I half believe Ace will tell Coach that the new recruit can go suck a goat, but he doesn’t.
Instead, we take Lucious Deakins—for serious, that’s the fucker’s name—the new recruit, out for dinner. He’s big bodied, and needs to lose about thirty pounds of fat and trade that in for fifty pounds of muscle. Worse? He’s got a loud fucking mouth and I’m not talking volume. The kid has a Twitter account, a Facebook account, an Instagram account, and a fucking Pinterest board where he pins pictures of food.
I hate that I’m even using the word pin. I could feel the testosterone draining out of me each second I had that site up on my computer.
His Twitter account is the worst. He’s been documenting every single thing associated with his recruiting trips from the snacks he received on the airplane to the sidewalk cracks outside each stadium.
Oh, yeah, and he doesn’t shut up.
“What are we doing later tonight?” he asks.
Two seconds later. “You guys bringing me strippers?”
Before I can draw my next breath. “Are they jumping out of a cake? I’ve always wanted a stripper cake.”
Jesus, does he think we’re putting on some Mardi Gras parade for him?
“No,” I say shortly.
“How about the booze. I can do a two-story beer bong.” Call me Lucious cuz that’s my name rubs his hands together.
I share another long-suffering glance with Ace, who smiles back at me. He’s enjoying this. “You’re eighteen. We can’t serve you booze,” I tell him.
“But…why are you taking me around then?”
“So you can get a feel for the campus. You want us to violate some NCAA rules and make it impossible for you to get a D-1 scholarship here?”
“Uh, no,” he stutters, showing a modicum of sense for the first time during the whole trip. Truth is, if we liked him, if we thought he wasn’t a total washout, then we would treat him to a few Warrior perks. But this guy isn’t worth the effort. This is our punishment.
“Good, then follow me, don’t drink, and don’t touch anyone.”
“What if they touch me?”
I close my eyes. “That’s fine. If they touch you first, feel free to touch them back, but for God’s sake, don’t offer to pay them anything. These are students, not hookers.”
Ace muffles a laugh behind his hand. I give explicit instructions to the bartenders at the Gas Station that this is an underage, loud-mouth recruit. They nod and serve him a Coke when he asks. I take a shot of whiskey because the only way I’m making it through the night is with really, really dulled senses. Numb, in fact.
There’re plenty of women in the Gas Station to make up for the lack of alcohol. I tell one of the girls to pretend like she’s spiking his drink while she pours club soda in it. A couple of other players show up and take him off my hands for an hour to play pool.
Ace leans back in the booth across from me and looks at me with assessing eyes.
I give a tired gesture. “Whatever you’ve got to say, spit it out.”
“Why aren’t you taking my back in this?” Ace asks. “You really think I’m that shitty of a quarterback?”
I sigh. I don’t know if I’ve ever really hated anyone, but I’m getting close with Coach. “No. You’re a good quarterback and I’m proud to wear the same colors.”
“But I’m not great.”
“We don’t need you to be great.” I squeeze the back of my neck. “Look, it doesn’t matter what I think. Coach has made up his mind. The kid’s coming here and he’s going to start him. He…he doesn’t like you, man.”
“Because of Stella.”
“Yeah.” I breathe out a sigh of relief. We’re finally getting somewhere. “Because of Stella.”
Ace shakes his head. “We stopped fucking a long time ago. Barely into the season. What was it? Week four?”
“How long had you been going at it?”
“Since summer. It was just a fling. The shelf life was getting stale at that point anyway. I guess I’ll just continue being the thorn in his side.”
“Why? You’re real athletic. You have great hands. Why not try for safety?” I launch into my spiel about how there’s so much more opportunity for him in the NFL beyond the stupid quarterback position. Who even gives a crap about that position anyway?
“I don’t want to play that position. I’ve got one year left to prove that I’m worth a draft pick or at least a tryout or two.”
“But if you’re not on the field, you can’t prove anything other than you look good holding a clipboard.”
“You know that the favorite player in the stadium is the backup quarterback,” Ace replies confidently. “That freshman comes in and he gets his first hit, he’s going to come crawling over to the sideline and I’ll be there to step in and save the day.”
I down another shot because that’s the only way I’m going to make it through the night between the raw-ass recruit who’s determined to get drunk and screw as many college chicks as he can, and the grand delusions of Ace.