“I think you’re making the whole night up,” Finn said as he racked his weights on the bench.
Callahan and I spotted him while Danny did some curls nearby. “Agreed. The whole thing sounds suspicious,” Danny said, his eyes laughing. “You sure you didn’t drink too much and hallucinate the whole thing?”
Flipping him the bird, I lay back on the bench and slid under the weights to take my turn. “At least I picked her up in a bar rather than in a grade school.”
“That’s low, Bax.” Finn pouted. “Knock that shit off.”
Funny how he knew I was talking about him.
Positioning my hands on the bar, I lifted it off the rack and began pressing it off my chest, which forced my teammates to count. When I racked it and sat up, I said, “My point, Finnegan, is that I was with someone who is old enough to drink in a bar, not some freshman jersey chaser who’s probably not old enough to vote yet.” I rubbed a towel over my sweaty hair and added, “Seriously, man. Those girls who run with Tory Miller are jailbait.”
“We’ve seen those girls though. Your imaginary hookup is something else entirely,” Callahan chimed in as he lay on the bench under the bar to take his turn.
Damn, I thought I’d distracted the conversation away from Piper and me. When I’d brought them up, I thought ’Han would slide in and ride Finn about the jersey chasers like usual. These days, it seemed to be his favorite topic. We counted out his reps and then he sat up and grinned at me.
“You were pretty cheery when you rolled in before midnight. I heard you whistling as you jogged up the stairs to your room,” Callahan said.
Shooting him a glare, I grumbled, “I’d a thought you were too busy getting some of your own to notice me at all.”
“Needed some water, so I was in the kitchen.” He smirked.
Mercifully, Coach Larkin interrupted the interrogation. “Do you ladies think you can keep your attention on the task at hand?” He ruined it with a smirk. “Smart of you to get laid on a Thursday, Baxter.” Eyeing each of us in turn, he said, “Now if you can keep it in your pants until after the game tomorrow, that would be great. Channel all that energy into kicking some ass on the field.”
While three pairs of eyes rolled in unison, I nodded, more in gratitude than agreement. I didn’t believe for a second that even one man among us would pass up sex whenever he could get it, including the night before a game. But that would likely entail a trip to the bar or a party, and none of us wanted to play football hungover.
Larkin let us go early for once, and I wasted no time in the locker room, showering in record speed, dressing, and hauling ass out of there. When I passed him on my way out the door, Callahan merely raised a brow, but I heard the message loud and clear: either give them something more substantial than the knowledge that I’d hooked up with a super-hot girl or expect the razzing to last for days.
As I walked to class, I wondered if maybe what went down between Piper and me had been a one-off. What if we met up again and discovered the sex actually wasn’t as spectacular as I thought—that Piper herself wasn’t as incredible as I thought? Then I might be inclined to give the guys the details they were demanding.
The main business building sat between the gym and the fine arts building. Making my way through the sparse crowd headed to eight o’clock classes, I scanned the faces passing me on the sidewalk and wondered if I might see her. When I didn’t catch a glimpse of shimmering purple and chestnut hair, I wondered what bar she usually hung out in and if she might be interested in another turn in the back seat of my truck. Better yet, I wondered if she might reconsider about going out with me—preferably for dinner, but I’d be up for starting slow with a coffee date if that worked better for her.
I pondered the possibilities through each of my classes, watched for her everywhere I went on campus, and was grateful practice was only a walk-through rather than a full-out game scenario with my thoughts so scattered. Instead of going home afterward and facing my roommates, I headed to Stromboli’s for pizza and beer with Fitz and Johnson. At least they hadn’t heard about my hookup—yet. Then, because I’m a damn masochist, I drove past the Molly looking for a sweet burgundy Camaro even though Piper had told me she’d only gone there because she’d never been before.
When I made a little detour on my drive home, I saw that her car wasn’t parked on Main near any of the usual college hangouts either. Didn’t mean she wasn’t hitting the bars, but it did mean I wasn’t going to tour them looking for her the night before a game.
Mercifully, when I rolled in a little before ten, Finn was immersed in an online game ofCOD, Danny wasn’t home, and Callahan was apparently “studying” with his pretty study partner, so no one paid attention when I ran up to my room to hide out for the rest of the night.
Game day was all business. Each of us had our little rituals so no one had time to raz me. We rode to the stadium together in Callahan’s pickup, hit the locker room, dropped off our bags, and headed out onto the field for warm-ups. Every man on the team focused on kicking the shit out of the Bulldogs. When the band and cheerleaders arrived, we headed into the locker room to pad up and listen to Coach’s last-minute reminders and pep talk. By then, adrenaline was racing through me, amping me up. From the expressions on my teammates’ faces, I wasn’t the only one feeling it.
When we raced back out onto the field behind the tumbling cheerleaders, through the gauntlet of the marching band playing our fight song, I couldn’t wait for that opening whistle. The crowd was on their feet, roaring for us. As long as I lived, I knew I’d never tire of hearing the sound of twenty thousand cheering fans as we entered the stadium to start a contest. Since I’d had the best defensive game in our loss last week, I carried the hammer behind the captains, who raced ahead with the national, state, and team flags. Screaming like a berserker, I held my trophy high. I planned to be running with it next week too—after a win.
We won the coin toss and deferred to the second half, which meant the defense would be out on the field first. As I high-fived Fitz and Finn, I glanced up at the student section and did a double take. There in the back row stood a familiar figure in her fake fur coat and gorgeous purple highlighted hair. Time stopped as we locked eyes.
The crowd roared as our kicker booted the ball into the end zone to start the game, bringing me back into the moment. As I raced past him, Danny swatted me on the ass.
“Start us with a takeaway, Bax!”
Yeah, I may not have as much game with the ladies as I wanted, but I tore it up on the regular out on the field. Before the Bulldogs went four and out, I’d sacked their QB twice, once with Finn’s help and once all by myself. As I trotted over to the bench so the offense could have their turn, I caught Danny.
“Not a takeaway, but pretty damn close.”
He grinned. “We’ll take it.”
Our offense pushed into the Bulldogs’ side of the fifty before their defense finally woke up. Still, we scored a field goal on the opening drive. As Coach Ainsworth, our offensive coordinator, was fond of saying, “points is points.” While I kept most of my concentration on the game, I stole a few glances at the student section where I saw Piper applauding the offense as they marched down the field. For some reason, it gratified me that she was standing between two girls. From the way they interacted, they were all together.
Good.
If she’d been standing beside some dude, I might have lost my focus.
