Jockblocked (Gridiron Book 2) Page 24

  “Yeah, me, too. I wanted to replace those guys. Fuck, I was a terrible shit. I didn’t even care that they hazed me. I felt invincible, even when I was running around the stadium with just my jock on.”

  “Good times.” Hammer reaches his fist out and I knock mine against it. “You talk to Lucy about Ace?”

  “Yeah, last week. It didn’t go well. She’s not going to talk to him.”

  “Ah hell,” Hammer sighs. “What’re you going to do now? Maybe if you bring it up with her later? After sex maybe, when you’ve softened her up.”

  And maybe someone will knife me in the gut because that’s how I felt when I went up there and saw her, nude, crouched over on the floor weeping like she’d just seen her dad killed in front of her.

  “No.”

  He rears back in the harshness in my voice. “Bro, it’s not like I asked you to fuck her in the quad.”

  “Hammer, man, I love you, but Luce is my girlfriend, and I’d like you to start treating her with respect.” I stare at him. Hard.

  He blinks a couple times and nods in acknowledgment. “That’s cool. What about Ace, though?”

  I grind my teeth together at hearing his name.

  “What about him?”

  “If Lucy isn’t going to talk to him, then are you going to him again?”

  I run an agitated hand through my hair. “It’ll straighten out by itself. Coach will work the two guys out during summer camp. Let the chips fall where they may. On the field, like how it’s always supposed to happen.”

  Hammer snorts.

  “What?” I ask with exasperation.

  “We both know that if Coach don’t like you, all the talent in the world isn’t going to keep you on the field. And if you aren’t on the field, there’s nowhere to prove yourself. Your skills atrophy and die.”

  My answer? To pick up the remote and turn the volume up. It’s juvenile, but I’m fucking done with this conversation. Mostly because Hammer’s right and I don’t have a good goddamned response.

  A little while later, my phone beeps but it’s not Lucy. She’s still dealing with the drama queen. It’s Stella Lowe, telling me that Coach wants me in his office in the next ten minutes.

  “Coach wants to see me.”

  “Sorry, son.” Hammer gives me a thumbs-up sign and a sympathetic smile.

  He can smile because it’s not his ass going to the coach’s office. Again.

  * * *

  Coach Lowe’s behind his desk. The television is on and ESPN is handing out preseason grades based on our recruiting class.

  “They’re saying Western’s going to be dominant for another four years,” Coach informs me as I settle into a chair.

  “Congrats.” I try to keep the sarcasm out of my voice.

  “What kind of progress are you making with Ace?”

  I launch into the argument I devised on my way over. “He doesn’t want to give up the quarterback position. And you know that he’s a smart player. He took us where Wilson Rogers didn’t, and we all know Rogers is going to be our next black president.” I smile, but Coach simply stares at me like I’m a moron. Still, Rogers, the quarterback who graduated last spring and almost led us to a National title my sophomore year, knew every player on the eighty-man roster and could probably tell you their moms’ names as well as their girlfriends’. That man was going places, although not in the NFL. He’s in graduate school now and is going to run the world someday. I power on. “I know Ace doesn’t have the most accurate arm, but he makes good decisions for the most part. This new guy coming in will be raw. He’s never played at the college level—”

  “You become coach when I wasn’t looking?”

  I wince and fight the urge to shrink in the chair. “No, sir.”

  “Then you can keep your amateur scouting reports to yourself. You’re here to play the game as I tell you to play it, on and off the field. Remington Barr is going to be our starting quarterback next year. Whether we field a cohesive team is going to be on you. And, son, if you can’t convince a bunch of raggedy-ass boys to follow you on this field, there’s no way you’re going to play at the next level.”

  What’d I tell Luce? That the Coach is the lord of your universe? I guess I didn’t tell her that you could hate the one in charge even as you played hard to win. Because you weren’t playing for him. You were playing for each other.

  “Ace will either be holding the clipboard on the sidelines all season or he’ll be on the field as a safety. Your job is to make sure everyone gets behind our new quarterback.”

  “Yes, sir.” I say the words even though it’s worse than swallowing a bunch of razors. If there’s a Mount Rushmore for crappy coaches, Coach Lowe is getting my first nomination. I sit there fuming in silence as Coach pretends I’m not sitting in the chair five feet away from him. Finally, when the ESPN college crew breaks for commercial, he swivels toward me.

  “You’re still here?”

  Yeah, meathead, I’m still sitting here like a good little soldier waiting to be dismissed. When Masters said he was declaring early, I didn’t envy him a bit. I was having too much fun. The real world could wait another year. I didn’t know that Coach was going to spend the year shitting down my throat while ordering me to smile as he did it.

  “You’re dismissed.” He waves a hand, shooing me off like I’m a pesky, bothersome gnat.

  One more year, I remind myself as I stiffly rise from the chair and walk out.

  Ten minutes later, Stella finds me in the weight room punching my way past a tackling dummy.

  “Matty, I need to talk to you.”

  God, I do not need this. I’m too busy pretending Coach Lowe is standing in front of me. I’ve gotten three good hits in, but I’m still sore from the proverbial fist Coach slammed into my face while I was in his office. That said, I can’t very well walk away and pretend I can’t hear her, can I?

  “What’s up?” I say abruptly.

  “No matter what you say or do, Ace is going to be either benched or moved.”

  Wariness rises. “What do you know?”

  “My dad…he found out about us,” she admits. “He caught me coming out of Ace’s room last year. The night that we ended up staying over in Wisconsin because of bad weather?”

  “I remember.” I fucked a local chick and Masters walked in. I invited him to stay. I can’t remember the woman’s face or even if the sex was good. Only that I invited Masters to join us and he barely even noticed what was going on. At the time, I remember thinking, Poor Masters. Still hanging on to his V-card. He was wooing Ellie. I didn’t get at the time how one person could transform your life.

  “He’s had it in for Ace ever since. He sought out Barr. He wasn’t even recruiting him hard. He had his eye on another quarterback from Utah. Thought they would try to sneak some reps in during this upcoming year. Anyway, when he learned about me and Ace, he told me to enjoy Ace this year because it would be his last.”

  “Stella,” I say with a mixture of disappointment and dismay.

  She hangs her head and I feel like a piece of shit. It’s not her fault that her dad’s a Grade-A prick. She should be able to sleep with whoever the hell she wants to. “I know. I argued and pleaded and told him I’d break it off with Ace. He told me to go ahead. So I did. I told Ace we were done and he laughed. He said he didn’t care what Coach made me say. So I told him I slept with Dayton Carter.”

  Dayton Carter, power forward for the Western State Warriors’s basketball team. Now I’m feeling even worse. For her. For Ace. For all of us. “Oh, fuck, Stella.”

  She nods sadly. “Ace…he told me that I was a convenient hole and he didn’t care who I slept with, only that he figured he should go get checked out since I was such a slut.” Her mouth twists in pain.

  I furtively look to the door, wishing for all the world that someone would come and save me, but it’s no use.

  It’s just Stella and me and her uncomfortable confession.

  “Ace was probably…” Shit,
I have no idea what Ace was feeling but for Stella’s sake, I make something up. “Torn up and…” What would I do if Luce told me she slept with someone else? I’d go beat his ass and then ask her what the fuck. And then, I guess, maybe I’d go sleep with a dozen chicks to make me feel better? Because that’s apparently how Ace dealt with his heartbreak. “He didn’t take it well.”

  She snorts. At least she’s not crying. “I think he took it just fine.” She swallows a couple of times. “Coach…he wants to stay here with the Warriors. He’s spooked by the firing of the Chattanooga coach. Ten winning seasons but only one title, so the guy gets shown the door.”

  Last year was a blood bath for college coaches. Down in the trenches, I don’t pay much attention to that. Who’s coaching which team only matters when you’re making your college commitment to a school.

  “So Remington Barr is a two for one. He gets back at Ace for violating his precious daughter and hopefully secures his future.”

  “That’s right. Coach is never going to allow Ace behind center again so long as Barr is healthy, and even then…” She shrugs. “I think even then the third string would probably be given the nod. Ace is done, and someone has to convince him of it. Anyway, I just wanted you to know that you can’t do anything to change Dad’s mind. It was made up months ago.” She walks to the door.

  “You should tell Ace,” I call after her.

  “I’ve tried. Many times.” Then she’s gone.

  I spend another hour working the tackling dummies, the sleds, and then finally I give up and just pound away at the punching block, but the cloud of dread never escapes me. It hangs over me, like Damocles’ sword. I’m just waiting for it to fall and stab me through the skull.

  * * *

  “Stay away from Lucy.”

  No hello. No preamble. Ace just storms into my room before dinner, his eyes livid and his cheeks flushed red.

  I almost wish he’d saved this confrontation for later. At least until I was able to put some kind of plan together. All I have at the moment is the vague idea of persuading Ace using the same case I presented to Luce. It’d be good for his future. So few quarterbacks make the transition. More safeties, d-backs and corners out there than quarterbacks. I’d ease into it, though, nice and slow.

  “Sure, come on in, Ace. Good to see you. Nice that you could knock,” I say sarcastically, tossing my phone on the bed. “Beer?” I offer because that’s all I have in my room and from the wild, tense look in his eyes, he needs about five of them with a chaser of whiskey.

  “Sisters and girlfriends are off-limits.” Ace ignores my offer, preferring to stand and glare at me. I’ve had enough of people spitting on my head in anger today. I get to my feet, fold my arms across my chest, and glare right back.

  “And Lucy Watson is neither sister nor girlfriend as far as I know.” Ace had been hooking up with Stella all last semester, banging everything in a skirt, and now he’s trying to jockblock me? I’m going to need to lance this boil.

  Ace’s lips thin into an unhappy line. “Lucy is my friend.”

  “Like I said—neither girlfriend nor sister. So the locker room rule” —stupid as it is and one that nobody really observes—“doesn’t apply.”

  “It does if it’s invoked, and I’m invoking it right now.”

  I scratch my temple and reach for some patience even though that character trait isn’t even on my top twenty list of strengths. It lives somewhere down around my feet along with impulse control and restraint. “We’re not in grade school anymore. We can’t call out new rules on the field.”

  “Lucy is not a jersey chaser,” he grinds out. “She’s not the type who’s interested in one-night stands and hookups, which is probably hard for you to understand given that’s all you do.”

  Jesus. If this guy wasn’t taking it on the chin in the football arena already, he’d be kissing my knuckles.

  “Okay, man, you need to take a step back.” I might have gotten around in the past, but I’m twenty-two. I was single, and there were women throwing themselves at me. That I accepted a few—or several—of those invitations doesn’t make me an asshole. “Seems to me that we’re two pumpkins in the same patch, brother. It wasn’t Stella Lowe who was sucking your dick at the after party in Phoenix after the National Championship game two weeks ago. Unless Stella suddenly grew red hair and has a twin that we don’t know about. And I could’ve sworn that you were screwing a Kappa in the bathroom at the Gas Station on Monday night.”

  “My point exactly,” he huffs. “We both know that we’re here to play football, first and foremost. Everything else, including women, come a distant second, so stop screwing around with Lucy. You’re only trying to use her to get to me, and it’s not going to work.”

  That pisses me off on Luce’s behalf. “Take your head out of your ass for just a moment and stop thinking about Ace Anderson, buddy. I like Lucy because she’s hot and interesting. She likes me because I’m…well, I’m awesome. It has nothing to do with you.”

  “So you’re just going to fuck her to make a point.”

  “Not that it’s any of your business, but I’m not fucking her. She’s my girlfriend, and while that might get your jock in a twist because you’ve been holding a torch for her for a long time, that’s just too damn bad. She’s not your girlfriend. She’s not your sister. You can’t go around tagging all the single ladies on campus you might want someday saying that they’re off-limits. Doesn’t work that way.”

  “So what? You want to take away my position on the team and take away my best friend too?” he hurls bitterly.

  Clenched jaw, I look at him in frustration. “I don’t want to do either.”

  “But you will do both if you want, is that what you’re saying?” He sneers. “Stay away from her, Iverson. She’s too good for you.” He stalks to the door. When he gets there he turns around, “And I’m not moving from quarterback. I earned that goddamned position, and Coach Lowe will have to pry me out of there with a backhoe. You can spread that around the defense along with all your other messages.”

  He slams the door behind him, his exit something out of a fricking soap opera. Quarterbacks and their fucking prima donna attitudes. I drop my head into my hands. So much for taking an easy and nice route with Ace.

  I could do a better job screwing up my life, but not by much. At least I have Luce. I cling to that.

  29

  Lucy

  “Do you have time to go to the mall with me?” Matty asks when he picks up the phone. He texted and asked if I’d call him when I had a chance, and the first opportunity I’ve had all day is my mid-evening break during my shift at the Brew House.

  “Sure, you run out of Under Armour shirts and sweatpants?”

  “Har har. Never heard you complain.”

  “I’m more interested in what you’ve got under your clothes,” I tease.

  “Tell me more.”

  I lean my head against brick exterior of the Brew House and conjure up a vision of Matty sitting in his desk chair with his feet up, wearing his sweatpants and a tight workout shirt that clings to all of his muscles. “No. I’m taking a break and I don’t want to get excited.”

  “Mmm. This is like a challenge. Do you think I could get you off, just talking to you? Like telling you how if I was there I’d be on my knees, kissing your pussy until you cream all over me.”

  “Matthew Justin Iverson, you need to be quiet right now.” I turn hot enough to melt the snow.

  He chuckles. “You’re bringing out the big guns.”

  “Matthew…”

  He swallows his next laugh and tries to soothe me. “I swear no more talk about your sweet pussy and my hard dick.”

  “I’m hanging up now.” My panties are becoming uncomfortably damp.

  “Seriously. Shutting up. My mom’s birthday is coming up in a week and I need to buy her a gift. You in?”

  “Yes.” I find that’s the only response I ever seem to give him these days.

  “Grea
t. I’ll pick you up at your apartment around five and we can have dinner out by the mall. There’s a vegan restaurant not too far away.”

  Now my heart’s melting. “I’ll be off in two hours.”

  “Cool.” He pauses.

  “What?”

  “Love you, Goldie.”

  He hangs up before I can respond. He’s such a devil. And I love it. And him.

  He picks me up right on the mark. I bring him a spiced cider from the Brew House and give him a long, thorough kiss.

  “So are you telling me that you don’t want to go to the mall?” he jokes after I let him go.

  “No, that’s my ‘I love you, too’ kiss.”

  His eyes gleam with warmth. “I like those kisses.”

  “There’s more where that came from.”

  “Yeah? How many condoms we got left?”

  “We’re perilously low,” I tell him. “We should make a detour tonight.”

  “Detour? Hell, it will be our first stop.”

  “Before we leave, here’s this.” I present the gift I’ve been working on for the past week.

  “What’s this?” He leans against the door panel and hefts the gold-wrapped package for inspection.

  “It’s for you. Someone told me it was your birthday.” I sidle in beside him to look at the present.

  Matty flips the package around with both hands while sliding me an amused glance. “Last October.”

  I shrug. “I missed Valentine’s Day.”

  “Hmm,” he muses. “That was last week, wasn’t it? Hammer was going off about how he was writing about how to give the best Valentine’s Day blow job, but I figured he was writing ahead.”

  I hurry to assure him that I’m not upset because I’m totally not. I didn’t expect any Valentine’s Day present. “I hate that made-up holiday. I’m so glad we didn’t do anything.”

  “You sure?”

  Is he kidding? I couldn’t have a more attentive boyfriend. Yes, we don’t do a million things together because we’re both busy, but he’s there when I need him. He listens to me vent about mock trial, about the stress of midterms, about my mother. He holds my hand when I confess I’m scared of the upcoming competition and doesn’t deride me for being overly cautious.