Jockblocked (Gridiron Book 2) Read online

  We recruited students from the theatre department to play our witnesses, and we were going to ask Riley Hart, a Poli-Sci pre-law major to be our third attorney, but then Heather tried out and the closing argument she delivered in the tryouts nearly moved Coach Jensen to tears.

  After Heather explained she had a lot of experience with the law and that her father was the famous Paul Bell, there was no question who was going to fill the third attorney spot.

  Bell’s a criminal defense lawyer hired by athletes, politicians, and actors whenever they get accused of doing something wrong. He actually got an athlete out of a robbery charge by claiming the football team had coerced him and he was under undue duress. I may have been a little star struck when Heather was talking to me. Yeah, I definitely put too much weight on the whole “daughter of Paul Bell” thing.

  I pause while putting my things away. Is it possible my risk assessment toward Matty—I mean Matt, because we are not on nickname terms—also includes incorrectly weighted items? Not all football players are horndogs. Ahmed, one of Ace’s closest friends on the team, is seriously devoted to his girlfriend. And didn’t one of the Warriors actually get married last month? That’s serious grown-up stuff.

  “You forget something?” Randall asks as he wrestles one of the desks back into position.

  I look up in mild surprise. I’d forgotten where I was for a moment. “Nope. Let me help you with that.” I have to get Matt Iverson out of my head.

  We finish tidying up the room, putting all the desks and chairs back into their uniform rows while Heather inspects her nails by the door. I try not to let that irritate me. Randall, on the other hand? He huffs and puffs and sighs the entire time, which is annoying in its own way.

  Once we’re done and I’ve worked up an unfortunate sweat under my button-down, Heather saunters over to run a finger along a desk.

  “I think this isn’t quite straight.” She shoves it lightly with her hip.

  Randall releases a growl from the back of his throat while I bite back a snarky retort. Taking a deep breath, I try again to play peacemaker.

  “Did you need something, Heather?” I’m not sure why she’s hanging around.

  She shrugs, a delicate movement. Heather is very pretty. In fact, if she wasn’t so intent on being an attorney, she’d have done a great job as our jaywalking victim who got struck by a car. “Not particularly. I was wondering, though, how it was decided that you’d be in charge, Lucinda?”

  I school my features into an impassive expression, not wanting her to know that I hate being called by my full name. I’ve told her at least twice that I prefer to be called Lucy, but since she continues to call me Lucinda, my guess is she’s trying to get every last dig in wherever she can. “I’m not in charge. Coach Jensen is.” Coach Jensen is a local trial attorney who volunteers her time to train us.

  “But you put the team together. You were the contact person on the sign-up sheet for this elective.” She rubs her finger along the side of the desk, looking sweet and innocent, but I’ve spent two weeks with this girl and it’s been long enough to realize that sweet and innocent is an act Heather adopts when she wants something.

  “Randall lost his cellphone so it made sense for me to put mine on there while he was getting it replaced,” I explain.

  “That’s convenient for you, isn’t it?”

  I glance over at Randall because I have no idea where she’s going with this. Randall’s expression is one of confusion, too.

  “I don’t know if I’d say it was convenient. I had to field a hundred calls and about a quarter of them were crank ones that asked me if the try out was for my ass.”

  Heather smirks. “You’re still in charge. The others in the group listen to you.”

  “None of us is in charge. We’re all working together toward the same goal. You told me last fall when you tried out that you wanted to join to help us defeat Central and hopefully go on and win Nationals,” I remind her.

  “See, that’s why I’m worried.”

  “About what?” I shoulder my backpack, wishing I had escaped with the rest of the team, but that would mean leaving Randall and Heather alone, and I was afraid if that happened, only one would be alive for our next practice.

  “I’m wondering whether we’ve assembled the right pieces for the team. You’re good as an administrative point person. You know, signing us up, getting us the schedule, passing out the materials, but you really don’t have the killer instinct a lawyer needs.” Ouch. But her ability to accurately hit at all of our insecurities after just a short time means she’ll be really good in competition, I remind myself. Heather keeps going, “I’m going to ask my father to come and evaluate the talent. He can coordinate with Ms. Jensen. They belong to the same club.”

  “We’ve already set the roster. Why would we change it now?”

  “So that we can win.” She states the words as if the answer is obvious.

  I grit my teeth, but Randall’s had enough. “Lucy is the best attorney on our team.”

  She arches a perfectly shaped eyebrow. “If Lucinda is so amazing, why isn’t she doing either the opening or closing? Why am I, someone you say has no experience and no skill, delivering the closing? Isn’t that the most important role of the whole team? We can hide the weak link between the two of us.” She drags her eyes down Randall’s perfectly fine outfit once again. “But if you don’t dress better, no one is taking us seriously.”

  With that last arrow, she spins on her heel and walks away.

  “I can buy a suit, but you can’t buy class,” Randall yells after her.

  “Might want to brush up on your insults,” Heather calls casually over her shoulder. “That one’s older than your shoes.”

  “I got these shoes last year.”

  “From Goodwill?”

  I step in front of Randall as he lunges toward the doorway Heather just exited.

  “It’s not worth it,” I tell him.

  “We can’t have her on the team. She’s a cancer,” Randall rages, pulling away from me and straightening his sweater in a huff. “Don’t you care that she basically called you incompetent?”

  I shift uncomfortably because, while Heather’s words stung, I don’t know if she was entirely wrong. I mean, I’m not incompetent, but isn’t part of competence knowing your limits? “I thought you were sitting right beside me when I crashed and burned our freshman year?”

  Randall clicks his tongue in sympathy. “It was a mistake. You froze. We’ve all had a similar experience once in our lives. When I was in eighth grade speech class, I couldn’t get more than two words out in rebuttal.”

  “Randall?”

  “Yeah?” He smiles brightly.

  “You’re not helping.” I squeeze his shoulder. “I don’t like the way she says it, but we both know where my skill set lies and it isn’t with on-the-fly exposition needed for a good closing argument. And you hate doing rebuttals, so we needed a closer. We all agreed she was the best of everyone who tried out.”

  He makes a face. “You could do it if you wanted to.”

  “Then I guess my answer is I don’t want to.” I’d rather suffer a hundred insults than have to stand up and speak for ten minutes straight while everyone sitting in the audience picks apart every single word I’ve said wrong. Been there, done that, failed epically.

  “You need to keep that bitch in check,” Randall says. He pulls on his winter coat in sharp, exaggerated movements. He doesn’t want me to miss that he’s pissed off. As if it wasn’t obvious. But, I suppose his dramatics are partly why he’s so engaging.

  “It’ll be fine,” I soothe. “Once she gets the hang of things, you’ll be thrilled.”

  “She better,” he says ominously.

  “Or what?” I ask, losing my patience. “You’ll quit?”

  “Maybe.” He sticks his nose in the air, looking every inch like Heather as he waltzes out the door. I should videotape him next time so he sees exactly how similar the two are. I want to t
hrow a pencil at his head.

  Between the stress of mock trial and the conundrum of Matt Iverson, I’m going to worry myself into an early grave. Could one thing go my way? Just one?

  * * *

  I’m still worrying about both topics when I show up to my shift at the Brew House the next day. At least with mock trial, we have weeks of practice to work out the kinks. With Matt, I fear the only way to exorcise him is to move across the country and enter a nunnery. He’s popping up in my dirty fantasies far too often. This morning I got up early because I feared if I stayed one more minute in bed, I’d call him and beg him to come over to help me work off some of my tension.

  Which is why I’m thirty minutes early for work. I quickly discover this is a good thing, because a familiar figure is waiting for me when I walk in.

  JR “Ace” Anderson rises from his table and greets me with his trademark ladies’ man grin.

  “Hey, Lucy.”

  I bustle over and give him a big hug. “When did you get back?”

  “Just this morning.”

  Ace doesn’t get the holidays off, so after the Championship game, he flew to his dad’s place in Massachusetts for a week. His parents have been divorced since he was ten. I still remember when he found out. He showed up at my front door after school and wouldn’t leave until my dad let him in. I’d been at band practice. When I got home, Ace was lying on my bed and his face was wet from crying.

  I didn’t say a word, just picked up my bike helmet. He followed me out and we biked for two hours around the city. I’ve never seen him cry again.

  Ace and I, we’re tied together by our family history. It’s not pretty and, for a time there, the only people we had to lean on were each other. Besides my dad, Ace is the one steady thing in my life, so even though I find him exasperating and a little too arrogant nowadays, I still care for the big lug.

  “How’s your dad?”

  “Same old.” The two have a rocky relationship but at least they talk, unlike my mom and me. Ace claims the only reason his dad wants to connect now is because he thinks Ace is going to be a rich NFL player. I don’t think Ace is entirely wrong. “Had some interviews with the local Boston stations. Kind of a ‘hometown boy done good’ sort of thing.”

  “You didn’t grow up in Boston,” I point out.

  “Who cares? It was fun.”

  He is really loving the post-win attention. “I got to give my NFL Super Bowl picks. We talked about the draft.”

  “Was your dad there?”

  “Yup. He was like a kid at Christmas.”

  I bet. “Everything else going well? No one gave you any shit for missing a week of classes?”

  “Lucy,” Ace chides. “I just won the National Championship. No one is giving me shit over anything.”

  “Good. Because I need to take advantage of your good mood.”

  “Sure. What do you need?”

  “I’m getting kicked out of my apartment on Tuesday. Mind if I stay at your place? I can sleep on the sofa.”

  “No problem.” His eyes warm up as he pulls out a small, wrapped gift. “Happy belated Christmas.”

  “You already gave me a present,” I object. We exchanged gifts on Christmas Eve at my dad’s house. Dad and I went in together to get Ace a nice pair of sunglasses. He’d been complaining all fall that the ones he had were low rent and janky. The school supplies him with endless athletic gear, all the shoes he wants, and he got some sweet gifts for going to the bowl game the previous year, but not one pair of sunglasses.

  Ace gave me a pair of gold hoop earrings. I think his mom picked them out, but they were nice. I wish I had worn them today.

  “I didn’t pay for it, so it doesn’t really count.” Ace’s job is football, so he doesn’t have a lot of extra cash around, which makes me really curious about the gift. I slide a fingernail under the tape and pop it open, careful not to tear the paper.

  “Come on, Lucy. It’s just newspaper,” he scolds.

  “I can’t help it.” It’s some old newspaper but it’s still wrapping. As I lift off the paper, I gasp in surprise. It’s a pair of cordless headphones—a very expensive pair. I know this because it was a selection in a catalog of items that one of the bowl sponsors was allowed to gift the players as a thank you for playing in the bowl. “Ace, what is this?”

  He grins. “I know you were saying how you hated wearing your headphones because the cords get tangled in your hair.”

  “You should have picked something for yourself.” The generosity of this gift makes me uneasy. The echo of Sutton’s teasing voice tickles at the back of my brain. Besides, Ace made that stupid pact up so he can keep you to himself. I’d scoffed at her then, but I don’t feel so sure now.

  “I did. I picked the same pair. The voucher was enough to get two pair.”

  “I thought you were getting a television.” We actually discussed this. He showed me the brochure, pointed to the 42” flat screen, and said it would look great in his room. I agreed.

  “There are plenty of guys with televisions in the house.” He shrugs. “It’s non-returnable, so don’t make a big deal out of it, yeah?”

  I can see he’s uncomfortable, too, so I tuck the headphones away in my bag and lean over to kiss him on the cheek. Halfway there, I think better of it and reach over and squeeze his arm instead. “Thank you.”

  Ace gives me a crooked grin as if he knows I changed my mind midflight, but thankfully he doesn’t ask me about it. He’s probably relieved. “So how’s mock trial going?”

  I take the change of subject and run with it. “It’s not. We’re sucking right now. That new girl, Heather, is killing us. I thought for sure that she’d have picked up on some trial procedures from her dad, but it’s like she doesn’t even know he is a lawyer. I feel like I’ve made a bargain with the devil. I can’t handle her, and Randall is livid at nearly everything that comes out of her mouth.”

  “That bad, huh?”

  “You have no idea.”

  “Send her over to the field house. We’ll whip her into shape. Although…” Ace trails off, looking momentarily troubled.

  “Although what?” I prompt.

  “Coach is acting kind of weird. I went in there to do a few sets before class and ran into him. He kind of mumbled hello into his hand and took off.”

  I make a sympathetic noise. Ace has always complained that his relationship with Coach wasn’t what he wished it could be. I told him that maybe he shouldn’t sleep with Stella Lowe, the coach’s daughter. Ace brushed me off, saying that no one knew.

  Given how many times I saw them together, and I don’t even hang out at the Gas Station or where Ace lives, I figured he was wrong, but Ace is so darned hard-headed. You can’t get him to change his mind once he’s convinced he’s right about something. Even if you shove all the facts in the world into his face, he’ll still believe what he wants to believe.

  “Coach probably doesn’t know what to do with himself now that he can’t yell at you guys to do push-ups.”

  “Is that what you think we do at practice?” he teases. “Endless amounts of push-ups?”

  “Who knows? I ask you what you’re doing during the season and the answer is always ‘working out’ or ‘lifting.’”

  “Fair enough,” he grins. “What’s been going on with you besides hating mock trial? You know, you are allowed to quit things you don’t enjoy.”

  “You hate football sometimes, and I don’t see you quitting.”

  Ace raises an eyebrow. “I’ve never hated football.”

  “Yeah, well I don’t hate mock trial either. I love it.” I love putting the pieces of the puzzle together and drafting up the arguments and questions and answers. It’s the extemporaneous speaking part I struggle with. “Even if I didn’t love it, my scholarship depends on me being part of the team. And if I’m going to be part of the team, we’re going to be good.”

  Ace nods. One thing we both enjoy is winning, which is why the last couple of years have been kind
of a downer for me. Maybe that’s why I’m so interested in Matt Iverson.

  He’s fun to be around and when I’m with him, I don’t dwell on how crappy my mock trial is going or how I have to shoot myself up with insulin twice a day because my body doesn’t make it or how I was forced to spend Christmas with my mother and her current boyfriend. He was the third guy she’d dated this year. I didn’t realize how many over-forty single men there are out there. Although, my mother doesn’t limit herself to single men. That’d be too silly.

  So it isn’t a great surprise that I find myself asking Ace about Matt even though I know the topic will bring out a great deal of scowls and lectures. But his phone number is burning a hole in my head, and I’m afraid if I don’t use it, I might suffer some permanent head trauma. “I ran into one of your teammates the other day. He was in here. You spreading the word about our great coffee?”

  “Hell no. I keep this place a secret.” Ace looks almost serious, almost…pissed off that one of the Warrior football players has dared step foot into the Brew House. “Which one?”

  As nonchalantly as possible, I say, “Matt Iverson.”

  Saying his name out loud conjures up all the shivery feelings he roused in me. He was so much fun to talk with, and his offer to show me risks, to take all the risks so I could just go along for the ride…God, I want to test out his verbal skills. I hope I’m not blushing.

  “That hound? I hope he didn’t say anything to you. Ives can’t walk by a vagina without wanting to test it out,” Ace says crudely. It takes me a second to realize he calls Matt by the nickname of Ives. These boys and their constant nicknames. What’s wrong with their given names?

  “He did ask me out,” I admit.

  “And you turned him down, of course.” He smiles. “I shouldn’t worry. I know you can take care of yourself.”

  I ignore the compliment and latch on to the of course. “Of course? Why, of course?”

  First Sutton and Charity and now Ace? Am I that predictable? Actually, yes, I am that predictable. And that used to be okay. Why does it bother me now?

  “Because there are rules, Lucy. There’s a locker room rule of no dating girlfriends or sisters.”