid enough, insensitive enough, courageous enough to do what I always thought he had the potential to do again and fuck someone behind my back. Two people actually. It’s like I don’t even exist, and I really don’t need this right now either.
Moxlin are getting fined for the bullshit that Jasper and the rest of the team got up to after the first game of the season, and it’s not an insubstantial amount either. Jasper and Topher’s docked wages for the month won’t even come close to covering it, which means Dad and I have got to figure out a way of coming up with the shortfall, which will probably mean, in turn, that dad has to remortgage the house again. It’s fucked up and I’m super pissed at both of them for being stupid enough to let a whole town film them. It’s not just the CCTV footage either, there are eyewitnesses with phone camera footage, children crying, fans cheering them on, it’s all over facebook, twitter, the Moxlin Tiger’s unofficial forum. It’s a complete and total fuck up, to which Dad has already had to file an apology, Jasper and Topher have issued a grovelling sorry and a meeting with the committee board has been posted for as far away as they’d let me.
If that wasn’t bad enough, Tate is going to be out until at least Christmas with his knee, Sparks has concussion, Jackson hobbled out of training today, Jasper’s walking round like a God after his miracle touchdown pass, and Topher, my fucking douchebag boyfriend of three fucking years is cheating on me. Twice. Two girls. Two at once. It makes me want to scream not just at him for doing it, but for me for being so pathetic I let it happen by giving him another chance. Well I’m not going to give him a chance now. I’m going to have a drink and then I’m going to tell him exactly where to get off. Trust Jasper to spot that I’m not wearing my engagement ring - Topher didn’t.
“You should have told me.”
Jasper holds his hands up, before curling them protectively back around his pint.
“I’m sorry, Pen. I didn’t want to hurt you.”
I’m here with him because I want to know the truth. I want to know why they both lied to me. Topher will get his later, right now it’s Jasper’s turn.
“Are you fucking serious?”
“What was I meant to do? I didn’t want to fuck up the Tiger’s by giving you shit to deal with. I was thinking about you.”
“Were you thinking about me the night it happened?”
I’m upset now, and I can feel tears coming even though I don’t want them to. I have to sit on my hands to stop Jasper seeing them shake. He reaches out to touch my arm and I don’t tell him to take his hand away.
“I didn’t know until after it happened, seriously. I mean, I saw him chatting to the girls, fooling around, laughing, but I didn’t see him with them like that. Maybe it’s for the best, you know, you don’t deserve to be treated like that.”
I shake my head. I still can’t believe it’s happened, yet it happening is exactly where I knew at the back of my mind and the bottom of my heart we’d end up again.
“You should have told me.”
“Believe it or not, I was thinking about doing so.”
“You’re a coward just like everyone else.”
“I care about you, Penny.”
“Bullshit. You just care about Jasper Stone.”
“Come on, you know that’s not true. I know you’re mad, but you’ve got to be mad at Topher, not at me. I should have told you, you’re right, I’m sorry, I made a mistake. I didn’t want to hurt you, I know that sounds stupid now, but I was trying not to see you get upset.”
“Yeah, well, I am upset.”
“What does Topher say?”
My look tells him all he needs to know.
“That’s going to be a fun conversation.”
“It’s over, Jasper. That fucking ass-hole has cheated on me for the last time.”
This time it’s me that’s finished their pint first. Jasper goes up to the bar and brings me another.
“You not drinking?”
“I’ve got training tomorrow.”
“I thought you were a bad boy.”
“Maybe I’ve gone soft. I’m banned remember.”
“Since when do you take orders from coaches?”
“Since I started drinking with their daughters.”
“Well this time I’m overruling him.”
I go up to the bar, order a pint and bring it back to the table.
“You’re not letting me drink alone.”
“I can’t argue with that.”
“Thanks for coming out, by the way. I needed to get out of the house.”
“That’s alright. I know you haven’t got any other really good looking friends you can call on.”
“Careful, Jasper. I’m still mad at you.”
“Look on the brightside, at least you’re single now.”
“It’s not as easy as that. Topher and I have a lot of emotional shit-.”
“Then just concentrate on the physical, that’s the best part anyway.”
“You’re unbelievable.”
“Thank you.”
“That wasn’t a compliment.”
“You still meant it though.”
“Have you ever heard the expressio
n, jump in someone’s grave.”
“Come on Penny, Topher’s not dead yet.”
“He might be when I’ve finished with him tonight.”
“Go easy on his right arm, I think it’s just started to work again.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll be too busy concentrating on cutting off his dick.”
“It takes a foolish man to cross you.”
“You’ve met Topher.”
“He’s an ass-hole, Penny. He doesn’t deserve you, seriously. I know you think I’m messing around when I say it, but I like you. I liked you from the moment I saw you walk up to me in the airport and I thought to myself, if all cab drivers look like this in America I’m going to have to move here permanently.”
I know he wants me to laugh, but the best I can do is a wry smile that makes his eyes light up all the same.
“Don’t they have woman working in sports in your country?”
“We do, we even have women doctors.”
“You’re a fucking idiot.”
“You know a lot of people tell me that.”
“A lot of people must know you well.”
“Not as many as you think.”
“Not as many as the papers make out?”
“Nobody special.”
“Not yet.”
“I’ve got plenty of time.”
“You go back to England in seven months, and I’m engaged to be married. It would never work.”
“You think Moxlin can win a game this season?”
“They might have a better chance when I cut Topher’s dick off and get him focussing solely on his football career.”
“Then never say never. Plus, I thought you were recently single.”
“I’ve still got to break the news.”
“Then that gives us every chance.”
“Now’s not the right time, Jasper.”
He spins his pint glass, a moist circle carved into the beer mat. A silence filled with potential, but so not the right time to be thinking about it. My heart is sore, I’m tired, I’m embarrassed and disappointed and a lot more numb than I thought I would be. Part of me feels relief. Another part, somewhere dark and hidden deep within me, wanted this to happen, needed this release. Nothing to do with Jasper and his bulging biceps, his huge dick and his beautiful eyes and everything to do with me, my potential, what I needed and Topher was not providing for me. Sex? If you count two pumps and a squirt twice a month I suppose. Twins? It could have been hundreds for all I know. Perhaps I’ll never know but it doesn’t matter now. I’m so over Topher. I was over him the first time, I was just too weak to realize it. Now? Now I’m stronger, weaker, more apathetic. Now I have a drinking partner in Jasper. Now I have a new player I can lose myself in. What the fuck does it matter? Why not have a bit of fun for six months, Topher did. It didn’t stop him. So what if Jasper goes back to England after the end of the season? So what if Moxlin fall apart? So what if I do too and there is no-one there to catch me?