From somewhere beside me, Coach Ainsworth’s voice penetrated my attention. “Get out there and kick some ass, McCabe!”
Dragging my eyes away from Chessly Clarke, I nodded to Coach and ran out onto the field.
Time to impress a certain sexy science nerd.
Chapter Five
Chessly
“Ican’t believe ittook until our junior year for Jamaica to attend a game. The atmosphere alone is worth the price of admission,” Saylor gushed as she raised her cup of “hot chocolate” to Piper and me for a toast.
“Guess ‘studying’ with a certain sexy tight end convinced her to give it a try,” Piper said with sly air quotes before she touched her cup to ours.
Together, we waved hard in the direction of the special VIP seats on the fifty-yard line. Callahan had given Jamaica and her friends Axel and Drake tickets to sit directly behind the Wildcats’ bench. When we caught their attention, they waved back, lifting their cups for an air-toast.
“Speaking of hot football players, you still haven’t given us a proper explanation about why you disappeared for an age at Stromboli’s on Thursday night. Those kiss-swollen lips you brought back couldn’t have had anything to do with a certain studly middle linebacker whose lips were equally swollen, could they?” I teased over the rim of my cup of spiked chocolate.
Piper studiously ignored me in favor of focusing her attention on the players swarming onto the field. My eyes strayed to the field too, and much to my consternation, I sought out number ninety-one: Finn McCabe.
Being an avid football fan, I knew exactly who he was before he offered me a ride home after the Homecoming bonfire. On the field, he was an animal. His speed and aggression knocking down opposing offensive linemen in his single-minded mission to hit the quarterback or the running back—whoever had the ball—impressed any true fan.
In truth, he was breathtaking to watch. The laws of physics said his grace and athleticism shouldn’t exist in a man of his immense size. Yet there he was Saturday after Saturday, bulldozing through O-lines, pirouetting around blockers, and leading the team in tackles for the second season in a row.
I liked stats so I kept track of the team’s. Especially the defensive stats. Especially Finn McCabe’s. So imagine my surprise when I discovered that in person, he was a bashful, sort of awkward man with twinkly, whiskey-colored eyes. Those twinkles drew me in purely because I wanted in on the joke. Turns out, the joke was on me when Tory Miller showed her vicious face and blew the play to smithereens.
As though he knew my mind was on him, Finn glanced up from where he’d been high-fiving and fist-bumping his teammates to home in on me. Desperately, I wanted to look away, to not give him the satisfaction of knowing I was watching him. But even from a distance, those warm eyes snagged mine and wouldn’t let me go.
At last a coach swatted him on the ass, drawing his attention from me, and Finn sprinted out onto the field. Only then did I catch on that I’d completely missed the opening kickoff.
Saylor’s voice was in my ear. “You okay?”
“Sure.” I sipped from my peppermint schnapps and hot chocolate. “Why would you think I wasn’t?”
“Because you slipped away into some kind of trance for a minute and didn’t shout your usual ‘Go! ’Cats! Go!’ cheer during the kickoff.” Her expression turned sly. “Could it have something to do with another football player? One who had no finesse in his attempt at getting your number?” She smirked.
“Not a chance,” I said. “Apparently, he and Tory Miller have something going.”
“Huh.” She sipped her hot drink. “That’s not the vibe I was picking up the other night.”
Her innocent act as she shifted her focus to the field didn’t fool me for a second. Saylor loved to stir the pot. With something going on between Piper and Jamaica and a certain pair of Wildcats players, I’d think she had enough to keep her gossipy little heart happy. Besides, it didn’t matter that Finn McCabe was gorgeous and talented on the field: his response to Tory in front of the dorm after Homecoming proved the man had terrible taste in women. I might have been interested in him for a minute, but after that night, I was over it.
Right as I swigged back a healthy swallow of pepperminty hot-chocolate deliciousness, Finn blew past his blocker and into the backfield. With his deceptive speed, he was on top of the quarterback almost before the poor guy had secured the ball from the center. As Finn covered the quarterback and dragged him to the turf, he somehow managed to punch the ball from his hands and another Wildcat fell on top of it.
All of us in the crowd went bananas as the Wildcat who’d recovered the fumble held the ball aloft and the defense skipped and jumped their way back to the sidelines to make way for the offense to take the field.
I wanted so badly to ignore Finn McCabe, but then he went and played like a freaking rock star and all I could do was cheer for him. And watch him with his teammates on the sideline as everyone on the defense made their way over to him to congratulate him on his stellar play. When he gazed up into the stands, he caught me staring, and he had the audacity to salute me with a wide smile on his handsome face. My dad raised me not to be rude, so I inclined my head in his direction, mainly because he’d already caught me staring at him. It wouldn’t do to pretend I wasn’t. That would only give him something to believe about me that wasn’t true.
At. All.
I had zero interest in Finn McCabe.
Beside me, Saylor shouted, “That play was incredible, wasn’t it?” Then she clocked where my eyes had strayed and added, “Yeah, I can see you have zero interest in a certain Wildcats player.”
Shaking my head, I mumbled, “Whatever,” into my hot chocolate and swigged the rest of it back. My empty cup gave me an excuse to disappear behind the student section for a minute while I disposed of it. The time away didn’t provide the breather I hoped it would though, as Finn’s broad smile played across my thoughts.
The raw power he displayed on the field already raced my heart enough when I watched him play. Then after his field heroics, he had to go and shoot me that boyish grin that threatened to set my panties on fire. The man was a padded-up ad for sin.
When I returned to my friends, the offense was on the move. Mick Patterson, our star quarterback, called, “Hike!” and dropped back three steps after the center hiked him the ball. He scanned the field and fired a laser of a pass to number eighty-two, a new player I didn’t know. But from the way he ran his post route, shedding the corner and making himself an easy target for the pass, everyone was going to know who he was sooner rather than later. The thirty yards the team gained on that play took them into the red zone, the area on the field within twenty yards of the goal line, and the stadium started rocking in anticipation of a touchdown.
