The Trouble With Quarterbacks

by R.S. Grey

  “That’s enough, you rascal. I know what you’re after. Trying to get a peek, are we?”

  He shrugs as if he’s not even a little remorseful, and then he sweeps his wet hair off his face. “Can’t blame a guy for trying.”

  “Good to know what you’re really like under all that charm and hair—a naughty little bugger. Now give me your trousers like you promised.”

  He reaches down to undo the button on his jeans, and I go a bit lightheaded from watching him. Water sluices down his toned abs. They are, without a doubt, the best set of muscles I’ve ever seen. He’s so tall and lean, but built too, like every part of him is in tip-top shape, not a centimeter gone to waste. He’s got this fabulously sharp Adonis V that basically draws my eyes down to where I should not under any circumstances look, but well, sue me, because I do. I have no choice. My eyeballs are glued to him as he starts to take off his trousers and reveals a pair of navy Calvin Klein boxer briefs. I’d bet they pay him a million dollars to wear those and represent their brand. They’d be stupid not to.

  In my head, I’m quite a perv, so obviously I try to get a good look at what he’s got going on down there, but everything below his waistline is under the water and it’s fairly dark out here. Oy, someone turn a spotlight on, will you?

  Once my eyes go a bit cross from all the struggling, I finally blink and force my gaze up to his face. He’s looking right at me, like he’s been waiting ages for my eyes to get to his. He’s grinning. The bastard.

  “Seen enough?”

  “Quite,” I snap, snatching his jeans away from him and trying to struggle into them.

  It’s not possible to do it at this depth. I’m not some aquatic acrobat who can balance and float and don clothing all at once. I huff and start for an even shallower section of the pool, but then cool air hits my chest and I duck under again, sending Logan a searing glare.

  He shrugs, like he had absolutely nothing to do with my faux pas this time, but from the gleam in his gaze, I can tell he’s benefitted from it.

  I learn my lesson and trudge forward a few more steps, this time with my back turned to him so my hair acts like a curtain against my skin. I shimmy into his jeans, and once I’ve got them pulled all the way up, I realize there’s still half a leg of material dragging on the pool bottom. I groan and lift each leg to roll up the denim so they fit nicely. Then I cinch the waistband in my hand and turn around.

  “How do I look?”

  “Like you’re wearing a pair of men’s jeans that are about ten sizes too big.”

  “It’s not my fault you’ve got a fat arse.”

  It’s an obvious joke since Logan hasn’t got an ounce of fat on him.

  “Cute. You look cute,” he amends.

  I groan. “What is it with me and that word?!”

  “You don’t like it?”

  “A hamster is cute. A fat little gerbil—aw, it’s so cute. For once, I want to be called something other than cute.”

  “I didn’t think I was allowed to tell you what I really think.”

  His voice has gone all menacing and romantic. Oh dear.

  “That’s right,” I say, starting to back up, because he’s getting rather close again. He’s got this feral look in his eyes, like he’s not quite sure what he’ll do with me once he catches me. “You can’t. It’s against the rules.”

  “Whose rules, exactly? Do you have an employee handbook I can take a look at? I bet there’s nothing in there about dating a student’s uncle.”

  I’m flustered now, because he keeps getting closer and my back hits the edge of the pool and I’m stuck, waiting there for him to devour me. My stomach tumbles around like I’m on a rollercoaster or being chased by a hulking beast. My free hand shoots out right as he reaches me, and my palm flattens against the center of his chest. A little more pressure from him and my arm bends like a spaghetti noodle. So much for attempting a bit of distance…

  His leg slides between mine and he sandwiches me against the edge of the pool. Thank god I put on his jeans or we’d be skin to skin down there. My wet knickers wouldn’t protect me one bit.

  I’m losing myself quickly. I feel my sanity slipping as his hands reach out below the surface of the water to grip my waist so he can position me against his hips. Oh Lordy. I’m done for.

  His head tilts toward mine, and I even lift my chin a bit on impulse before remembering the rules.

  “We can’t kiss,” I say, my voice little more than a whisper.

  “Right,” he says, moving his head farther toward mine. “We can’t kiss.”

  His lips hover there, so close to mine it’s like we’re kissing without kissing, toeing the line so closely we’re millimeters from tipping over it altogether.

  My heart is in my throat.

  My legs are wrapped around his hips, holding him captive against me.

  His hands tighten on my waist and he looks like he’s in pain, staving off our attraction like this. Then he groans and makes it clear he is.

  “Who are you, Candace Williams?”

  “Just some loon from across the pond.”

  The corners of his mouth rise in amusement. “You’re maddening.”

  I frown. “Oh no. That doesn’t sound good.”

  “It isn’t. You’re not good for me. You know there’s a whole party full of people watching us right now. I’ve never kissed a girl in public. Now I have a hundred people staring as I pin you against the edge of my pool.”

  “Well when you say it like that…”

  I damn near shiver.

  “I won’t kiss you,” he promises, his gaze on my mouth.

  “It feels like you’re about to.”

  He hitches me up higher on his hips so he’s got a proper hold on me. God, it’s perfect—how strong he feels between my legs, how hard he is right now even though we’re not technically doing anything, just touching each other, just absorbing each other through our pores.

  His mouth nears again and my eyes flutter. It’s coming. Every fiber of my being knows Logan is about to kiss me and ruin me forever. I expect it. I want it.

  Then…it doesn’t come, and I’m the one in pain now. Real pain. My chest is aching from it. I let out a little whimper, like some sad dog whose tail’s just been stepped on, then I lean into him, wrap my arms around his neck, and hug him as tightly as I can. It’s not a kiss. It’s not mouth to mouth, but it’s the closest I’ve been to him and it’s heaven all the same. He’s warm even now, like a heating lamp beneath my fingers. I can’t get a proper grip on him as he’s so much bigger than me, but I try. I let my head fall to the crook of his neck and my lips graze his skin.

  He groans and gathers me close, tangling his hands in my hair.

  “What are we doing?” I whisper, genuinely perplexed.

  What. Are. We. Doing.

  This isn’t normal.

  Proper humans don’t act like this. I’ve been on plenty of dates in my day. Good ones. Bad ones. Long ones. Short ones. They’ve never consisted of stripteases in a pool followed up by playful banter that quickly devolves into a hug that makes me feel like the world will end when it ends.

  “It’s just a hug, Candace.”

  It sounds like he’s assuring himself as much as he’s assuring me.

  “Oy! You two!” Kat shouts from across the pool. “Ever going to snog, or are you just going to do a bit of touchy-feely mumbo jumbo? We’re all getting a bit restless over here, waiting for the moment!”

  My face goes red. Hideously red. Oh dear.

  “We’ve been found out.” I laugh.

  “We were never hiding all that well in the first place,” he counters playfully.

  “Right. Whatever. I suppose it’s time we rejoin the party? Take a bit of a breather?”

  It’s the absolute last thing I want to do, but we have no choice. We’re not alone out here. We’re in a crowd of people. We can’t run off and hide away in his room. We aren’t allowed. We’re stuck breaking apart and cooling off, and I hate that I
feel like crying. Even though we haven’t technically done anything wrong, it certainly feels like we have.

  Chapter Eight

  Candace

  “Let’s go, wankers, or we’re going to be late!”

  “I don’t think you ought to call us wankers right before we go to church!” Yasmine shouts from inside the shower.

  Kat dips her head out of the bathroom with her mascara wand in hand. “I still don’t understand why we’ve got to go in the first place. None of us are all that religious.”

  I rifle through my closet, looking for the most modest outfit I own, something with long sleeves that I can button up to the bottom of my chin. “It’s important! I’ve got a lot of repenting to do after last night. I’ll ask for forgiveness, and then once my soul is cleansed or whatnot, we can go out for some coffee and avocado toast—a proper Sunday brunch.”

  “I hope God is okay with us being a bit late,” Yasmine adds. “I’ve still got to shave my legs.”

  “Don’t bother!” I groan. “Jesus doesn’t care if your legs are silky smooth!”

  “Do you think there’ll be any cute blokes there?” Kat asks.

  “Kat,” I hiss in annoyance.

  She shrugs, unbothered. “Doesn’t matter. I’ve got my eye on one of Logan’s teammates anyway. We chatted for ages last night.”

  “He only asked you where the loo was,” Yasmine points out, contradicting her.

  Kat rolls her eyes, as if exasperated. “Yes, and then I pointed him in the right direction, and he said, ‘Thanks,’ and I said, ‘Cheers.’”

  “Then what?” I ask, flipping through shirts, angry that they all seem to be something a sinner would wear. Red?! Spaghetti straps?! Really, Eve?! Where are all my denim dresses that reach the floor? My paisley tops with the ruffle neck detail? Oh right—I don’t own any.

  “Then he walked away and went to have a piss, but I could tell we had a real connection. A sort of back-and-forth wordplay, if you will.”

  “Sounds like it. Hey, I’m borrowing your blazer!”

  It’s all I’ve got. I’ll throw it on over a white button-down and do it all the way up if I have to.

  The church itself is just the closest one I could find to our flat with a service starting in the middle of the morning. We’re late, thanks to Yasmine’s shaving, but we tiptoe down the aisle and toward the first empty seats we can manage in the third row from the back.

  The catholic priest is already up on the stage with his flowing robes, chatting away in a thick New York accent. I swear I can barely understand a thing he’s saying, but I’ll have to nod along convincingly all the same and hope God can’t tell the difference. It’s a solid plan up until Kat trips and tumbles into me so that we both end up going down onto the red carpet in the aisle with little yelps. When we stand and dust ourselves off, we get quite a few sidelong glares from old grans.

  “Sorry!” I whisper under my breath.

  One of them holds her finger up to her mouth and shushes me, and I shove Kat and Yasmine into their seats before they can cause any more trouble.

  The Catholic mass is great. I learn a lot, I think. I couldn’t quite repeat it back to someone if they asked, but I’m sure I’ve absorbed it all like a sponge. Right, well, except for the bit near the end. It’s not that I meant to nod off; it’s that Logan kept us at his house so late last night that I didn’t get much sleep. It seems I must have missed the part about forgiving sins because before I know it, it’s over and we’re supposed to stand and leave.

  “Where am I meant to confess?” I ask Kat and Yasmine. “You know ‘Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned.’ That whole spiel.”

  I look around for the confession box but don’t see one. Maybe we should try that Buddhist temple around the block.

  “What have you got to confess? What on earth have you done wrong?” Kat asks.

  “She’s right. You teach snot-nosed toddlers all day, for Christ’s sake.”

  “I don’t think you’re meant to say Christ like that in a church, you know.”

  Only now I’ve said it louder than she has so I’m the one who gets a glare from the woman in front of us in the queue down the aisle.

  “Honestly, you’re so good all the time,” Kat continues. “You never leave your dirty dishes in the sink like the rest of us, and you always empty the rubbish bin.”

  “Yes, but I’ve broken the rules, haven’t I? Canoodling with Logan in the pool like that.”

  “Oh, sod off. You can’t be serious. So the two of you sort of flirted a bit. Surely your headmistress can’t take issue with that?”

  I suppose I’ll find out.

  First thing tomorrow morning.

  I have plans to go round to Mrs. Halliday’s office and give it to her straight as soon as I arrive. She’ll admire my bravery and tact. She’ll think I’m a wonderful representation of her staff. Maybe she’ll even use me as an example in front of the rest of the teachers. If only you lot were half as wonderful as Candace.

  Except I don’t get the chance because of Yasmine and her insistence that we try out a new sushi place on the way back from church.

  I should have known from its location that we were in for it. A dimly lit alley—really?

  To me, the restaurant looked like it’d serve you something one step above food you’d find behind a dumpster soaking in street juice, but Yasmine insisted all the best haunts look like this. Real hole-in-the-wall is what she said. Now it’s Sunday night and we’re all sick. Worse, we’ve only got the one bathroom.

  “This is the absolute pits!” Yasmine groans from her post on the floor in front of the fridge. She’s been relegated to the kitchen sink and trash can. I’ve got the toilet, and Kat’s in the shower with the curtain drawn, crying into a bucket.

  My mobile rings and I answer it with my eyes closed, expecting it to be my mum. She likes to check in on me on Sunday nights, but instead of Mum’s chipper accent, I hear a familiar masculine voice that sends me into a panic.

  “Candace? You there?”

  LOGAN!

  “Who is it?! The hospital?!” Yasmine shouts. “Tell them to send round an ambulance.”

  “Three ambulances!” Kat adds.

  “What are your roommates shouting about?”

  “Oh! Err…”

  I try to muster up enough energy to sit up and talk to him like a proper human being, but I can’t do it. After losing the contents of my stomach and probably 95% of my body weight down the toilet, I am bone-weary and weak. I close my eyes and drop back down to the floor. My mobile sits on my chest, on speakerphone, so I don’t have to use my arm muscles trying to hold it against my ear.

  “Oh, it’s nothing. They think we’re dying.”

  “And are you?”

  “Maybe.”

  “You do sound like death.”

  “It’s because of Yaz,” I say, massaging my temples. “She’s poisoned me with dumpster fish.”

  “It was supposed to be good! It had loads of good reviews on Yelp!” she argues.

  “No, YAZ!” Kat shouts back brusquely. “The other restaurant had good reviews. Yours had no reviews, remember?!”

  “Oh shit,” Logan cuts in. “You guys had bad fish?”

  “Loads of it. It was just so cheap, and once you got over the sewer smell, it wasn’t so bad.”

  “Oh stop. Stop talking about it,” Yasmine says, audibly gagging on her words.

  “And now you all have food poisoning,” he posits.

  “Bingo.”

  “I’ll come over and bring sustenance.”

  “You can’t!” I moan.

  “Then you come here and I’ll nurse you back to health.”

  “I couldn’t walk two feet, let alone make it all the way to your flat.”

  “Send me your address and I’ll be there in a second.”

  “No! You can’t—”

  I’m cut off by Kat reaching out of the shower to yank my mobile off my chest. She’s the one who gives him our address, thus it�
��s her fault he shows up twenty minutes later and walks right in without even so much as knocking. None of us has moved positions. What’s the point? There’s nothing I could do to improve my appearance at this rate. And besides, I couldn’t summon the energy even if I wanted to.

  His shadow falls over my supine body, and I blink one eye open. He’s there in jeans and a white t-shirt with a cool forest green jacket layered on top. His hair looks freshly washed and his skin glows with a healthy, warm tan.

  “Hey champ,” he quips, looking down at me.

  “Even upside down you’re bloody gorgeous.”

  He grins and reaches over to set a bag on the bathroom vanity.

  “Don’t look at me too closely,” I warn. “And don’t breathe through your nose or you might pass out.”

  The amount of bodily waste that has passed through our plumbing system in the last four hours is alarming, to say the least.

  He bends down and brushes my sweaty hair off my forehead, assuring me, “It’s nothing compared to our locker room after a game. Don’t worry.”

  “Do you have to be so nice all the time?”

  He frowns. “I’m not that nice.”

  I think I understand his reaction. Nice is his cute. He doesn’t want to be called nice just like I don’t want to be called cute. It irks him, and that only makes him seem even nicer.

  “I brought some electrolyte drinks and broth. I figured you guys wouldn’t be able to stomach anything solid.”

  “That sounds lovely. Would you mind just uncapping a drink and waterfalling it straight into my mouth?” I tip my chin up and part my lips.

  He suppresses a smile. “You can’t sit up?”

  “I’m not sure. I haven’t tried.”

  Kat yanks back the shower curtain, and Logan jumps in surprise. Oh right—he didn’t realize she was in there.

  Unbothered, she makes a Give it here motion with her hand. “Here, pass one over and I’ll give it a go.”

  Over the next half hour, Logan gets us all situated with our drinks. He doesn’t have to—he should be off having people tend to him—but he helps Yasmine to her bed and Kat to the sofa, and then he comes back into my room to see me sitting on the edge of my twin mattress, my head in my hands.