Dolce (Love at Center Court #2)

by Rachel Blaufeld

  I swallowed my self-disdain for liking boys. “What?”

  “Do you live in a bubble? Even I heard the incorrigible Sonny Be Knocking Boots this morning.” She said his name on a snarl, her teeth biting off each syllable.

  “Um, no, but I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Walk with me, Caterina, to the window.” She motioned to the large window at the opposite side of the room.

  We made our way over to the window. Through the small panes, I saw men, lots of them, standing and waiting. Some held up signs with slogans like GO OUT WITH ME, CATIE P. or PICK ME, CATIE P. I especially liked GO PHISHING FOR A REAL MAN, CATIE P.

  “I don’t know what this is all about,” I admitted to Stanwick.

  “This morning, Sonny B. promised a pair of Phish tickets to the first guy to get you to go on a date.” She raised a perfectly plucked eyebrow at me and waited for me to explain.

  “Oh,” I said, feeling like a thousand-ton elephant was sitting on my chest.

  “You don’t see how disgusting this is? To set you up with the highest bidder, a man—any man—who is just in it for a contest? That is morally degrading and an embarrassment to this department. I thought I could let it go after your lackluster night of dating advice on Halloween, but now this.”

  “It’s radio,” I said weakly. “They need ratings.”

  “Then does it make you happy to know that right now, dozens of college girls are running around town looking for an open tattoo parlor?”

  “What? I have no idea where this is going, Professor Stanwick.”

  “During class, I received a text from another student alerting me to Sonny’s second dare of the day. The first young lady to get a tattoo reading The Stealer gets a pair of tickets to the Phish concert.”

  “Phish?”

  “This isn’t about Phish, Caterina. It’s about you disgracing the entire female gender with your sorority-girl antics, your ball-baby tendencies.”

  Surprised, I gasped.

  “What?” she snapped out, pulling herself up a little taller. “You think I don’t know the lingo, that I live in a bubble? Why do you think I teach in this department and have spent my life making it a nurturing and fair place for women? I don’t think I can permit this type of behavior from someone in my class.”

  “But I didn’t do anything, Professor Stanwick,” I said, desperate to plead my case. “You can’t blame me for Sonny’s actions.”

  I wanted to stomp my foot and swear up a holy mess, but I knew better than to show my hot-headed temper at this moment.

  Stanwick narrowed her gaze on me. “You are consorting with the enemy. Don’t think I don’t know it. You are dismissed to go change your paper’s thesis and clean up your associations. Otherwise, you will force me to take necessary action.”

  I walked out without another word, dragging myself and my foul mood out of the building. I forgot the barrage of bachelors waiting for me, and as soon as I exited the door, I was bombarded with shouted invites.

  Tucking my chin to my chest, I whispered, “Excuse me,” and tried to escape.

  “Catie, come on! One night, one concert!”

  “Look at me, Catie!”

  Fucking Sonny. He’d incited a riot, and was probably sitting in his booth watching through some sick fuck’s Facetime feed, plotting like President Snow in The Hunger Games.

  “Get the hell out of my way,” I said a bit louder, and took off toward Southern A.

  I walked quickly, practically running until I stormed through the door to my dorm. When someone called my name from the couches in the common area just inside the door, I paused to see Tess coming toward me.

  Ugh. “Hey, Tess, what’s up?”

  “Someone’s waiting for you in my room!”

  “Oh God, Tess,” I whined. “You didn’t let one of those freaks inside, did you? Tell me you’re not so desperate.”

  “You mean the nuts trying to win the Phish tickets?” Shelby strode over to stand next to Tess. She had a smile so broad, I thought her face was going to crack.

  I shrugged. “Yeah, I guess this thing’s got a bit crazy. Sonny from the station did some stupid dare. You didn’t let those people in?”

  The last part came out low and angry, a deep bellow from somewhere in my chest. It was part Italian stallion, another part Castro. I was livid, not to mention I was about to be thrown out of my major because of Sonny.

  “No, not those freaks,” Tess said, beaming. “A good kind of freak. A really tall freak.” She started to bounce up and down like she had to pee, becoming more and more excited as she spoke.

  “Are you okay?” I reached out to steady her from what looked like a mild seizure.

  “A tall freak, Catie! Did you hear me?”

  “Fuck.” I grabbed my forehead. “The tall part escaped me the first time.”

  “Come on.” Shelby grabbed my shoulder and spun me toward the stairs.

  I barely knew her; she lived next to Tess and would sometimes eat with us. Now her long red hair blew back into my face as she dragged me to meet a tall freak.

  Why couldn’t I go back to being a lonely short freak?

  Tess unlocked her door, and Shelby gave me a quick shove inside the poster-decorated dorm room.

  Who is that? I thought, overwhelmed by the oversized male faces staring at me from her walls. Edward? Or Jacob?

  “Cate?”

  I shook my head free of my inner musings about Twilight and focused on the tall man in front of me.

  Tight black skinny sweats hugged Blane’s legs, and a dark green T-shirt clung to his chest. His hair was wild, as if he’d been running his hands through it. He held a hand over his chest and worried his lower lip while he waited for me to look up into his eyes. When I did, I found worry and confusion.

  “So you heard?”

  He nodded. “Stupid Sonny.”

  Tilting my head at him, I narrowed my eyes. “You wound him up him even more when you tried to get out of your bet. Because of me.”

  He stepped closer, still rubbing his chest, and laughed. “I got him this time, though.”

  “What now? You can’t fix this for me, tough guy.” When I jabbed him in the chest, he yelped. “Oh, don’t be such a baby!”

  “I’m not. I don’t have a lot of time to explain, but we have to get into town real quick.”

  “Why? I can’t go out there. These asses are following me around, asking me on a date so they can see Phish! Phish!”

  I burst out laughing and started to pull off my winter coat, which I only just realized I was still wearing, and truth be told, had worn all day. I’d stayed bundled in my down coat of armor for hours.

  “Leave it on,” Blane insisted. “We have to go.”

  “Would you stop! Where the hell do you want to go?”

  “Never mind, but you may want to change into something more comfortable first.”

  “Stop, Blane. What the hell is going on? I can’t hang with you. I’m about to lose my feminist card, and I have to go fix this with Sonny.” I looked down at my jeans and sweatshirt. “And what’s wrong with my clothes?”

  How dare Stanwick question my feminist tendencies? I was in the middle of telling a dude off for trying to tell me how to dress. Take that!

  “We’re going to fix this Sonny thing. Look.”

  Blane whipped off his shirt, and I would have been drooling over or licking his chiseled abs if my eyes weren’t squinting at the script tattoo under his right pec that read, Cate with a C.

  “Oh my fucking God, are you nuts? Have you gone crazy?”

  He grinned at me. “No, consider this me asking you on a date to go get a tattoo, and I consider my taking your arm your way of saying yes. Call Sonny, because winner, winner, chicken dinner, I won the tickets. It’s only fair you get a tattoo too, and now you can get The Stealer tattoo and get more tickets.”

  “Did you not hear me? What’s wrong with you?” Not waiting for his answer, I sat down on Tess’s bed. “I thi
nk I’m going to faint.”

  He sat next to me and ran his palm up and down my back. “Cate, it’s no big deal. It’s a tattoo. It’s a dare. Let’s go. We can have fun.”

  Squeezing my eyes shut, I breathed deeply. “Steele, I can’t get a tattoo with your nickname. Forget the fact that I don’t have any ink—”

  “Why is that?”

  Blane was still rubbing my back as he interrupted me. I felt myself melting with every gentle stroke along my spine.

  “Look at my shoulder.” He bent lower to show me a tattoo of a big bird with its wings spread. “It doesn’t hurt.”

  “No offense, but you have the kind of body that lends itself to removing your shirt.”

  He tackled me to the bed, keeping me pinned in place as he spoke into my ear. “Now I’m issuing my own dare, my fair lady. We’re going for the tat, and before I was going to suggest you get it on your wrist, but now it’s your back. Your gorgeous back that I’ll get to see naked.”

  I didn’t get a chance to answer because Tess and Shelby came stumbling through the door, “Let’s go, Catie! Tattoo time.”

  My eyes flew open wide as I gaped at them. “Have you been listening all this time?”

  “Damn right,” Tess said with an unapologetic grin. “The nun of Southern A is in my dorm with the Stealer, so I’m listening.”

  Before I could utter a word about Sonny, or Stanwick and my degree being in jeopardy, I was shoved into a big hooded sweatshirt and escorted downstairs.

  Catie

  We tumbled through some random door on College Avenue, the chimes ringing weakly beneath the heavy metal thundering from the speakers. My head throbbed, but not nearly as hard as my heart pounded. My hand was in Blane’s, and we were on a date.

  Not really.

  In reality, it was a ridiculous dare—just a contest—but my naive heart didn’t know that. I was pulled tight to Blane, my body plastered against his, and in my mind, this was a date.

  Which was why I’d permitted him to drag me all the way to a tattoo parlor and was about to permanently mark my body with his nickname. All of a sudden, I was a young girl trapped in a woman’s body, and he was a teen heartthrob.

  A muscular dude covered in tats seemed delighted to see us. “Steele, great! You’re here. I’ve been telling girl after girl we’re closed. Couldn’t put off business that much longer.” Turning his grin toward Tess, Shelby, and me, he asked, “Which one of you is the woman of the hour?”

  I stood there quietly, hoping Shelby would offer up her body. This guy looked like he knew what to do with it.

  “This one.” Blane shocked me when he tossed me over his shoulder and carried me to the back.

  “There are a million Italian women wagging their wooden spoons in your face right now. We don’t do cavemen,” I yelled, upside down and thrashing.

  “Well, I do,” he shot back.

  “Should we come?” Tess and Shelby’s combined voices carried down the hall.

  “No!” Blane and I shouted at the same time. Finally, we were on the same page.

  In the back room, Blane set me down on my feet, still grinning as I glared up at him.

  Getting himself comfortable at the tattoo table, the big guy said, “I’m Colby. You can thank me later for turning all the other chicks down. Pick your poison.” He tossed a few CDs toward me.

  “I guess you don’t have any Tori Amos?”

  “No,” Colby said and went back to his tools.

  A soft hum startled me.

  “Don’t worry, I’m gonna be quick,” he added under his breath. “Don’t say that too much to the ladies.”

  As Colby laughed at his own joke, Blane took the CDs from my hand and picked out some Enya.

  Soon “Enigma” filled the room, and Blane slipped his hand under my shirt and drew circle eights on my back. “Ready?”

  For what? Sex?

  How could he be so sexual in this moment?

  “This is just a dare, you know.” I studied his boyish features, so incongruous atop his huge frame, trying to use my brains rather than my emotions.

  “It is and it isn’t, but let’s do it anyway,” Blane said. His fingers ran up and down my spine, causing goose bumps to pop out along their path. “At the end of the day, I’m always about winning.”

  “So this is about Sonny.” My heart beat faster as I watched Colby practice writing The Stealer in script.

  “No, Cate. It’s about you. Don’t think for a second it’s about anything else. You think you aren’t desirable, but I disagree. I’m winning you.” Blane gripped my shoulder and pulled me close, dipping his face into my hair as he breathed me in.

  How many times had I told this cat to scat? Now he was being all tender and loving, as if I left milk out every night for him to lap up.

  I scanned the room, checking for hidden cameras. This must be some type of prank they were going to upload to YouTube later. Feminist goes gaga for the jock.

  “Take your shirt off, Cate.”

  And like a victim of Stockholm Syndrome, I did. Laid on my stomach on the table, with my boobs smashed painfully beneath me and Blane Steele rubbing my shoulders, I got my first tattoo. The Stealer, scrolled across my left shoulder.

  Of course, Colby did the honors, snapping a pic on his iPhone and tweeting it to @SonnyB_KnocknBoots as fast as he could before I snapped back to reality.

  “We should turn on the radio,” Colby said as I tried to pay him, shoving some cash his way. He waved me off. “On the house.”

  “No radio,” I countered.

  Colby shrugged. “Fine by me.”

  Blane grabbed my hand and pulled me out to the front room where Tess and Shelby were waiting. Impatient, they pawed at my sweatshirt, trying to pull down the shoulder and get a glimpse of my tat.

  At the sight of my sour face, Blane grinned. “Come on, Cate, you have to have some fun in life. Right?”

  This from the guy who knew he was going to make millions next year. I, on the other hand, was going to have to look for a new job tomorrow. And a new major.

  Blane’s phone beeped, and he pulled it from his pocket.

  “Hey, what are you doing?” I asked.

  He shoved his phone in my face. “We’re making headlines. Look.”

  @Hafton101:

  Rumor has it that @CuteCatieP is the winner of the Phish tickets?!?! Doesn’t she work for the station?

  @HaftonSweetiePie:

  I got one too @CuteCatieP, and mine is better.

  A picture of a “The Stealer” tattoo was embedded with the tweet.

  Oh God. I hope Stanwick isn’t on Twitter.

  Catie

  Convinced I’d been roofied, I found myself at a party at Alex White’s place two days later. I was wearing black leggings tucked into my boots and a deep burgundy off-the-shoulder long-sleeved tee with a chocolate-brown cami underneath. The shirt was baggy enough to hide a few of my extra curves but kept slipping off my shoulder, revealing my most recent lapse in judgment.

  “Damn, girl . . . he wasn’t lying!” and “You did it!” and “Look at that fresh tat!” were the most overheard comments of the evening. I cursed my love of off-the-shoulder clothing, blaming New Jersey and Sarah Jessica Parker. It might be an oldie, but we grew up on a steady diet of the movie, Girls Just Want to Have Fun.

  Music blared all around me. A DJ spun tunes, and a makeshift dance floor had been erected in the living space. The team was on a high; they’d won their second non-conference game by forty-two points.

  Blane’s larger-than-life personality ruled the room.

  “Cream puffs,” Mo called out. “Nothing but a bunch of babies.”

  “Damn straight,” Blane yelled back. “Loser cream puffs!”

  “Go, Green!” Alex chimed in as he headed toward me.

  “So, you’re the little girl causing all the commotion,” he said, knocking his chin in my direction. His dreads were pulled back in a ponytail, and he was holding a bottle of beer that looked small in hi
s huge hand.

  “Be nice,” Blane growled. “I’m the one passing you the ball.”

  “Shut the fuck up, Steele,” Alex shot back, “and let me say hello to DJ girl.”

  “Hey, DJ girl is my nickname for her.”

  Someone came up behind me and ground their pelvis against my hip. I jumped forward and nearly knocked the beer out of Alex’s grip. Twirling around, I found Ashton standing there, smiling as if he’d just won the lottery.

  “Watch it, basketball boy,” I said, tossing his own barb back at him.

  “Ooh, her claws come out.” Alex slapped Blane five, and they laughed like wild hyenas.

  “Move out of my way,” Mo shouted over the chaos. He lifted me and spun me around. “Hello there, pretty lady.”

  “No. Just no.” Blane shook his head at Mo.

  Demetri, the most enormous of them all, growled his agreement. “Definitely no.”

  “I hear you!” Mo held his hands up in the air and backed off. “Look, I’m behaving.”

  I turned to look at Blane, and he mouthed later. I guessed he meant there was a story there.

  “So these are the guys—Alex, D, Mo—and I hear you met Ashton,” Blane muttered, pointing at each as he said their name.

  I recognized them all from my season of clandestine basketball watching. Now I was in the middle of their party, all of them gathered around my less-than-perfect body and chatting me up as if I were a good friend.

  This was not my life.

  “Now if y’all will move along.” Blane took my hand and led the way until we settled near the far side of the dance floor.

  We’d never collected our Phish tickets, and I’d ignored every text from Sonny. I forced myself not to think of my internship or Stanwick. Apparently, I didn’t want little things like my job or my major to get in the way of my new groupie status. In the span of a mere forty-eight hours, I’d apparently lost all direction in my life.

  “Take it easy, man,” Blane said to a freshman rookie, a tall, lanky black guy getting hammered on Crown Royal. “We have another game on Tuesday. I know you think you’re not playing, but you never know.”