She has absolutely no idea what it does to me when she sits with me on that damn musty couch she’s got in her dorm room. She wraps her soft little body against mine and it feels so fucking right that I have to remind myself that it’s 100% wrong for me to have the filthy thoughts I have about Olive Hampton.
Liv is like family to me. Scratch that. Liv is the only family I’ve got left. Until my family moved next to hers, I didn’t know there were other kids who lived with constant screaming and terror. I always thought I was some shitty ass outlier whose parents only spoke in mean digs and cutting exaggerations.
My dad’s a football coach—they’re supposed to yell, right? Yeah, not like my old man. Something turned sour inside him a long time ago. The old fucker stopped raising a hand to me when I got big enough to let him know I wouldn’t hesitate to hit him right back, but he hit me plenty when I was smaller. Olive was the only one who knew the bruises all over my legs weren’t really from peewee football. She used to risk her own neck stealing Tiger Balm from her parents’ bathroom after they passed out. I got my first hard on trying to ignore Olive’s touch as she rubbed that shit into my black and blue back.
Me and Liv had a secret spot in the back yard, hiding inside the forsythia bushes neither of our parents ever got up the energy to prune. By the end of middle school, I had rigged a hammock in there, and I spent most evenings with Olive, tucked inside, trying to convince myself that the feelings I was having were brotherly.
There’s nothing brotherly about the way I inhale Olive’s shampoo when she leans that blonde head on my shoulder. Her big, brown eyes are always so kind, and she sees everything. She can look right into my soul. My heart races when our skin connects. But I know I can’t cross a line with Olive. She trusts me, and I know what that means. I can’t fuck that up for her.
That’s what I do with women. I fuck shit up. Hell, I never had anyone to show me how human beings are supposed to interact with each other. Nobody but Olive.
By the time I get back to my suite, my dick has pretty much calmed down. The football team gets some pretty nice living arrangements. I feel bad that Olive only has a tiny-ass room and has to share a bathroom with her whole hall. She’s here on an academic scholarship that includes room and board…but the smart kids don’t get anything like what they give the football team. I’ve got my own room with a king sized bed and only have to deal with one other guy’s funk in the bathroom. Plus we’ve got people who clean for us.
When I open the door, the other 3 guys in my suite are spread out in the living room, watching Maryland’s game against Arkansas from last week. “Morgan,” they grunt in greeting.
I kick Finnegan’s leg out of the way and sit on the couch, studying the Maryland running backs, watching the lines they run. Most guys dream of being a quarterback or some shit when they fantasize about professional football. I always figured, if my old man was going to force me into this sport, I was going to play where I could fucking hit someone.
Defensive players don’t get much glory in the grand scheme of things, but I can pretend each one of those fucking RBs is one of my asshole parents, and trust me. Years of frustration make a pretty damn good motivator. There’s a reason I’m here on a full ride.
Scotty hands me a beer and I crack it open, trying not to think about my fucked up family. We’ve got a game this weekend. One thing I know is I’m not going to be able to climb any further away from the hell-hole of my childhood without going pro.
Olive Hampton is going to go anywhere she wants after SCU. My girl’s a damn genius. My dad wasn’t wrong about me being dumber than a bag of rocks, though. This game is all I’ve got going for me.
“Coach said new guy’s going to see some playing time against Maryland,” Scotty says, referring to the QB transfer. Our guy JT sprained something in his thumb. Scotty fucking knows I don’t like this new asshole, because he doesn’t treat Olive with the respect she deserves.
“Hm,” I grunt. I don’t like it, and I don’t like him.
Players’ family gets treated like royalty. It’s a fucking unspoken, common sense team law. You do not fucking stare at the tits and ass on your teammates’ sister or their girlfriend. And this new guy hasn’t got it in his thick head yet that Olive Hampton is off limits.
I have years of experience keeping other assholes from acting on their dirty thoughts when it comes to Olive Hampton.
The thought of any other guy laying a hand on her body makes my blood boil. In high school, it was easy to step in whenever any of the scumbags from Fulton High School got ideas. None of them were worthy of her. It’s a hell of a lot harder to make sure she’s safe now that we’re at a huge university.
We have a kind of unspoken rule about not telling each other about sex stuff. I’d probably puke if she went into detail about that like she tells me about her literature classes and the “utterly breathtaking” books she’s reading for her fiction class.
But at least I know that nobody from the Otters athletic department will come within winking distance of my Olive. I really don’t want to have to get my ass suspended over this, but as I finish my beer I decide I’m going to have to make it crystal clear how far off limits my Liv is.
CHAPTER THREE
Olive
“That’s a wrap, folks.” Justin, the head trainer, tosses the last roll of bandages into the bucket, declaring the training room ready for the coming week. With four of us working, the grunt work of restocking flew by. I stand and do a little dance, happy that Justin is going easy on us.
Even though I’m just an undergrad, I’ve gotten to work in the football team training room all four years. I’m sure Bax had a lot to do with SCU’s decision to allow a work-study student anywhere near their valuable football players.
I’ve gotten some amazing opportunities in this room, and I’ll fold splints and stack tape as long as it takes to stay here.
My other friends studying kinesiology get to do a few weeks here and there with some of the smaller sports. They’ll wrap wrists with tennis or help massage the gymnasts. I know I’m lucky that I not only get to be in the football space, but I actually get to help work with the players hands-on.
It helps that Bax tips me off when he hears someone’s been struggling. He’ll text me if someone’s shoulder aches or some else’s hip stings after tackle drills. Often, my “hunches” about a diagnosis sound downright clairvoyant to the training staff when I reveal a blossoming stress fracture or ligament sprain. I grin, remembering the wide receiver whose shin splints I was able to ease up before he missed a game.
I feel a hand on my shoulder and turn around. Julia and Gabe gesture toward the door. “It’s early,” she says. “We’re all grabbing a drink. Come with us?”
I should go home and study. I should go home and pretend I’m not waiting for a text from Baxter asking me for chicken nuggets or hot pockets. “Yes, Hampton,” Justin claps his hand on my other shoulder, steering me toward the door. “Staff meeting at the Dark Horse. Pronto!”
I guess if my boss insists, I have no choice.
I have just enough time to grab my bag before my friends are dragging me out of the building and into the autumn night.
I hardly ever go out during the week, and I drink alcohol even less often than that. I’ve got too much riding on my grades, and if I’m honest, I’m worried I’ll turn out like my parents. Bitter, angry, struggling with alcoholism.
Baxter always said at least my drunk parents had an excuse to scream and yell. His dad’s just ornery. Broken inside. I shake away these thoughts and order a spritzer.
The trainers are already settled into a corner booth, passing around shots of whiskey, toasting geeky things like rotator cuffs and “springy groins.”
“Another spritzer?” Julia raises an eyebrow at me. She knows I don’t really drink. She’s in graduate school for sports medicine and rehabilitation, but we’ve been friends for a few years. Not the sort of friends who open up about my parents on a bender dragging me th
rough the front yard by the ponytail. Only Bax knows those parts of my past.
I smile and take a sip as Justin drapes an arm around my shoulder. “To ice and stim and no blown ACLs,” he says, raising his glass.
I stare at his arm, trying to figure out what it means that he put it around me. I stiffen, and he pulls it back into his lap.
“Come on, Olive,” Julia says, holding a glass of brown liquid toward me. “The boss is toasting. We’re about to be neck deep in football stench. You gotta drink at least one shot with us.” She grins.
She’s probably right. I remind myself how lucky I am to have this opportunity and gain this experience. Justin probably is including me because he thinks I’m doing a good job, right? I shrug and accept Julia’s glass, clinking it with Justin’s. I feel the warm drink burn as it slides down my throat. I shake my head and slam the glass back on the table.
Justin stares at me for a long while and I see Julia notice. She slides closer to Gabe—they’ve become sort of a thing this semester—and winks at me. I sip at my spritzer. I know my boss is not too much older than me—he got hired at SCU athletics right after he finished his masters.
But I don’t want to cross any boundaries that might impact my work. He’s a good trainer and I have a lot to learn from him, especially if I want a funded position in graduate school. He reaches to tuck a lock of my blonde hair behind my ear, and I turn to face him, eyes wide. First of all, only Bax has touched me like that—but Bax and I are just friends. Maybe this is just how guys show they care about the women in their lives?
It feels off and I don’t like it.
I cough and excuse myself to go get another non-alcoholic drink. In line at the bar, all I can think about is how angry Baxter would get if he saw. He’s always worried someone is going to take advantage of me, whatever that means.
I let the whiskey settle into my blood while I try to figure out what I should do next. While I imagine what it would be like to want someone other than Baxter for a change. Just when had my hair begun to stand on end at the brush of Baxter’s skin against mine? And how do I explain the very different feeling I got when my boss touched me back there?
Coming back to the booth, I slide into easy conversation with the others. Justin doesn’t give me any more lingering glances and doesn’t touch me again, so I tell myself I probably overreacted. He’s probably getting excited about the game this weekend. As I relax, I find myself talking about research plans with Julia and Gabe. They’re both focusing on knee research, which is good business for people who work with football players.
I tell them how I’ve always been fascinated by the shoulder. It’s such a delicate joint, connected to so many muscles. I do not tell them my first foray into shoulder trauma was when Bax injured his dodging a blow from his father.
That night, in the forsythia hideout, I helped massage his joint, stretch his arm, soothe him. That’s when I started checking sports medicine books out from the library and learning all that I could about how all the body’s wonderful parts worked together.
Out loud in the bar, though, I just tell them how I started shadowing and interviewing athletic trainers in high school when I was tagging along after Baxter Morgan, just like now.
Before I realize it, the bar tender is calling last drinks. “Shit,” I say. “It’s late.” Julia and Gabe slink off together, his thumb creeping down the waistband of her jeans. I sigh, sort of dreading walking home alone in the dark.
“Let’s get you home then,” Justin says, slapping a few bills on the table. I nod and smile as he picks up my coat, standing behind me while I shrug into it. He’s looking out for me. This is fine. “You live in McPherson, right? I’m parked not far from there.”
We walk close together, but not quite touching, and he asks me about the coming week. “We’ve had a pretty uneventful pre-season with practices,” he says. I nod.
“I didn’t like the look of JT’s thumb this week, though.” I know Baxter agrees with him—the starting quarterback will be missing this weekend’s game. The second string QB is a transfer student named Kevan. I’ve always thought he seemed nice and polite, but Baxter says Kevan stares at me. I don’t mention any of this to Justin, but I do ask him what they’re doing about JT’s thumb.
As we walk, we talk through the football roster and Justin asks me how I’ve enjoyed the slower pace in the training room this summer. I did a six-week turn working with the soccer team when I got my scholarship extended to summer semester.
“Those guys are all pulled hamstrings and strained quads,” I say, laughing. “Easy as pie.” As we approach my building, joking together, I see a hulking figure leaning against the door of my dorm. As we approach, he stalks over to us, and I see that it’s Baxter. He looks livid. I feel relieved.
Justin nods in Bax’s direction. “That you, Morgan?”
Bax doesn’t register that Justin spoke to him. “Where the hell have you been?” He practically snarls at me. “I’ve been calling you for hours! Hours, Olive.”
“Oh crap,” I tell him. I turn my phone off when I’m at work and I must have forgotten to turn it back on when we went to the bar. I click the power button and it starts vibrating in my hand with text after text, and voicemails all from Bax. I know this is a big deal because he probably thought I was in trouble. Growing up, I often was in trouble. My parents often passed out drunk and forget to bring me home. Bax always managed to find me. He must have been searching for me all over campus when I didn’t answer my phone.
“Easy there, big guy,” Justin reaches out to pat Bax on the shoulder. “She was with me.” This does not elicit the desired effect. Baxter’s nostrils flare and he looks, if possible, even more angry.
“Don’t you fucking touch me,” he says.
“Woah,” Justin says, with his hands up. “Olive, you ok here with this thug? Need me to stick around til you get inside?”
“NO!” Bax and I say at the same time, and my eyes whip up to meet his. Justin knows perfectly well how important Baxter is in my life.
Baxter runs his hands through his curls and drags his palms down his cheeks. “Olive is family, man. And she’s been off the grid, and now I see her coming home with some dude in the middle of the night.” He glares at Justin. “I drew conclusions.”
Justin doesn’t say anything, but he narrows his eyes and looks darkly at Baxter.
“Bax,” I reach for his arm. “I’m ok. I just forgot to turn my phone back on.”
He looks Justin up and down and sighs. I can see his body start to relax, and he pulls me in to a tight hug. “I was worried, Liv.”
Justin shrugs. “I was just walking her home, dude. Like you said, it’s late.”
Baxter takes a step back and looks a little ashamed of his outburst, but I’m still on the fence about how to interpret everything that’s happened since I got to the bar. Bax holds out a hand toward Justin. “I’m sorry, man. You’re right. I should thank you for seeing her home safe.”
Justin puts his much-smaller hand in Baxter’s and looks up into his face. “See you after practice tomorrow, right, Morgan?”
Baxter nods and, after a few moments of awkward silence, Justin excuses himself and walks off into the dark.
CHAPTER FOUR
Bax
My heart won’t stop pounding in my chest. Logically, I knew Olive was probably fine. She loses track when she’s working on someone. She would never admit this, but she basically goes into a trance when she’s with an injured athlete. Her thumbs work along their limbs, assessing until she finds exactly the right spot.
She thinks it’s cheating that I let her know when someone’s hurting and she lists the diagnosis to her boss, but I’ve seen the way she listens. She watches their gait, observes the way they hop up on the table. She doesn’t need me to tell her that Scotty has shin splints. She’d figure it out in a heartbeat. Olive is going to have a bright future healing people.
I fucking hate every second of her putting her hands on my teammates,
but I know she doesn’t see them any certain way. And even though the guys don’t feel about her the way I do, I know none of them would disrespect her. Ever.
Tonight, though, when I couldn’t find her…took me back to all those nights in high school when not being able to reach Olive meant that she wasn’t safe. Stranded at school after dark when her parents forgot to come get her, stuck at work when her parents forgot to come get her. You get the picture.
It’s not like we had public transportation where we grew up, and neither of us ever had any money for a cell phone back then. More times than I can count, I’d sneak my mom’s car out of the garage and make the circuit, searching for Olive. When I’d find her, we’d cling to each other like Velcro. Olive never cried, but she’d tremble in my arms and I knew she felt alone. Frightened. She always gets the shakes after something scary—I think it’s because she puts so much focus into staying cool during a crisis. I hate that Olive has so many crises.
So yeah. It freaks me out when she’s AWOL. One of the first things I did with my monthly stipend from SCU was buy cell phones for BOTH of us. Olive knows I’m here for her. Always.
I see the way this Justin asshole is looking at her before he takes off. He might be the head trainer, but he’s officially on my watch list. Olive seems completely unaware that this creep was inappropriate with her. He’s supposed to be her boss.
I drop a hand on her shoulder, needing to feel a connection with her, even if it’s sort of painful knowing it can’t be anything more than a reassuring touch. As I start to calm down, I realize what has me so freaked out right now.
“Liv, have you been drinking?”
She bites her bottom lip—that plump, red lip I’ve been fantasizing about sucking—and I know it’s true. “You never do that. Want to tell me what the hell happened tonight?”
Liv puts her hands in the pockets of her jeans and shrugs. “We were celebrating. We got the training room set up early, all the restocking done, and the whole staff went to the Dark Horse. I did a shot.”
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