Caught Off Guard: A Sports Romance Novella

by Kira Blakely

  His buzz was too obnoxious. Although he was silent in all reality, the silence was almost deafening. And fucking awkward.

  I was never good at just letting someone hover. I sighed and looked up, ready to tell him to leave me alone, but what I saw made my breath catch in my throat.

  He looked upset. Genuinely upset. And then I realized by “she left the party,” he meant she left him at the party.

  I sighed. “Are you okay?”

  “Kara is a bunch of drama,” he sighed, his eyes darting away from me. “I’m not sure why I can’t fall for simple girls. Like you, except for the fact that you hate me.”

  I rolled my eyes and chuckled slightly. “I don’t hate you, but I don’t really prefer to be called ‘simple’ either.” Simple to me meant simple-minded. “Don’t you need to find Kara – your ‘not’ girlfriend?” I asked, as I glanced over my shoulder at him.

  “Nah,” he laughed. “I think you’re probably right. She’s probably too busy with rush.”

  “Well, I can’t think to save my life here, so would you like to come back to my dorm with me and study?” I started gathering up my things and putting them in my bag. I barely even noticed that I had asked him back to my room until it was already out of my mouth, and I looked up at him.

  He was smiling wide. “Sure.”

  I was basically screaming at myself when I unlocked my dorm room. We were in the exact same spot we’d left just an hour or two before. Alone. In my dorm room.

  “So, tell me about yourself?” he asked, as he pulled Lindsey’s desk chair closer to my desk.

  I laughed. “What’s there to tell?” I still couldn’t believe he was in my room; that we were officially hanging out.

  “What’s your favorite color?” he asked.

  “Blue?” I laughed. “What did this have to do with anything?

  “Favorite animal?”

  “Penguin.”

  “Favorite food?”

  “Meatloaf.”

  “Meatloaf?!” he asked, clutching his chest animatedly and feigning offense.

  “Yeah!” I defended. “What’s wrong with meatloaf?!”

  “It’s such a weird thing to call your favorite!”

  “Why?!”

  “Because it’s so–” He stammered as he spoke.

  “–Simple?” I asked, laughing as I finished his sentence.

  He chuckled, his smile remaining even as he spoke. “Clever.”

  I couldn’t believe it. It was only a matter of time that he had me laughing, almost completely forgetting about my homework or my studies. And not only that, he had somehow brought along the impression that maybe – just maybe – he wasn’t so bad after all.

  “Let me guess, your favorite food is something refined like Duck Confit or something?”

  He laughed, “Medium rare….”

  I found myself looking at him a little longer than I should have, and I was smiling. It was that realization, though, that bothered me.

  I cleared my throat. “I really should probably get back to work… I bet you should be studying, too. I think that’s why I invited you here in the first place.” There was something about my tone that was playful. I knew that there was. I hadn’t meant for it to sound playful. I had meant for it to be used as a firm transition to move away from whatever it was that I was thinking about – and feeling for him.

  But here I was, flirting with my tone.

  It was so weird coming out of my mouth. Almost awkward. I was so used to being frustrated and sarcastic, but never playful. Especially with a guy like this.

  But, there was something nice about it, too. Something nice about just being at ease. Something nice about the only tenseness in the room being because of how sexy I found him.

  I cleared my throat and looked down at the same physics assignment I’d been having trouble with in the library and bit my pencil as I struggled to focus on the problem. I squinted, my brows probably furrowing as I tried to concentrate. Not only was the question particularly difficult, but I just realized that I could smell Devon’s cologne.

  It was sweet and masculine all at the same time – like sandalwood and citrus were blending together in a perfect marriage of scents.

  When he leaned over me, I smelled it even more, and couldn’t help but close my eyes in response, relishing in it. I felt a chill roll up and down my spine as I breathed him in and wanted to kick myself for letting the scent invigorate and ignite a fire in the depths of my belly and below.

  He pulled one of my pens from the jar at the far side of my desk, and then my post-it notes. I was trying my best to ignore him, so that I wouldn’t say or do anything stupid – that was, until he began jotting a note down.

  “What are you doing?” I asked. He didn’t have any books out, so I knew that he wasn’t likely taking notes.

  “Writing a note to Kara,” he said in a tone that I couldn’t quite place. But instead of focusing on it, I rolled my eyes and continued working on the question, growling a little in frustration.

  He chuckled, and the next thing I knew, a small post-it note sized paper airplane hit me in the ear. If looks could kill, mine probably would have killed him because I turned, my eyes narrowed into slits, heat filling my cheeks.

  “Get out!” I growled. “Jesus! I need to concentrate.” I wasn’t sure why I was so annoyed, other than the fact that he was hot as hell and distracting me with his stupidity and good looks all at the same time, and I was having an unusually difficult time with physics.

  He laughed as I slapped his arm to force him up. “I’m serious! Out!” He laughed some more as he turned around and popped his ass out, damn near hitting me in the face with it.

  “I’m bootylicious!” he said, giggling before skipping out of my room.

  I couldn’t help but laugh as I watched him skip out and close the door behind him. His smell still lingered in the air as I turned around to face my desk again. When I glanced down at my book, I saw the purple piece of post-it note that he’d just thrown at me, and noticed writing on it.

  “What the hell?” I unfolded it, and my breath literally caught in my throat at what I saw… A huge run-down of the physics problem I’d been struggling with, and then finally circled was:

  d2x/dt2 = —Rw2

  He was right.

  But, how the hell had he done it so quickly?

  ***

  I couldn’t believe how much he’d been invading my mind ever since I read the post-it note. Was he really that smart? He had seemed like such a dumbass.

  “Why do you play the idiot role?” I whispered while we were in lab again that week.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he whispered back, as he shook the vile of fruit flies he held in his hand.

  “What are you doing?!” I yelled, before snatching the two vials away from him.

  He scoffed. “They’re just flies!”

  “They’re our experiment! If they die, they can’t mate, and then we have no crosses. And if we have no crosses, then we can’t evaluate them. And if we can’t evaluate them, then we fail!”

  He had a wide smile on his face, and I was getting pissed just looking at it. “Stop being such an asshole!” I yelled, and as soon as I did, I felt everyone’s eyes fall on us. I noticed his smile had faded.

  He shook his head and looked away from me completely before picking up an empty vial and the bags of miscellaneous media ingredients. He pulled out the yeast, angrily slamming it down, followed by sugar and a bag of oats. “It looks like we’ve just gone grocery shopping,” I quipped.

  “They’re fruit flies, dumbass,” he snapped.

  “Jesus, I’m sorry for yelling,” I whispered. “Just talk to me and let’s get through this. There’s no need to call me names.”

  “Look,” he snapped in a whisper. “This is who I am. Take it or leave it. Like me or don’t. I don’t care.”

  “So, you’re an asshole?” I asked, my brow raising.

  “Clearly!” he snapped, befo
re throwing the vials and everything down. Not only did he throw them down, he also pushed them away from him and toward me, and turned on his heels and left.

  He power-walked straight out of the lab.

  “Son of a bitch,” I muttered.

  So much for not being that bad – or being smart – he was an idiot and a dickhead.

  ***

  Later that night, I found myself forking at my spaghetti noodles and sighing as I looked around at the room. There was no one in there. Absolutely no one. Not that I liked going into the cafeteria during normal hours. It was loud and there was that awkward dance of whom to sit with, whom not to sit with. I wasn’t into any of that.

  I hadn’t really made any friends yet either, so it was all well and good.

  I glanced out the window. There was a slight haze of fog outside, and I knew it was only a matter of time before the rain came rolling in. I sighed. A gloomy night for a gloomy meal.

  The food was surprisingly good. When I was required to buy a meal plan, I was sort of leery about it all, being cafeteria food and all – but really, the food was actually pretty good.

  I slurped my pasta and looked over to the window again. The street lights were pretty around campus, as they glowed a warm, ember color. I craned my neck, trying to see anyone down below, but it looked like the entire campus was deserted.

  I knew that wasn’t true, though.

  “We’re getting ready to close up, hon…” one of the cafeteria workers said loudly from across the large dining hall.

  I nodded and started scarfing the rest of my pasta down like my life depended on it, not caring if tomato sauce was splattering everywhere.

  A body approached me, and I nodded just before speaking, my mouth still full, “I’m almost done.” My mouth was full as I spoke.

  “Hey.” The voice of the person said, as the screeching sound of a chair being pulled across tile erupted in the room. “Is it okay if I sit?”

  I looked up, a noodle still hanging out of my mouth, and immediately wanted to die.

  It was Devon.

  He’d just asked if he could sit? After that crazy bipolar fit he threw in the lab, I assumed he hated me.

  I nodded, hoping to God that he hadn’t just seen me scarfing down the last bit of my spaghetti.

  “I’m glad I found you. Lindsey said you eat dinner at this time every night. Look, I’m sorry for acting like such an asshole and ruining the lab–” he trailed, his eyes not really ever looking into mine. In fact, he wasn’t looking at me at all. He kept his eyes down on the table in front of me and my empty, tomato-smeared plate. “You know, my dad… uh…” he stammered just before clearing his throat.

  “Okay, love birds!” the same lady from earlier hollered. “I need to clear this place out!” She held a smile. I knew she wasn’t angry – only tired. I nodded and grabbed my tray firmly.

  “Here, let me.” He grabbed hold of my tray and gently pulled it out of my hands. His fingers grazed my hand, and I couldn’t help but feel a tiny jolt of electricity spark over my skin. I smiled, but chose to ignore it.

  It was obvious he was attractive. There was no denying that.

  But school came first. Getting to the bottom of why he wanted to pretend to be dumb and make me stress about my biology grade was first.

  “Your dad?” I urged, trying to get back to the thought process he’d just been on as we journeyed toward the garbage and tray return.

  “My dad just wants me to concentrate on football, not academics. He’s in the NFL.” He was talking quickly and almost breathlessly as if he was nervous. “I won’t mess up anymore because I know that affects you, but I just do the bare minimum to get by. If I do some work, the professors go easy on me and don’t really expect more, so I don’t really have to worry about studying. That’s my dad’s plan… not to let any of the academics get in the way of football so I can go pro in a year or so.”

  I nodded, “Sounds pretty heavy.”

  “Yeah. It’s pressure, but nothing I’m not used to. But um… I broke up with Kara,” he said, sighing. “My dad didn’t want me getting too serious with a girl. Not that I was getting really serious with her. But he says that as soon as they get possessive, it’s time to say goodbye, and she was getting pretty possessive. Crazy, actually.”

  “My dad” was a phrase he seemed to continue to recite over and over and over again, the more he talked. We were walking from the cafeteria and through the student union, heading toward the double-doors leading outside, and all I could do was listen intently. I still wasn’t sure about him.

  He kept reeling me in, and then pissing me off… only to reel me in all over again.

  As soon as he opened the double-doors and we stepped out into the night, my bare arms covered in goosebumps, and a chill rolled up and down my spine. I could tell that summer was coming to a close, and fall was just on the horizon. It was getting colder and the night was falling sooner.

  “So, I was thinking,” he said, smoothing his hand over his head and looking at me, “we can go back into the lab and work on that project I got pissed and threw earlier. We can do it the right way, if you’d like?”

  I scoffed. “You can actually do it the right way?”

  He nudged me with his shoulder, his broad body nearly knocking me over. I laughed, struggling to hold myself steady and looked him up and down. The more my eyes scanned over him, the more I realized that I was still very much attracted to him. God help me. I wasn’t sure if it was his doofy, jerkish personality or if it was the fact that he was so god damn toned that he looked like he belonged on the cover of Men’s Health.

  I didn’t know what it was, really. Maybe it was a combination of things.

  Maybe it was the fact that he was so damn mysterious. I just couldn’t put a finger on what it was that I thought about him.

  All I knew was that I had never quite felt the way that I had felt in that moment. I wasn’t sure what it was exactly. The only thing I did know was that it probably wasn’t a good thing. No matter what it was that I felt about him, no matter how attracted I was, I knew he’d never feel the same way.

  He said it himself: I was simple.

  I wasn’t his type.

  I wasn’t that cheerleader trophy wife he’d have some day as an NFL star, and let’s face it, I didn’t know anything about football, and I sure as hell didn’t follow his or his dad’s football careers, but I knew that if his dad was in the NFL, his chances of success were better than most.

  Chapter Nine – Callie

  It was sort of eerie being in the lab with no one else around. I was surprised the building or the lab were just open. All the chemistry labs were locked up, but I guess that made sense. Chemistry had chemicals that were dangerous, and I knew how stupid college students were. I was looking at one of the idiot party-animals at that moment, and I knew he – and his dumbass friends – would probably be the sort to sneak into a chemistry department lab and steal shit just to see it blow up or to maybe get high on something.

  Well, maybe not Devon in that regard. He’d probably be expelled if he failed his drug tests, I was guessing or, at the very least, benched. I didn’t think – after all he’d told me about his dad – that he’d risk it.

  “You look pretty with your hair down,” he said, as he grabbed the box of fresh vials from the cabinets in the back of the lab. I hadn’t even noticed that my hair was down. I usually had it up in a ponytail, and I didn’t really even notice that either, if I was being honest.

  In fact, it wasn’t until he mentioned it that I’d ever even thought about it.

  I felt a blush in my cheek as heat flushed over my entire face.

  “Thanks for suggesting this. This grade means a lot to me.” I cleared my throat as nerves twisted in the pit of my stomach. What the hell was wrong with me? Why was my body reacting so intensely to him? What was the tension that seemed to be thickening between us? What the fuck was going on?

  Why was I concentrating on all of this instead of th
e assignment he’d been nice enough to offer to work on during his own free time to make amends?

  He smirked. “I figured. This is your major, huh?”

  “Yeah…”

  “Did you always like bio?” he asked, as he sorted the ingredients out on the nearest lab table.

  “I have, but it’s more than that. I need to do well. I’m here on a scholarship. And besides,” I said, grabbing hold of the sugar, “if I don’t get an ‘A’ in this class, I know my parents will come down hard on me. They didn’t go to college and they regret it, so anything below a 4.0 isn’t really acceptable to them.”

  “Guess we have something in common,” he mused. I looked up at him.

  “What’s that?” I asked, smiling as soon as I saw a dimple form in his cheek. How had I never seen that before? It was only on one side of his face, but it was definitely present. I blushed and looked away, almost chastising myself immediately with how stupid I was acting. What the hell was I doing?

  “Both of our parents put pressure on us,” he said, shaking me free from my thoughts, but only for a moment.

  Because in the next moment, he completely entrapped my thoughts – more than anyone or anything ever had.

  He leaned in closely, and grabbed hold of my waist. I felt my breath catch in my throat.

  He leaned in further, my gut whirling on its own accord. He was getting closer… and closer… and closer… until I felt his lips brush over mine.

  I stiffened, not sure of what to do until I realized that I wasn’t doing anything.

  I wasn’t kissing him back.

  I was just standing there like a complete idiot, letting the hottest man I’d ever seen kiss me, but not doing anything to keep it going.

  Hell, it took me noticing that his eyes were closed before I realized that mine weren’t.

  Shit. Shit! My mind started to reel as if an old movie film wheel had gone haywire. Eventually, my eyes slammed shut and I fell into the kiss. I had no idea how long it took though. I had no idea if he even noticed my hesitation. All I knew was that it didn’t seem to bother him if he had noticed, because before I knew it, we were in a full-on embrace.