Just Playin': Romantic Sports Comedy

by Shandi Boyes

  I rush over to save her, but my liberation comes too late. Willow’s knee becomes friendly with the man’s groin before I get within an inch of her. He topples to the ground like I did weeks ago, his screams as tormented as the ones I shredded when I felt seconds from death.

  When Willow leans over his fetal-curled frame, I expect her to offer him the same assistance she gave me. She doesn’t. She lays her boot into his ribs, her kick firm enough to cover his sports blazer with peanut shells.

  “John Farnham is a national icon! How dare you compare him to Peter Andre!”

  She makes a gagging noise, like everyone within a five-mile radius understands who she’s talking about. We have no fucking clue. The dozen or so people surrounding her are peering at her with as much blankness in their eyes as my face is holding.

  “So no, Archer-Mac-Farcher, I don’t want to show you my map of Tasmania. Australia has enough droughts to contend with without adding the dryness your tacky ‘I’ll make you so wet you’ll fill a river’ line caused the area between my legs.”

  After a final sneer that includes an incredibly cute screwed up nose and prolonged stare, Willow steps over a writhing Archer to head back to the bar. She makes it two steps away before she notices me at the side, gawking at her. I expect her sass to continue, to give me as good as she gave Archer, but she does no such thing. She withers like a picked flower left on the windowsill in the midday sun before racing toward the exit.

  Her race through the crowd is made with ease. I’m not so lucky. I’m stopped and asked for autographs multiple times, and the ones without a Sharpie hover close to pat me on the back in silent congratulations on the supposed “great game” I had.

  By the time I make it outside, my car is getting a boot placed on it, and Willow is halfway down the block.

  “I’ll be back.” I give the parking attendant a severe finger point before taking off after Willow.

  A squeak pops out of her mouth when I band my arm around her waist, tug her into my torso, then spin her around. I probably just scared the living hell out of her, but with my car seconds from being towed, I don’t have time to offer an introduction.

  “Please not tonight, E. My stomach is swirling, and your car just got back its new car smell. Do you really want to risk it?”

  I tug her into my embrace a little tighter, loving that she called me “E.” Elvis is the annoying nickname I was given by a football camp coach who had an obsession with the “King of Rock.” Like everything when you’re seventeen, it spread through camp like wildfire. By the end of the day, everyone was using it.

  Unfortunately, even those closest to me knowing how much I hate it hasn’t stopped them from using it. Thank fuck I’m mostly referred to by my last name. It’s the name commentators and fans scream when I’m sprinting down the sideline or throwing a perfect ball to the receiver, so for the most part, Elvis is an alias only those closest to me use. But I like “E.” It has a nice ring to it. Especially when it’s voiced by an inebriated Australian girl who could read the dictionary and make it sound sexy.

  Willow sags into my chest when I ask, “Did you eat anything before you went out drinking? Or did you chug them down like a novice on an empty stomach?”

  I take her groan for an answer.

  “I’d rather extract half a bottle of vodka out of my interior than a doner kebab loaded with tzatziki sauce.”

  “Mmm, a doner kebab sounds mighty enticing right now.”

  I continue walking us back to my car. My steps are slow since Willow’s dangling legs are swaying precariously between my splayed thighs. The last thing I want is another whack to the nuts.

  “We’ll look at a greasy kebab tomorrow—when you’re begging for something to soak up the leftover slosh in your belly.”

  When we reach the passenger side door of my car, I swing my eyes to Mister Mystra’s. “Where’s Skylar?”

  I scan the crowd seeking the blonde bombshell Willow painted in painstaking detail last night. Her description was so vivid, I was convinced I had met Skylar before, but it didn’t take me long to realize the errors of my ways. We had never crossed paths; Skylar is just the quintessential American college girl. Long blonde hair, big cornflower blue eyes, and a body that apparently makes men drool.

  If I hadn’t heard the pride in Willow’s voice when she described her friend, I would have thought she was jealous, although she has no reason to be. Willow might not be a typical, everyday girl, but she has plenty going for her. Enough that several men on the sidewalk are more than happy to sneak a peek at her thighs when her unladylike slide into my car causes her skirt to ride up well past her knee.

  I slam the door shut, nearly drowning out Willow’s reply that Skylar left twenty minutes ago. I’m about to go on a rant about safety in numbers at college hangouts, but my front tires lifting from the road surface forces it to the backburner. I don’t just have a boot on my tire, but my car is being towed.

  “Come on, man, you can’t take my car. Look at my friend; she’s nearly passed out in the passenger seat. If you tow my vehicle, I’ll have no way to get her home. Do you really want that on your conscience?”

  The parking officer’s hand looks like a duck jabbering away before he continues filling in the citation he is planning to give me. “This is a red zone. Red does not mean stop. It means you can’t park here.” He talks to me like I’m an idiot, as if my skills on the field are the only skillset I have. “Your vehicle will be impounded at the Walter Street impound lot. Once you’ve paid your fine and the impound fee, it will be returned to you. It opens at 5 AM.”

  He rips off my citation notice before pivoting around to face me. I’ve never been more grateful for a recognizable face than I am right now. He stammers backward, his eyes widening with every fumbled step he makes.

  “You’re. . . You’re. . . Oh. My. God!” His last three squealed words shred my eardrums. It was worse than any female fan I’ve heard in my life.

  Before he can blow my cover to a curious Willow watching our exchange with an eagle eye, I pace closer to him. “Hey, I’m Presley Carlton; it’s a pleasure to meet you. Have you been a 69ers fan for long?”

  He looks seconds from passing out as he answers, “Only my whole life. My dad is a 69ers fan; his dad is a 69ers fan; hell, even my granddad’s dad was a 69ers fan.”

  “That’s awesome, man, really great. So I take it a pair of season tickets wouldn’t be of any interest to you, would they?”

  His pupils turn massive as sweat beads on his top lip. “Season tickets?”

  He’s certain he heard me wrong.

  He didn’t.

  “Yep. I’ve got a few passes lying around, not doing anything. They’re yours, if you want them?”

  “Oh, please, sir, yes, sir, I’d love them, sir.” His hurried words remind me of Oliver Twist asking for some more gruel in Oliver!

  “Alright, great. Can I borrow your pen to write down where you need to pick up the tickets?” He shoves his pen into my hand even faster than he did my fine. “I’ll give you the ticket agent’s name and number, then all you need to do is hand him this, and he’ll give you the passes.” I nudge my head to the citation in my hand. “Where should I jot down the information he needs? On here, perhaps?”

  I give him a look, one that says we won’t be exchanging any details without him giving as much as he’s receiving.

  It takes him a few seconds to understand, but when he does, his head bobs up and down. “Yeah, that will be great. While you do that, I’ll get that pesky boot off your tire.”

  “Perfect.”

  I flash him my trademark smirk before filling in the details as requested. Every letter I scribble increases Danny’s imaginary whine in my ear. Season passes don’t come cheap, but if it saves my cover being blown and a pricy impound fee, I’m happy to lose a few thousand from my bank account.

  Once the boot is removed from my tire, I hand the parking officer my fine. “There you go, all set. It was a pleasure doing busines
s with you.”

  He stumbles out a hundred apologies in one sentence. I only catch half of them since I’m too busy sliding into the driver’s seat of my car and hightailing it down the street before Willow catches on to what our exchange was about.

  I shouldn’t have bothered. She’s fast asleep, her faint snores barely audible over the healthy purr of my engine.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Willow

  I wake with a grumbling tummy. Its frantic moans aren’t due to the copious amounts of liquor I chugged down last night. It’s the delicious scent of frying lamb and fresh-cut lettuce instigating its gripes.

  I sit up slowly, anticipating more than a hungry tummy. I’m shocked when only a slight thump drums my temples. With the exception of my horrid morning breath, I don’t feel any different today than I do every other morning.

  As my mouth works through its dryness, my half-asleep brain demands that my eyes open. With my hangover not as bad as I expected, the need for a greasy breakfast isn’t dire, but nothing will keep me from unearthing where that smell is coming from.

  The thumping head I was predicting rolls in like a vicious thunderstorm when my eyes finally follow the prompts of my brain. I’m in a room much too fancy to be a dorm. There’s steel, wood, and manly features as far as my weary eyes can stretch. It’s a sexy room with an industrial, loft-type feel to it, but it’s not a room I belong in.

  Cringing at my first walk of shame in over three years, I snatch the bedsheet close to my body before slipping out of the ginormous bed I’m sprawled on. With the plain white T I’m wearing hitting my knees upon standing, I soon ditch the bedsheet.

  Years of ballet classes come in handy when I tiptoe across the vast room to gather my skirt, shirt, and sky-high heels from a large wood chest. After peering over the steel and wood railing to the floor below to make sure the coast is clear, I slip the unknown man’s shirt over my head before throwing on the clothes I wore last night.

  The clean scent of body wash lingering out of the bathroom on my right makes me wish I had time to shower and brush my teeth, but the happy whistle of the man downstairs assures me I’m out of time. While tugging my skirt up my trembling thighs, I try to recall who I went home with last night. I really hope it wasn’t Archer; that guy was a creep. Tim wasn’t too far behind him, and although Bryce was cute, he had those nervous fumbling hands. I’m sure the only zippers he has unclasped in his life are his own.

  Whoever it is, the lack of ache between my thighs makes me grateful for my blank thoughts. As my grandma always liked to say: “If you don’t feel them the next morning, they didn’t do their job.” I’m not feeling anything.

  With my heels in my hand and my purse tucked under my arm, I commence my painstakingly slow tiptoe down the spiral staircase separating the loft bedroom from the main residence. If my hungry tummy had its way, I would take a left at the bottom instead of a right. I don’t know what my unknown host is cooking, but it smells good.

  I swivel around, ready to make a break for it, when the quick glimpse of a profile sneaks into my sight. So much muscle, so much height, so much scrumptiously delicious man meat on display, my foot misses the final step. I try to regain my balance. I flap my arms around like a recently beheaded chicken and stick out my ass like it will counterbalance the many pounds I carry on my chest. My efforts are useless. I’m going down, and I’m going down hard.

  As my cheek skids across the floor, my skirt creeps up my thighs so high, if it weren’t for my boobs, it would asphyxiate me. My shirt becomes a mid-drift top, and my only hope of coverage goes skidding across the wooden floor with a clatter. My heels’ brutal dong, boink, dong routine sounds like Santa galloping across a hot tin roof in the Australian outback. It’s loud and unmissable.

  I’ve barely concealed my panty-covered backside when a deep voice on my right says, “Serves you right for trying to sneak out.”

  While I attempt to muster up a lie, Elvis takes a giant bite out of a loaded doner kebab. When white sauce dribbles down his chin, my pussy recreates the scene. It doesn’t use tzatziki sauce as its liquid of choice, though.

  As I stand to my feet, without any assistance from Elvis, my eyes shift past the wide span of his shoulders. The mess in his kitchen reveals his delicious-smelling brunch wasn’t picked up at the store. He made it. The chopped lettuce, diced tomatoes, and sliced cucumber are proof enough, much less the seasoned lamb still sizzling in the pan.

  My lip drops into a pout when I return my eyes to Elvis. I didn’t need any more proof on how cruel life can be, but if I did, the very definition of unfair is standing right in front of me. This isn’t fair—he isn’t fair! You can’t have a perfectly structured face, panty-wetting smile, cooking skills, and a body that defies both logic and my panties’ ability to hold moisture.

  Elvis doesn’t just have a six pack, he has eight. His serratus muscles are so defined, it looks like he has fingers on each side of his abs, and his Apollo belt is so perfectly carved, his hips are in direct symmetry to the trail of hair leading from his belly button to an area I’m certain is as stacked as his spectacular body.

  I freeze as a disturbing notion rolls through my head. Minus the frantic quivers his naked torso, bare feet, and sultry smirk has caused my pussy, it’s still void of any feeling. There’s no ache of exhaustion or a snippet of the sensation you get after being stretched. There’s nothing. Zilch. Sweet fuck all.

  A whine creeps up my esophagus when the truth smacks into me. That’s why he’s so incredibly handsome: he got double the looks because he only got half the deal downstairs.

  Elvis looks at me like I’m batshit crazy when I demand, “Stick out your tongue.”

  “What?”

  “Tongue, E. Stick it out.”

  He smiles a grin that reveals he loves his nickname as much as I do before doing as requested. He has a nice tongue. Nice pink coloring, wide, and nicely curved at the tip, and his reach is undisputable when it hits his chin once it’s fully extended.

  “Alright, good. That’s great. Now your fingers.”

  “What the fuck are you doing. . .?” His words trail off when I snag his hand with mine, un-ball his fist, then mentally measure the length of his fingers.

  There are no issues here. Not a single one. His fingers are longer and girthier than some men’s penises, meaning we are more than fine, we’re great. I can live without penile penetration if the rest of the package can take up the slack.

  Feeling much better, I drop Elvis’s hand, side-skirt him, then enter his kitchen. I make myself at home by whipping up a lamb kebab. I should be going home, but my excitement at discovering I spent the night with Elvis instead of one of the three musketeers I was hanging with last night is too thrumming to ignore. Even my run-in with the teary-eyed girl yesterday morning and Skylar’s demand we watch football couldn’t dampen my happiness yesterday. Our kiss was the highlight of my entire day, so if I’m presented with the perfect opportunity to recreate it, I’m not giving it up for anything.

  Elvis watches me from the side, not the least bit confronted I’m taking over his domain. From the grin on his face, anyone would swear he’s loving my command of the reins. I can see him changing his mind when I start grilling him.

  “What happened between us? First, second, or third base?” I take a big bite of my recently rolled kebab before raising my eyes to his. “I didn’t fall asleep halfway through, did I? That’s only happened once before, and I was adamant I’d never let it happen again, so please tell me I gave as good as I received.”

  Praying it will hide the mammoth smile stretching across my face from the lowering of Elvis’s eyelids, I take another bite of my kebab. He’s so worked up right now, the vein in his neck is pumping as hard as the buzz keeping my clit firm.

  That’s why I’m stirring him. I either tease him or climb him like a tree. Considering I have no clue how I got here, or what he thinks of me right now, the former is the safer option.

  Elvis answers my question
without words by nudging his head to the left. There’s a white sheet sprawled over a two-seater couch—a couch much too small to sleep a man as tall as him. Even I would struggle sleeping on it.

  Grimacing, I return my eyes to Elvis. “So no sleep for you, then?”

  “No.” He looks at me with twinkling eyes while popping the last piece of his kebab into his mouth. “The couch wasn’t the issue, though.” I’m about to ask what was, but he puts me out of my misery before I can. “Your snoring was.”

  Spit-covered lamb flies out of my mouth when I make a pfft noise. “I do not snore.”

  My teeth rip through my kebab like I’m a savage animal, wordlessly advising Elvis what will happen to his package if he continues with his snoring accusation. His sausage is about to be cut in half for the second time in his life.

  Elvis shrugs off my warning, not the least bit worried. “Your snoring is worse than a freight train.” He makes noises identical to the ones I heard when Skylar recorded me sleeping to prove her theory on my supposed “drunk snoring issue.”

  “Are you sure you weren’t being kept awake by your own snoring? Scientists have proved every man on the planet snores.”

  Elvis rounds the counter to prop his hip next to mine, interested to hear the theory he sees in my eyes. When he folds his thick, bulging arms in front of his chest, I enlighten him with my profound knowledge, “When men lie on their backs, their balls fall in front of their butthole, causing a vapor lock. With one hole blocked, their only remaining one has to double its production. Digestive fumes, beer gas, even weed gas is vented out of their mouths. Hence the snoring.”

  I vibrate my lips together, making a neigh noise. It turns into a squeal when Elvis snags a damp tea towel from the kitchen counter and uses it to whip me. As I charge across his large, yet still homey loft apartment, I shove the last two bites of my kebab into my mouth.