by Hughes, Maya
Johanssen hit the ground and was up on his feet in a split second. He got in my face, banging his helmet into mine.
“Enjoy your season, Vaughn.” His sneer could’ve peeled paint off a car.
Even with my solid block the rest of the game turned into a clusterfuck. The defense might as well have not been on the field with the times STFU strolled into the end zone. LJ managed an interception in the final quarter when Coach finally let him off the bench, but it wasn’t enough. With the pressure on, Austin couldn’t compensate like Nix would have been able to.
Our first game of the season ended with a morale-crushing 12-43 loss. Somewhere in the stands Jules had watched that bloodbath. Not exactly how I wanted to kick things off.
We all stood up to shake hands at the end of the game. There was silence from our lineup. I took the front right behind Austin. “You did your part.”
“It wasn’t enough.” His head dropped.
“We’ll pull it out. Everyone loves a comeback, right?” Keyton piped up from behind me.
“At least you guys got more than eight minutes on the field.” LJ leaned out of the line.
“You made your time count,” I called back to him. We needed him out there on defense. Whatever Coach had against him was seriously fucking with the team mojo. Everyone was uneasy about the possibility of getting on Coach’s bad side for some unknown reason and being dumped on the sidelines. Coach pushed LJ harder than anyone in practice, he was one of our best players and he was riding the bench more than any senior with his talent should.
We walked past the other team, shaking hands and good gaming it. Familiar dull green eyes glared and loomed over everyone else.
“Have a good summer, Vaughn?” Johanssen shouted, still three guys from me.
“Yeah, it was fine.” What the hell was his deal? He played every game like it was life and death. That it wasn’t just our futures on the line, but the ability to keep breathing.
“I’m coming for you next game, Austin.”
“Like you weren’t coming for me this time.” Austin shook his hand and didn’t grimace as Johanssen squeezed.
I shoved at Johanssen’s shoulder, breaking his grip. “Back the fuck off him. Maybe you’ve had your bell rung one too many times, but you need to chill.”
“He protects you on and off the field? How precious.” Then he turned his sneer to me and his whole face shifted like his own personal rain cloud now included thunder. “But who protects you?”
I hadn’t thought there was anything more frightening than Johanssen’s sneer; I was wrong. His smile was straight up nightmare fuel.
“Don’t let him get in your head. You’ve got this.” I clapped Austin on his shoulder. The plastic meets flesh sound ricocheted off the cement ceiling of the tunnel and cut through the trudging noise of everyone heading into the locker room.
There were no massive celebrations, Gatorade pours and yelling. There was only the slow march toward the chewing out we were all getting once the locker room door closed.
But at the end of the tunnel like a damn lighthouse in turbulent seas, Jules stood beside a couple of security guards, clutching a box to her chest.
I left Austin behind and made a beeline straight to her. The navy coat and white scarf were topped off with a cute hat with a little fluffy ball on top. She looked like something out of a still life painting of winter. All she needed was a mug of hot chocolate, or maybe a pair of ice skates.
“Sorry about your game.” She nudged her glasses up, even though they hadn’t fallen. It was a little quirk of hers she did whenever she was nervous.
“It’s okay.” I sounded like Coach had just made me run ten laps. My heart rate was kicked back into higher gear than when confronting Johanssen. “Did you bring me something?” I nodded toward the box in her hands.
I waved her through security and stepped down one of the hallways off the tunnel, keeping an ear out for the Coach shouting my name for not being inside the locker room for my reaming with along with everyone else.
She cringed. “I might’ve jumped the gun with these.”
I lifted the box lid with one finger. With a letter on each cupcake, the word “Congrats” was spelled out. Swiping my finger across the top of one, I scooped up a dollop of the rich chocolate frosting and stuck it in my mouth. Heaven on earth. The only thing that could possibly taste better than this frosting would be Jules’ lips.
Dropping the lid, I stared back at her. “It was you. You jinxed us.”
“What?” Her eyes widened and her lips parted as she shook her head. “No, I didn’t mean to.”
I couldn’t even string out the teasing with how miserable she sounded.
“It was a joke, Frenchie.” A ripple of hesitation between us. I pulled a bit of lint off her coat. The perfect cover for letting my fingers skim across her neck. “Thanks for thinking we’d pull out the win.” I took the box from her hand, not letting her use it as a buffer between us. My day was shitty, but there was one balm to make me forget I’d even played today.
“Next time I’ll write a more generic message.” She kept her eyes trained on the number eleven on the front of my jersey. “Like, ‘Interesting Game’ or ‘Great Uniform’.”
“You plan on coming to my next game.” There were light freckles across the bridge of her nose. The ones I’d first seen in the greenhouse and kept discovering new ones. Tiny little footprints across the tops of her cheeks. I wanted to know everything else about her I hadn’t seen yet. What else was there to discover about Jules? I wanted to write the encyclopedia.
“If a certain player can get my ticket again, I’d love to.” She tilted her head and her gaze bounced up and away again.
I didn’t want that. I wanted her gaze on me. Her thoughts on me. Her body screaming out for me as much as mine yearned for hers.
“That can be arranged, especially if you keep promising me after-game treats. Consolation or celebration, I’m up for them anytime.”
Her laugh came out as a tight stutter. “That could be interpreted as a little dirty.”
I’d hire a damn skywriter if that’s what it took.
“If it still needs interpretation, maybe I should be a bit clearer.” I ran my finger under her chin.
Her gaze lifted away from the box to meet mine. “Clearer?”
“Much.” I set the box on the floor—for once food was the last thing I was thinking about, but that didn’t mean I didn’t appreciate all her time and effort. I’d watched her in the kitchen enough times to know how much attention each cookie or cupcake got before they made it into anyone’s hands.
My adrenaline pumped in my veins, a thumping throbbing that wasn’t going away now that we were off the field. I wasn’t going to play the game we were playing anymore, not without going for the win.
I dropped my pads and wrapped my arm around her back, sinking one hand into her hair, letting my fingers wind around her silky, inky curls.
A small gasp shot from her lips and I couldn’t hold back my smile. I was filled with the feeling that made you forget everything else and want to bottle up that single moment of pure, unrelenting and unparalleled joy.
“Much.” And I wasn’t taking any chances this time. Voices rang out against the concrete around us. Players, coaches, and everyone else in this gridiron circus flowed past us, past our little island in the middle of madness. But I couldn’t hold it back any longer; like a dam in a torrential rain storm, I was overwhelmed by her.
And kissed the shit out of her.
The electric fire of desire coursed through my veins and the only antidote was her touch.
20
Jules
His lips were soft and unyielding all at once. Fireworks erupted in my head. A colorful, sparking display with a new road lit up with each press of his lips and swipe of his tongue, which was nearing the grand finale.
I sank into him like I’d lost all motor functions.
He cupped the back of my neck and controlled the kiss. D
elving deeper and deeper into my mouth and stealing away every breath like it would be his last. His tongue danced with mine like we had out on the dance floor, only his tongue wasn’t nearly as polite. A raging heat burned in my stomach and that traveled lower, creating a throbbing ache between my legs.
I squeezed my thighs together and moaned. The sound escaped the seal of our lips. If anything, it spurred him on.
His hand tightened against the small of my back, pressing me against him.
I was sandwiched between him and the cool concrete.
“Your lips make me forget about everything else. They make me forget about losing, about the hundred people in the hallway beside us, about anything not centered on this mouth. How’d you get so fucking sweet, Jules?”
I didn’t get a chance to respond. Not that I wanted one.
He was sweaty. He smelled like intensity and determination all rolled up into one, and I wanted to climb him like a tree. The whole stadium could’ve collapsed around us and I wouldn’t have wanted to stop. His lips were enough of a balm to heal anything.
This was unlike any kiss I’d experienced before. It was all-consuming, heated and hungry. Like he was hungry for me and couldn’t get enough of me, not like he was going through the motions or giving me a perfunctory peck to pave the way to the main event. He was kissing me like this was the main event and I was the center of his world.
Another kiss accompanied by a full body flush and tingling toes. My head swam and I clenched his jersey even tighter in my fists, pulling him even closer, if that were possible.
A sharp and throaty cough broke through our protective bubble. Followed up by another.
We broke apart, panting, staring at each other shell shocked, and turned our heads toward the end of the hallway at the same time.
“Coach is ready to rip us all a new asshole. You won’t want to miss it.” Keyton stood at the end of the hallway.
“Coming.” Berk picked up the box of cupcakes and put it in my hands. “Take these, I’ll want to have some after Coach is finished with Ass Reaming 2020. Wait out here and I’ll be back as soon as I can. Can you wait? Maybe twenty minutes?”
“Of course.”
His smile could’ve lit up the stadium for the rest of the season. With one more quick peck, he bolted after Keyton and left me standing there with my box of cupcakes, trying to figure out what I’d just gotten myself into.
Berk had kissed me.
Berkley Vaughn kissed me, Julia Kelland.
I was glad his after-game meeting took half an hour. It took me that long to process that I wasn’t hallucinating, that he had actually been there and the lingering taste on my lips wasn’t the early warning sign of a stroke.
He burst out of the locker room, and the smile on his face while everyone else looked like they’d had their fingernails pulled out wiped away the last bit of doubt swirling in my head.
Get out of there, Jules. That’s no place for you to live.
“I’m starving for another taste of cupcake.” His mouth said cupcake, but his eyes said me. And I was here for it in the biggest way possible.
I opened the lid to the box and he snagged a cupcake, barely unwrapping it before inhaling the whole thing.
“You’re going to be running that bakery before the semester’s over or those people are insane. If you’re not selling these then the whole world is missing out.”
My cheeks flushed in a different way this time. The compliments were always so much harder to bear for me. Criticism, I could stand there and take. It had taken years of training, but I was generally good at not letting whoever it was see me flinch.
But compliments made me want to run away or dodge them like bullets in the Matrix. Maybe it was a fear that one day all those good things anyone said about me would be gone in a snap.
“You’re going straight home, right?” LJ jumped onto Berk’s back, hands pressing down on his shoulders. “First game of the season tradition.”
“Are you sure you want to do this?” Berk shook him off.
“The first game was already cursed. We need to make sure the rest of the season doesn’t have the same issues.”
“Is Keyton in?”
“I’ve been told, and I’m in.” Keyton threw his duffle over his shoulder.
“Marisa is getting everything ready as we speak.”
“Hopefully not any food.” Keyton shuddered and held his arm over his stomach. “After her grilled cheeses, my ab workout took me a week to recover from.”
“What did we tell you about eating anything she made?” Berk laughed.
Keyton pushed open the door at the end of the hall leading out to the parking lot. “It’s cheese and bread! How in the hell can you screw that up?”
Most of the cars were gone. Although most people didn’t need a reason to party, everyone had been pretty deflated in the stands after staying on their feet for the whole last quarter, hoping the Trojans would pull out the win.
“Marisa finds a way.” LJ clapped him on the shoulder. “Can I catch a ride with you?”
Keyton nodded. “We’ll see you at the house.”
Those two took off.
Berk looked over at me.
The autumn chill in the air sent a shiver down my spine—or it could be the close proximity to Berk? I stared down at our joined hands. The same ones we’d been holding the whole time the guys had been there, while everyone was leaving the locker rooms and could see us. I’d braced myself for the cartoonish double takes. Questions about me being a little old to be a Make A Wish kid or even just a “why the fuck are you holding her hand?” from his other teammates, but so far nothing. Maybe I was just that good at fading into the background.
“What are you doing for the rest of tonight?”
Confusion had set in for sure.
“What did you have in mind?” I didn’t think it was what I wanted, because I definitely wasn’t inviting Keyton, LJ, and Marisa along.
“A little friendly competition.” That was not what I was expecting in the slightest after he’d kissed me so well I’d forgotten seventh grade algebra.
“Sure?”
“Was that a question or are you in? This is a serious game we play. Tradition.”
I nodded as he threaded his fingers through mine. A few heads turned our way, probably trying to figure out what exactly he was doing with me. I ducked my head and let him pull me along.
The engine of his car roared to life and I relaxed a bit, now safely inside and away from all the eyes at the stadium.
He drummed the fingers of one hand along the steering wheel, and the other—well, the other was on my leg. Fingers wrapped around my thigh, giving me a squeeze every couple of minutes like a reassurance that he was there. Like he was saying, ‘yes, I am touching your leg, and I plan on touching a whole lot more of you in the future.’ My whole speech about keeping things casual had fallen on deaf ears and I’d never been happier to be ignored in my life.
All this time I’d been trying to keep that wall between us solid and immovable, but I should’ve known Berk would be the one to knock it down, just like he did on the field.
Inside the house, we were loaded up with Nerf dart ammo like the Nerf zombie apocalypse was on its way.
“How are there this many different types?”
Berk stood in front of his closet door, which had them all arranged against the wall like a true arsenal. There were baskets for the clips neatly arranged under the wall of weapons.
“You take this seriously, huh?”
“I always take my fun very seriously.” He smiled while tightening the ammo loop over my shoulder and across my chest.
Somewhere in the house, someone blew a whistle and it was on.
“It’s every man for himself, since we have odd numbers, but I’ll go easy on you.” He winked at me.
“We’ll see.” We both took off out of the room.
Battle plans were drawn up—literally. We used shot glasses and the landing by the stai
rs to lay out the plan of attack. There was no messing around when it came to Nerf in this house.
With a battle cry from Marisa, we were off and the Styrofoam darts were flying.
Down in the basement, we regrouped for our second round, sweaty and a little out of breath. I wasn’t the only one drenched in sweat, and that made me feel better. We hid out behind the washing machine with our backs against the cold metal. I wouldn’t be caught dead crawling around in my basement—well, maybe I would be caught dead there. Some kind of monster or overdeveloped mold would probably grab me by the legs and murder me. Which was why I always high-stepped it up the stairs once I had put in a load of laundry and turned off the lights. But we were here with our Nerf guns locked and loaded, ready for the fight.
We were playing every man or woman for themselves, although Keyton was teamed up with Marisa. The mini-fit LJ had thrown when they both shot him in the forehead was kind of adorable. We had them on the run and regathered our ammo.
The distinctive clatter of an ammo cartridge hitting the ground was my opening. I popped up, leapt over the washing machine, rolled on top of the pool table to my feet and got them both from above.
They both cursed and groused. I turned my head at the slow clap from the stairs.
“You were like a gazelle. Damn, Jules. You leapt over the washing machine and then did a spin move in the air.”
Everyone stopped and stared at me.
My shoulders came up a bit, and if I were a turtle I’d have climbed inside my shell.
“Well-deserved win, then.” Keyton helped Marisa up off the floor.
LJ scowled. “There’s leftovers from Nix’s.” He turned and went right back upstairs.
“You kicked ass.” Berk’s words licked their way up the back of my neck. His breath ruffled the damp hairs at the base of my neck and sent a full-body shockwave through me.
“Not quite yet.” I grabbed onto the support pole beside me and swung around, letting one more dart hit him square in his chest.
He stared back at me, slack jawed, watching the orange and blue tipped Styrofoam fall to the ground. “You shot me.”