Jockblocked (Gridiron Book 2) Read online

  “Take the bed. Marissa and I didn’t make it to the bed.” His words hold about as much emotion as a stone. Poor Marissa. As if to emphasize his disinterest in the topic of Marissa and their hookup, he flicks on Family Feud. Steve Harvey asks what the top five answers are for the question “something people do when they are tired.”

  “Drink caffeine,” I guess.

  “Take a nap,” is Ace’s answer, then he asks off-handedly, “Want to come to the Gas Station with us tonight?”

  “No.” I kick my backpack. “I’m working on some things for the mock trial team.”

  “I can go and beat her up,” he suggests.

  “You really can’t because I’m sure that would be grounds for suspension. I can see the headlines now. ‘National Championship quarterback arrested for assault and battery.’” But I’m touched by his instant defense.

  Ace tips his head back and drains his bottle. He has the next one open and poured down his throat before he responds. “Better than ‘former National Championship player demoted in favor of true freshman recruit,’” he says bitterly.

  I blink in surprise at his quick change in mood. A moment ago, he was complacent and self-satisfied and now he’s pissed off? What’d I miss? “What are you talking about?”

  Ace’s face darkens. He finishes the second bottle and opens a third. “Nothing. It’s nothing.”

  Every once in a while, he gets in these I hate everyone so I guess I’ll go eat worms moods. Privately I refer to it as male PMS, but I shouldn’t be surprised because Ace’s bad moods usually occur in the off-season.

  During the season, he’s focused and determined and he rarely sulks. These small snippets of time when he can generally ignore school and focus on drinking and screwing girls all day is when he becomes maudlin and unbearable.

  You’d think he’d be the most upset during the season. I read the sports blogs, sometimes. I can’t spend too much time on there because I get angry on Ace’s behalf, but no one talks about him being an NFL quarterback. In fact, no one really talks about him playing beyond college. When they talk about him, it’s almost as if he’s a liability to the team—one that the vaunted defense manages to overcome game after game after game.

  But no, it’s the downtime that gets to him. Ironically, that’s when I get to spend the most time with him because he isn’t up at the crack of dawn for practice and going to bed early because of curfew. And in this mood, he’s not going to share anything unless he’s ready, so I try changing the subject, but he beats me to it.

  “You see Matt Iverson again?” Ace’s tone is nonchalant, but I don’t miss the slight edge to it.

  “No. Why?”

  He shrugs, not taking his eyes off the game show. “Just wondering if he’s still bothering you.”

  “He was never bothering me to begin with. I told you, he was nice.” This new topic is just as bad as the old one.

  “And I told you, he’s a dog. You’re not in the locker room, Lucy. They’re all dogs. Or maybe they wish they were, because if they could lick their own balls like a dog, they’d never leave their rooms.”

  Matt Iverson is a foot taller than me, ripped like a stone statue, and big enough to break me in half. I nearly swallow my tongue at the image of the big guy bent over, sucking his own dick because that is kind of hot. Wisely, I don’t share this thought with Ace.

  “Guys like Ives spend hours on Instagram before away games, looking up sorority pictures or local ‘talent,’ as they call it. Then they private message these girls and set up hookup dates. On every single away game,” he stresses.

  Okay, that is skeevy and gross when Ace puts it that way, but something impels me to pony up yet another defense of Matt. “They’re young and single, right? And as long as they aren’t hurting anyone, then it’s none of my business.”

  “Hammer, Ives’s best friend, nearly sat a game last year because he’d been injured by his girlfriend. He went to an away game, hooked up with a local. His girlfriend drove up to surprise him.”

  I grimace. “I can guess what happens next.”

  “Not really. He convinces his side piece to hide in his gym bag. Girlfriend comes in, starts making out with Hammer, his dick still wet from his previous go around.” I hate it when Ace gets like this, but I started it, so I have to sit back and let whatever is bugging him eat its way out of his system. “But it’s hot in the gym bag, so the side piece pops out and tries to leave. Almost makes it out before the girlfriend sees something move out of the periphery of her eye. The two get into a big fight. Hammer gets bashed on the forehead with a lamp. That’s Ives’s best friend.”

  I don’t point out that the story is about the best friend and not Matt but I get Ace’s point. Matt is exactly that expensive purse. I give up on offering up excuses for him and instead, pat myself on the back for relegating him to the bad for me column along with carbs and too much liquor.

  “Speaking of girlfriends, what’s going on with you and Stella? I’d think she wouldn’t be thrilled about the blonde in your bedroom.”

  “Eh.” He shrugs carelessly. “Stella’s always unhappy about something. Why do you think she’s sleeping with me?”

  “I don’t know. Because you like each other?”

  He looks at me in disbelief.

  “What?” I throw up my hands. “Why is that such a stupid statement?”

  “Stella and I hooked up because she lives to piss off her dad, has a weird fetish for quarterbacks, and knows she’s not going to break my heart when she’s done with me”—I open my mouth—“or vice versa,” he finishes.

  I snap my trap shut. Apparently they have an enemies-with-benefits arrangement. I mean…

  “Say it.” He sighs and gestures for me to start talking.

  “Sorry! But I thought you had real feelings for her. That one night we hit up that new club along the East River last semester, Stella spent the whole night talking to the basketball guy and you went home in a bad mood.”

  “My mom had called to tell me Rascal was sick, remember?”

  Rascal was Ace’s dog. He passed away soon after that call.

  I nod, but remind him, “You looked more pissed off than grief stricken.”

  “Can we just drop it? I want to talk about how you and Ives hooked up.”

  “I didn’t hook up with him!” I protest but feel myself turn an alarming shade of red because last night I had a pretty dirty dream.

  “Then why are you asking questions about him and defending him?”

  I curl my hands into fists so I don’t give in to my urge to slap Ace silly. “You’re the one who brought it up! I told you I hadn’t seen him, and then you decided to tell me some awful story about two of your teammates. What’s going on, Ace?”

  “I told you it was nothing,” he says curtly. At my frown, he mumbles an apology and heaves himself to his feet. “I’m going to shower and get ready.” He sniffs his shirt. “I stink. Pick out something for me to wear, will you?”

  I guess we’re done with Stella and Matt. Tight-lipped, I do as he asks. There’s no point in pressing him because he’s not going to say anything until he’s absolutely ready. I rummage through Ace’s things and find a clean pair of jeans and a royal blue long-sleeve T-shirt with a waffle texture. After tossing the clothes inside the bathroom, I unpack my things.

  Ace wanders out, dressed in the clothes I picked out, his wet, brown hair looking darker than usual.

  He stops by the bed and traces the raised letters on the mock trial packet. “You don’t even like football players. You once told me that dating a football player seemed about as exciting as dating a block of cheese.”

  “Are you still on this?” I rub my temples. I can feel a headache coming on. “I’m not going out with him and you’re right. I find most football players to be boring. You all have tendency to talk about only one thing, which gets boring after a while.” Except the two nights we talked, Matt didn’t say one word about football. I was the one who brought it up. God, am I eve
r going to get him out of my mind? Stop it, I order myself and refocus on Ace. “I love you, Ace. And I love all of your friends, but all you guys do when you get together is talk about the game. Different routes. Throwing down the seam. The seam? Really? Who thinks of these names? They’re all so sexual.”

  “Guys think of them. That’s why they’re sexual. And if you think we’re bad, you should watch some wrestling. They have moves like ‘going out the back door’ and ‘rear naked choke hold’ and the ‘camel clutch.’ ‘Running up the seam’ is innocent compared to all that shit. Besides, guys only have one thing on their mind.” He points a finger at me. “Remember that.”

  I refrain from rolling my eyes. I’ve gotten this lecture from Ace once a semester since he discovered sex. “What about food? Isn’t food important?”

  “Only in the context of getting more sex. Proteins to keep it up.”

  “Ewww. Can we not talk about dicks and hard-ons?” I shudder. I hit him with a pillow, which he wrests easily from my grasp. He might only be the quarterback but he’s still damn strong.

  “Have you taken your medicine?” He jerks a chin toward his desk where my box of needles, medication, and blood tester rests.

  “Not yet, Dad. But thanks for the reminder. I haven’t done this for the last ten years by myself or anything.”

  He shrugs off my testiness. “Just making sure.” He abruptly, and wisely, moves on to a different topic. “Are you sure you don’t want me to say something to that Heather chick?”

  “And say what?”

  He pats me on the head. “Dunno. Stop making my best friend’s life miserable. I know you aren’t a fan of conflict.”

  I give him a hug and realize he’s just looking out for me. “No, it’s too late. We’ve already spent the money on the registration. Is everything in life so expensive?”

  Ace doesn’t have an answer because there is no answer. We both grew up in modest families. We are in that sweet spot where our parents make too much money for the really good grants, but not enough to pay for our schooling. Ace has a full ride due to his arm and I’ve got a half-tuition scholarship, but neither of us has a lot of extra spending money.

  “I don’t think you should have given up your closing position to her,” he tells me as he pockets his ID.

  No money for Ace. He doesn’t need to buy a drink on this campus. Everyone else is happy to buy it for him.

  “She’s better at it than I am.” Or at least that’s what I believed after hearing her audition. I’m having second thoughts.

  “"Meh, you’re smarter than her.”

  “You haven’t even seen her in action.” And smarter doesn’t mean better. The debacle of my freshman year pretty much proves I suck at closing argument. “Besides, it was a condition of her joining the team. Sometimes you have to make sacrifices for the better of the team.”

  He snorts. “Making selfless sacrifices means you get left behind.”

  Classic Ace. Always looking out for himself, but maybe I should take a page from his playbook. After all, my mock trial team can’t make it out of Regionals and Ace took his team to the National Championship game. “Well, on that depressing note, you should go or my inspirational closing argument that I’m writing for Heather will be full of negativity, and I doubt we’ll win any points for that.”

  Gratefully Ace accepts that. “Are we still up for the movie this Thursday?” he asks.

  “What movie is that?”

  “The Expendables 3.”

  I make a face. A bunch of aging action stars running around making jokes I don’t get because I never watched the original movies to understand the references? No. “I close the Brew House on Thursday.”

  “Not to worry. Movie’s over at four forty-five. Besides, you promised,” he reminds me.

  “I’m sure I was drunk.”

  “Drunk or sober, you said you’d go. I’ll see you on Thursday at two p.m. sharp.” Hand on the door, Ace calls back. “Stay away from Iverson. He’s bad news.”

  “I don’t have any reason to see him,” I reassure Ace.

  11

  Matty

  “Son of a bitch!” The curse words greet me as I open the door to Jack Cameron’s pad. Flash, as we like to call him, offered up a half-full bottle of whiskey when we ran out of booze at our place.

  We rock, paper, scissored it and I lost, which is why I ran three houses down to fetch the liquor. The pleasant buzz I’d fostered at the Gas Station is wearing off, and that needs to be remedied as quickly as possible.

  Jack said the booze is in a cabinet next to the refrigerator and I make a beeline there.

  “Honey, I’m home,” I yell out just in case someone’s having fun in the kitchen. In these houses, you never know. Being an athlete on a team that’s expected to compete for the National title every year carries a lot of stress. Most of us forego heavy drinking during the season, which leaves us few options as an outlet for that pent-up stress. Sex is the easiest, and most fun, way to burn off that mental pressure.

  I don’t find anyone making out in the kitchen. Instead I find something better: Lucy Watson, complete with an apron tied around her waist. Her hair is tied up and with the apron on? She looks like a page from the fables my mom read to me when I was a kid. Goldilocks. Unfortunately, Goldilocks has had an accident and if she actually gets the butter out of the wrapper onto her fingers, it’ll only make the burn worse.

  My pants get tight as my dick tries to rise up and greet her. Why does she have to have long legs in addition to a nice rack? Why? I tell my traitorous equipment to settle down as I stalk over to the kitchen sink.

  She spins around, her lips forming a perfect “O” of surprise. “Matty!—uh, Matt—Matthew,” she sputters, and I try not to laugh. The fact that she went with the nickname first says a lot. “What are you doing here?”

  “Came to grab booze.” I twist the faucet. With the cold water on blast, I beckon for Goldie to come closer.

  “I thought you were supposed to put butter on burns,” she says warily.

  “Old wives’ tale.” I tug her over to the sink and plunge her fingers under the water.

  She flinches at the shock of the cold, and I briskly run my fingers over hers in an effort to warm her up a little. Or at least my intention is to be brisk, but the minute I make contact with her, my touch slows down.

  Her fingers are slender, elegant. The middle finger has a slight callus as if her pen or pencil has been pressed there one too many times. I rub the tip of my finger over it once and then again. I have my own calluses from lifting, from slapping the tackling dummy a hundred times on the right, and then a hundred times on the left and repeat. My calluses say my hands are my weapons. Her callus shows her skill is with the pen.

  She doesn’t make a sound. Not a complaint that the water is too cold or that I’m standing too close to her. Our faces are only inches apart. If I leaned just to my right, I could rub my cheek against hers, like a big cat seeking a scratch behind his ears—among other places.

  I try to focus on the water, but I don’t see it. All I can focus on is her hand in mine. All I can hear is how her breathing has changed. How it catches and releases faster than is normal.

  I rub her fingers again, slower still. My finger traces the curves between each digit. I fall down the tiny valley and climb up to the tip only to take the same exhilarating trip all over again. The cushion of her palm makes me imagine other tender, plump places on her body.

  I turn my head and her eyes lock onto mine. Her lips are parted slightly and she stares at me with disbelief. I can’t believe it either.

  “How do you feel?” My voice comes out hoarse. Jesus, I’m rock hard just from touching her fingers. Under cold water.

  “Since you’re giving my fingers an ice bath, I don’t actually have feeling in them,” she lies through her teeth and deliberately breaks our connection. Pulling her hand out of mine, she lifts her fingers to inspect the damage.

  “Then they aren’t burning,” I s
ay rather unsympathetically because I’m exasperated at how she keeps denying this thing between us. I push her fingers back under the water. I leave her to stand at the sink while I pick up the now cooled cookie sheet.

  “I can do that,” she protests as I kneel down and hand sweep the dead cookie remains into a pile.

  “I’ve no doubt that you can, but surprise, so can I.” And this way I’m not staring at the way your nipples are poking against the Harry Potter T-shirt you call a nightgown or the fact you have man socks slouched around your ankles. I am, stupidly, bothered by that fact. It looks intimate and wrong—mostly because they aren’t my socks. I bet they’re Ace’s.

  “If you’re looking for Ace and the guys, they’re at the Gas Station tonight,” she informs me, as if she can read my mind.

  “I know. I was just there. I told you, I came to get some booze.” She frowns at the curtness of my voice. And frankly I don’t know why I’m pissy. Or, more accurately, I don’t want to acknowledge why my buzz has burned off and I’m stomping around like a kid who had a toy taken away from him. What I do know is that I want her. Desperately. I want to kiss her and touch her and fuck her and— “Dust bin?” I force myself to ask.

  “I don’t think they have one.”

  “Right.” Because the cleaning fairies come once a week. I drag the trashcan closer to the cookies and scoop up the mess as best I can. Behind me, Goldilocks makes a frustrated noise. I check my watch. “You’re probably good to go now.”

  “Thank God. I’m turning into Elsa here.” She wipes her hands on a towel. Her voice is unaffected, but her legs are shaky as she strolls over to a cabinet next to the refrigerator and pulls down a half-full bottle of Jack Daniels. At least I’m not the only one affected by this. That would suck. “This what you are looking for?”

  I start to take the bottle, but I realize if I do take it, I’m done here. And I’m not ready to be done. Not by a long shot. I’m not sure what her hold up is, but I’m starting to think it might be Ace.

  There’s a pile of baked cookies on the counter near the fridge. My stomach rumbles at the sight of them. “What do I have to do to get one of those?” I gesture behind her.