Our captain is smirking right now. ‘But I’ll bet you’re not short on offers though, right?’
I can feel my cheeks burn.Why the hell am I like a little kid when it comes to this stuff?‘I switched off my notifications. They were draining my battery.’
Dalton nods knowingly. Suddenly, some of the guys are being offered private dances. Zach Dorsey, one of my fellow rookies, from Baltimore and the Mutineers’ newest kicker, is on his feet, rubbing his hands together, the widest grin on his face. Just the sight of his giddiness makes me laugh.
‘Mon-tana Cream!’ he croons, allowing her to lead the way, and it’s pretty obvious he’s admiring the shape of her ass, ‘Mmm-mm.’
‘Montana Cr— that’s her name?’ I ask, wide-eyed.Fuck, Walsh, quit acting all virginal.
Dalton shakes his head, also grinning.
Hud raises his eyes to me. ‘What about you, rookie?’ he shouts over the pulse of the music. ‘You gonna follow Dorsey’s lead?’
‘I’m good, maybe later,’ I holler back, raising my bottle of beer to him. A little voice in the back of my head says I can’t be this golden boy all the time, and that I should just let the guys sign me up for a lap dance. That I shouldn’t be so damned chicken or worried about what other people think.
‘Whatever my brother’s sayin’ to you, it’s not true, by the way,’ is Hud’s slurred response, looking at Dalton warily. ‘None of it.’
‘Whatever you say,’ I shout back, and Dalton is laughing again.
‘Rise ’n’ shine, your highness. It’s game day.’
River’s voice enters my dream. It’s the opening game and I’m about to lose control of the ball. In my bedroom, I stir. We agreed that, when my family moved into the same property as me, we’d try and keep things separate. Compartmentalized, so I’m not that dude who still lives with his parents, aged twenty-three. Apparently, River didn’t get the memo.
I groan, pull my pillow further down over my ears. I didn’t sleep well, because –
goddammit – I’m nervous.
Tonight is the first time I’m gonna be on that field, as a Mutineer, playing for the NFL. TheactualNFL. More than three months on from the draft and it still hasn’t sunk in. That I’m here. But last night, I lay here, stared at the ceiling and asked myself, what if I screw it all up? What if I let my team down? Doesn’t matter how much college football I played, this is the big leagues now, and it ain’t for fucking snowflakes.
‘Didn’t we agree you wouldn’t hang out on this side of the house?’ I say to River, but it comes out more like a grunt.
‘It’s my first day of school, dipshit. I’m not gonna see you before the game tonight. Thought I’d come and wish you luck.’
I raise my head. ‘Right. First day of school. I forgot.’
I haven’t been able to focus on much else other than training. Except for when the girl from the grocery store pops into my head. No woman has ever occupied my thoughts like this. I must be down bad.
‘How do I look?’ River asks.
‘Why you wearing so much makeup?’
‘You think it’s too much?’ she counters.
‘You don’t normally wear so much is all.’
She goes over to a mirror I hung on the wall only yesterday. ‘Does it look like I’m wearing too much?’ she asks again.
I turn, push myself up on my elbows and glance back at her. She’s wearing jeans and high-top sneakers with a black tank top. ‘Good luck. Just be yourself. Everybody will love you.’
‘I know what’s gonna happen,’ she sighs. ‘All the girls are gonna ask if you’re single, and all the guys are gonna ask if I can get ’em tickets to the game.’
‘Then just tell ’em no, I’m not, and no, you can’t. If they just wanna hang out with you just ’cause of me then they’re not worth hanging with in the first place.’
She rolls her eyes in the mirror. ‘Says he who literally never had to struggle with being popular.’
‘I already told you… I was never… Mr Popularity.’
‘That’s what a popular kid would say.’
