“What are you drinking?” I ask in an effort to remember a tiny bit of manners and hop off my spot on the porch. A few people have drifted over, probably drawn in by Masters’ gravitational force.
“Water.”
That stops me short. “Water? No beer? No vodka? Season hasn’t even started.”
“There will be plenty of time to throw down after the season is over,” he says mildly, not even remotely offended. “The average time in the NFL is five years. I'll play ten if I'm lucky. Fifteen if the gods smile down at me. That gives me forty plus years to drink myself into a stupor.”
The discipline this guy has amazes me. “You're big into delayed gratification.”
“Waiting can be worth it.”
“How would you know?”
He laughs. He throws his head back, and the deep rumble starts in his body and ends in mine. Fuck me. He’s gorgeous, talented and has a goddamned sense of humor.
Life is so unfair.
8
Knox
With little effort, I swallow the rest of my laughter. I want to pinch Eliot’s cute, frustrated cheeks right now, but I have a feeling that’d go over as well as Hammer’s attempt to throw the ball—which means not at all. His arm is shit. If we run a trick play, he’ll never be the one to throw the ball down field toward Ace.
She shifts uncomfortably, but I don’t make any effort to make that go away. It’s a good uncomfortable. She’s hyperaware of my existence, which is only fair because I can’t stop thinking about her either.
It hasn’t been a cakewalk abstaining from plowing every willing girl who’s thrown herself at me. It’s only gotten worse since I got put on the cover of SI with a bunch of other overhyped college players and the caption Who’s Next? I didn’t even want to be on the cover. It’s complete bulletin board material. No doubt that stupid picture is up in locker rooms all over the conference full of dart holes.
There is so much willing * thrown around that it’s hard to dodge. At a big Division I school, all you have to say is you’ve got a spot on the roster and girls are ready to spread for you. Even the wet-behind-the-ears freshman bartender won’t have any problem finding a chick to go home with tonight, even though he struck out hard with Ellie. It’s easy to drink water instead of pounding drinks. It’s easy to say no to those offers of HGH or money from agents. There are real repercussions to those actions.
But saying no to a hot, dark-haired beauty who wants nothing more than to put her lips around my dick? Or no to the cute redhead who promises me the carpet matches the curtains? Or no to the banging blonde whose barely-there tank top doesn’t quite disguise her erect nipples that she apparently has developed from rubbing her ass all over my lap? That takes super human effort. As each month wore on, it felt harder to remember why I’d decided I’d wait.
I’m not religious. Oh, I believe in a higher being. If pressed, I’d say that heaven and hell existed in some form. But my decision to wait didn’t stem from some mandate in a thousand-year-old written text or from some guy on top of the mountain. It’s a hell of a lot more prosaic and boring. But I’ve managed to say no because I’ve waited this long, and it didn’t make sense to waste it on a quick and easy fuck in some bar bathroom or frat house bedroom.
But fucking my fist gets real old.
It’d be easier if I was a hermit like Ace, who doesn’t like parties and would rather be tied up and whipped publicly than have to sit and make small talk with a bunch of assholes he barely knows, which is why he’s hiding in the video game room playing Madden. But I enjoy the crowds. It hypes me up to see all these people here at Hammer’s house, excited to be with us.
And I’m not at all immune to the easy charm of Ellie Campbell, her obvious love of the sport regardless of her stated bullshit claim that she hated it, and her tight body.
“You ready for Missouri?” she asks.
I avert my face to hide a grin of triumph. Not only is her butt still planted on the railing, but she’s asking questions like she can’t quit me. I like how the universe lines up perfectly sometimes.
“You bet, but they’re a decent opponent.”
She snorts. “You don’t have to pretend for me. They’re terrible and you should win by at least three scores.”
Our first game is in less than ten days and we should win it. In fact, our first tough match up doesn’t come until week five but you can’t enter a game thinking it’s won before you even step foot on the field.
“The team you overlook is the team that beats you.”
She shakes her Coke can and we both hear how empty it is, but I’m not ready to go inside and get her a new drink. Out here in the dark corner I’ve staked out, it’s almost as if we’re alone. I can work with this.