“What about you? Why are you still a virgin?”
“Football is why I’m still a virgin, which I realize sounds counterintuitive. Most jocks are whores, right?”
“I wouldn’t know.” She points her thumb back at her chest, and I struggle not to stare at her tits again. “Totally oblivious about sports, remember?” She smiles at me, and damn, do I want to see that smile more. I can’t let this girl get away. That animal deep inside that I’ve never tapped into before is roaring loud and clear, telling me to make her mine, to take care of her, protect her. The urges are so loud it is almost hard to think past them and give her my story.
“Well, trust me. That is the reputation we get. But my dad was a hard-ass when it came to me and my future football career. He was in the NFL, but he was a third-string quarterback for one of the best teams in the league. He’s famous for only one thing. He got to play for exactly one minute in a championship game because both the starting QB and the second-string QB got injured in this just brutal game with their rival. So, he went in, and all he had to do was hold the line, and they won the game. Actually, he’s a Trivial Pursuit question. The only quarterback to win a championship game without ever scoring a point in his professional career.”
Jenny’s gaze shifts to my face, giving me this look that says she is interested but not filing the information away to use to her advantage later. It is really freaking rare for that to happen to me. Once someone hears I have an NFL QB as my dad, and I’m on my way to lead an NFL team of my own someday, they immediately start seeing dollar signs and suddenly want to be best friends. Despite the continued slapping and moaning filtering through the walls behind us, this conversation is, strangely, making me the most relaxed I’ve been since getting to this school three years ago.
“Anyway, he had all these rules while I was in high school. No serious girlfriends. Home by ten every night unless we had an away game and got back late. Keep the grades up. No partying. Most Saturday nights I would be at home helping my mom around the house, training with my dad, or watching movies with my sister while the rest of the team went out and got drunk and laid.” I hope I’m not coming off as too much of a homebody here. I want to impress this girl, but I also don’t want to come off as a loser. But I also don’t want to lie. Truth is, I am a homebody.
“Okay, but once you got to college, there had to be tons of opportunities to go out and meet girls. I mean, your teammates have presented you with a few. Why are you still holding out?” Jenny turns to me, crossing her legs and propping her cheek on the heel of her hand. She looks at me as if I’m some sort of fascinating newly discovered species. Which maybe I am. “Is your family super religious?”
That gets a genuine laugh out of me. “No. My family’s only religion is football. Even my mom is a diehard. I guess everything my dad said kind of just sank in after a while. Growing up, my parents were always super affectionate. It was embarrassing as hell, but also nice when other kids were suffering through their parents’ divorces. Dad says she is the love of his life, and he wished like hell he hadn’t been a whore in his college and NFL days. They met his last season in the NFL. She was a makeup artist for a team photo shoot. Says he knew the minute he saw her he had to talk to her. It took a long time for him to convince her that he was serious and wouldn’t sleep around on her. Didn’t help that my sister is the product of a fling he had with a superfan before he met my mom, and there was lots of drama with that too. Anyway, growing up he just really drove it into my head that someday I will meet a woman who is going to make me wish there had been no other women. I guess I took it to the extreme. I want my first time to be with a person I trust and at least have the possibility of spending forever with.”
Jesus, talking to this girl is making me pour my fucking guts out. It is as if I want her to know every single part of me right now. Move past all this getting-to-know-you bullshit and move on to whatever the next phase is, which of course I have no clue about. What I don’t tell her is, the moment I saw her, I knew. I knew that this girl was someone who has to be in my life. Forever. I have no clue whether this feeling is love, or infatuation, or maybe just good old lust. But I know I’ve never felt it like this before. And like the competitor I am, I need to go after it with everything I have.
“Wow, that is really sweet.” She’s not looking at the stars anymore, but there is an unmistakable twinkle in her eye and a slight smile on her lips.
I could look at this girl all day and not get bored.
“So, ready for the most unimaginative and standard of questions in college?” Her smile broadens, showing a flash of white teeth between her pink lips.
“Go for it.”
In unison we both ask, “What’s your major?”
I tilt my head toward her, indicating she should go first.
“Double major, biology and zoology. I have a year left, and then I’ll be going to veterinary school.”
“Damn, that is intense.” The whistle I let out echoes through the dense woods surrounding the den of sins behind us.
“You’re telling me. I almost had a nervous breakdown last year. Okay, now you.”
Another thing I always get shit about from not only my teammates but my dad as well is my major. None of them approve. “Education with a concentration in world history. I will probably end up in the NFL as long as I don’t get injured in the next year. But after that, I want to get my master’s degree in history and teach high school students. Maybe coach a high school football team.”
Jenny’s smile could seriously light up any of the stadiums I’ve played in over the last three years. She parts her lips to say something in return, but a ping from inside her purse interrupts our conversation. The size of her bag is seriously worthy of Mary Poppins. She digs down to her elbow to fish out her tiny iPhone.
After opening her lock screen and reading whatever message she received, Jenny frowns a little, the space between her eyebrows crinkling slightly with the change in her mood. I want to rub my thumb over that spot, smooth out the lines and her worries.
“What’s wrong?”
Flipping some internal switch, Jenny smiles again, shaking her head as if to dislodge something in her head. “Nothing. My roommate is about five minutes away.”
Huh. “Why would that make you frown? I thought you’d be ecstatic to get away from that.” I tilt my head back to the building behind us, and right on cue, someone screams at the top of their lungs in bliss.
A fierce blush rushes up Jenny’s face, making her cheeks, chin, and forehead blaze a bright red.
“I mean, yes, obviously I am happy to get far away from my first and last experience with group sex.” A deep sigh leaves her, and her shoulders sag a little. “This is going to sound lame, but this has been the best conversation I’ve had in months. I kinda don’t want it to end. Despite the weird circumstances.”
On a whim, I reach out and scoop her hand into mine, tracing the delicate lines at the base of her wrist. “Not lame at all. I never get to talk to someone who doesn’t end sentences with a grunt and a fist bump.”
That bright smile slips across her face momentarily before she bites down on her bottom lip to hide it, looking down at our hands.
“Is this okay?” I pick up our hands a fraction of an inch so she knows without a doubt what I’m referring to. The warmth of her skin is like a brand on my soul. From this moment, I’ll always know it is there. Where we first made contact.
She nods, the corners of her mouth trying to curve even higher, but her white teeth clamp harder on her lip to prevent it.
