Текст книги "Sacked"
Автор книги: Jen Frederick
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5 Ellie
“Hi, Eliot,” Masters murmurs as I wait for the food service employee to spoon a very bland piece of chicken onto a plate.
“Masters.” I guess we’re skipping over exchanging names. I felt him at my back before he even opened his mouth. He carries a certain crackling energy with him. Tonight he smells freshly showered, which is as dangerous as the slightly sweaty, early morning Masters. I shudder lightly.
“Anything wrong?” There’s light amusement in his voice. I’m sure if I turn around he’ll be grinning. Since my defenses are weak from the lack of food, I don’t even peek at him.
“The food here is lousy.” Of course, I say it at the exact moment the server hands me my plate. “But this looks great.” I give her a big smile that she doesn’t return. Masters muffles a snort while I hurriedly grab my plate before the server tips the tray on my head.
“It’s the hall closest to the athlete dorms, so there’s a lot of low calorie choices for those in training. But you can ask the grill to make you anything.”
I turn then, because I have to, and see Masters has a giant cheeseburger, French fries, and a glass of milk taller than my head.
“Now you tell me.”
He plucks the tray from my hands and says, “You should have had breakfast with me. I could’ve shared all kinds of important Western State secrets with you.”
I’m forced to trail after him like a puppy as he makes his way to the back, which has about ten tables shoved together and forty guys. It’s a good thing I’m not carrying my tray, because the sight of half the football team sitting together makes my hands sweaty.
I use the only diversion I have available—Masters’ butt. It’s a work of art and I’m not even into men’s asses. It’s hard and round, and even though he’s wearing cargo shorts, I can still see the flex and release of his glutes. The more I think about Masters flexing and releasing, the tighter my body gets.
No way is Knox Masters, all six-foot-six-inches of prime NFL bound manhood, a virgin. He’s got the wingspan of a god and his hands are big enough that I think they could actually span my waist, which is in no way tiny. When we walked in here, my brother looked almost small at six-four and two ten. I’m not sure what Masters weighs, but he’s solid everywhere. His thighs look like tree trunks, and his shoulders are so wide they blotted out the sun when he virtually accused me of creeping on him at six in the morning.
The door to the stadium was open!
Then he spent the whole time pretending he wasn’t a football player even after I’d hinted broadly that I knew who he was. I should punch him for that.
Now he’s playing another game.
Bodies don’t come harder or finer than his. Sure, there are great forms everywhere in college, particularly among the athletes, but Masters is of a different caliber. Already people are whispering Heisman and First Round in connection with his name. Panties probably decorate the sidewalks as he walks to class. Women all around the campus have to be offering themselves as tribute on the altar of his purported virginity on a nonstop basis.
Jack sits in the middle with his arm around an empty chair. His brows furrow when he spots Masters carrying my tray.
“I’ll take that.” I tear my eyes off Masters’ butt, pluck my tray out of his hands, and settle into the seat Jack has saved for me.
Masters isn’t done with me. Jack’s eyes get wide as a child’s on Christmas when Masters whispers in my ear, “You can run, Eliot Campbell, but this campus is too small for you to hide.”
Gulp.
He leaves me without another word and ambles casually down toward the other open seats, as if he didn’t—I’m not certain whether it was a threat or a promise.
“What was that all about?” Jack mutters under his breath.
“I thanked him for carrying my tray,” I make up.
“And his ‘you’re welcome’ was a secret?”
I dig my fingernails into my palm under the table so I don’t blush. “I don’t know what’s in his head.”
That’s as truthful as any answer I can give.
“Then you aren’t looking hard enough,” Jack says wryly.
I look up to see Masters standing—looming really—across the table from us. All the seats are filled, but he sets the tray down anyway in a small sliver of space.
“Move down, Telly, will you?”
“Sure, Masters.”
Telly, the Warriors center, shoves his tray down one spot. Soon the entire right side of the table is shifting, one player by one player. Masters calmly takes his seat.
“Thought I’d sit with the offense tonight. See what secrets you all are cooking up.”
“Hell, man, you got to ease up during practice,” Telly jokes. “I thought you would tear Ace’s head off there a couple of times.”
Before Masters can say anything in his defense, Ace leans across the table and points his knife in Masters’ direction. “Don’t you ever ease up on me. You think Ohio will go easy on me, or Wisconsin? How about the teams from Michigan? Think they’ll go half speed because this is my first year as a starter? No fucking way. The minute Masters goes soft on me is the minute he’s given up on this team, this year.”
Telly raises his hands in surrender. “I got you, brother, just joking around with the big man here.”
He pounds Masters on the back a couple of times. Masters doesn’t even flinch. He calmly lifts his giant hamburger to his mouth, bites off half of it, and winks at me.
That’s the last interaction I have with him for about twenty minutes. His teammates unknowingly do all his dirty work to ferret out my information.
Telly asks me where I’m living.
“With a girl named Riley Jensen in the Maplewood Apartments.”
“Those are sweet.” He nods with approval. “You’ll have to have us over.”
“I can fit about four of you in the living room.”
“As long as one is me. I like chocolate chip cookies, if you’re taking baking orders.”
I wait for Masters to insert some remark about liking certain cookies, but he’s completely silent.
Ahmed Lowe, one of the two main running backs, asks me what my major is.
“It’s English Lit. I plan to write technical works for a living, like grants or instructional booklets or anything anyone wants written, but doesn’t write themselves.”
“Ellie proofs all my work. She does a great job,” Jack interjects.
“You can write my papers,” Telly says.
I somehow keep smiling as if his innocent—I hope—joke doesn’t stab me in the gut. “When you’re out of college, I’ll write whatever you want, but I wouldn’t want to affect your eligibility.”
You are an awful person, Eliot. Awful.
Clifton Knowles, the strong side offensive lineman, asks if Jack and I are twins because we’re both juniors.
Jack answers for me. “We’re ten months apart. I got held back a year and so we ended up being in the same grade.”
What Jack doesn’t say is that we’ve been taking care of each other for as long as we both remember, which is why I’m the only female sitting with the football team. There’s nearly a hundred guys who dress and seventy who travel, but in the sea of muscle and testosterone, I’m the only girl because this is my third night here and Jack doesn’t want me eating alone.
He takes care of me. I take care of him. No matter what.
“That’s cool,” Masters says. “I have a twin but he plays—”
“—Defensive end for MU,” I finish for him. It’s common knowledge. Again, they appeared on the same cover of Sports Illustrated.
“Ellie probably knows more about football than I do.” Jack ruffles my hair affectionately.
My hand goes up reflexively to smooth the errant strands, but a warm look in Masters’ eyes—one that gives me those unwanted feelings again—has me dropping my hand to my lap. So what if my hair is messy and looks like a static-y monster? It’s not like I want to impress any of these guys. Not at all. I cross my legs and shift in my chair. Masters’ green eyes gleam at me. Bastard. No way he doesn’t know what affect he has on girls. This whole virgin thing is probably designed to convey he’s unattainable for me.
“Hey, boys.” A sultry voice interrupts my stupid thoughts. We all look up into a glowingly beautiful face surrounded by a cloud of gorgeous honey blond hair. Her shirt fits tightly and shows off a pair of breasts that rival my generous rack, which I choose to hide under an oversized, baggy T-shirt I stole from Jack in high school.
She places a hand on Masters’ shoulder and leans over, her breasts touching the side of his face. “When you’re done with your terrible food, I’ve something special for dessert for you.”
The lack of surprise from his tablemates tells me this is a common occurrence.
“Sorry, Bree, you know you’ll get a better response from anyone than me.”
He squeezes her hand and then gently removes it from his shoulder. She shakes her head in good-humored regret. “If you ever get tired of holding that line, let me know. I figured since this is my last year, I have nothing to lose.”
“That’s a good policy.”
“But it’s still a no?”
He gives her a nod, friendly but distant. “Still a no.”
She walks off to join her friends, who wait for her at the end of the long row of tables.
“Don’t like dessert?” I blurt out.
My brother kicks me under the table and his size fourteens hurt. As I bend over to rub my abused calf, Masters says, “I’m saving myself.”
“For what? Marriage?” I joke, because as I told Jack, I don’t know if I believe this virgin stuff.
“Not exactly, but close enough,” comes the serious but casual reply, and Masters shoves the last bit of hamburger into his mouth as if he didn’t just proclaim that the earth was flat.
The chicken breast is as flavorless as I thought, and I’m desperately wishing for sour cream or butter, or hell, I’d even squeeze a mayonnaise packet onto my baked potato if I could find one.
But if I’d been sitting at a five star restaurant and eating the best meal of my life, all the food would have tasted the same—flavored with surprised bullshit.
Which I almost said out loud. Bullshit. There is no way. I’ve seen this guy on television. Knox has more moves than a dancer in Vegas. He can swivel out of an offensive lineman’s grasp in one step, run down a wide receiver, and introduce a quarterback to the soil of the vaunted Western State’s turf.
You can’t help but look at his hands, the heavily veined forearms and the bulging biceps, and wonder whether the parts of him that you can’t see are as big. You can’t watch him move on the field, making fucking magic with his body, and not wonder what it’d be like to feel it flush against your own. Heat chases down my spine and my mouth becomes very dry. I stare at the table in front of him, as if I can see through the tray of nearly eaten food and the wood and metal to see the signs of his virginity.
Which would be what? Do I think there’ll be a little wooden plaque that says “newbie?” Shit. I shake my head at my own ridiculousness and then make the mistake of looking upward into Masters’ ruggedly handsome face that will no doubt adorn cereal boxes, granola bars, and billboards someday. He’s got grass green eyes and a chin chiseled out of granite. In another era, Masters would be the general of an army immortalized in marble for his exploits on the field. Today he’s a different kind of warrior—one that crushes his enemies in ten yard increments.
His wide mobile mouth knowingly curves upward and I have an uncomfortable sense he can tell exactly what I’m feeling somehow. I’ve never felt so exposed. I want to snatch those stupid aviators off the top of his head and plaster them on my own face.
“For religious reasons?” my brother asks.
“For Knox Masters’ reasons.” Masters’ expression doesn’t change. He’s still smiling, but there’s a definite no trespassing tone to his words. Beside me, Jack turns to Ahmed to talk about their single wing formation. That’s too much detail for even a fan like me. I tune them out, which leaves me with Masters, who hasn’t moved his attention away from me.
I drop my eyes to somewhere around his nose, because his eyes are so green and bright it’s like staring into the sun, hypnotic and dangerous.
“I can’t tell if you want it to be true,” he says in a low voice that I feel as if I’m the only one who can hear.
“I don’t know either,” I tell him honestly. “But if you are, I think I need to go to church tomorrow, because that means impossible things exist like unicorns and the resurrection.”
He laughs then, a wide mouthed, white teeth flashing. “Tomorrow’s Friday.”
I nod. “I know, but it can’t ever be too early to repent.”
I feel, rather than see, his eyes sweep over me for a long moment as if he’s cataloguing my stick straight brown hair, face, and loose T-shirt. “You don’t look like you have much to repent for.”
“Looks can be deceiving,” I say archly with a pointed look.
“They can, can’t they?” he murmurs and the deep rumble of his voice does weird things to my insides. Things I shouldn’t feel for a new teammate of my brother’s. I have two solid gold reasons not to date football players, so no matter how appealing Knox Masters is, he’s not for me—even for a one-night stand to alleviate an itch if he wanted that sort of thing, which apparently, he doesn’t. I’m still not sure I believe him.
His sexual status or lack thereof is none of my business. Sleeping with football players is not on my agenda, so I yank out of Masters’ gravitational pull and turn toward my brother.
“You know some of the guys thought you were a dude because of your name.” Masters has finished demolishing his meal, and I feel the full weight of his attention.
I click my tongue in mock sympathy. “It’s terrible when you feel misled about someone’s identity. What kind of monster does that?”
Masters’ mouth twitches. “Everyone has their reasons.” He shifts to Jack. “What are you doing tonight?”
“Thought I’d take Ellie out. Maybe go downtown.”
“Nah. There’s got to be a party around here.” He leans toward the quarterback. “Ace, what’s the drill for tonight?”
Ace jerks a thumb over his shoulder. “Hammer’s throwing a party.”
Masters stretches his long arms across the table, circling his tray and reaching across the invisible center line that separates his space from mine.
“We’re going to Hammer’s party.”
The words spread like a wave from one player to the other. Ace might be the quarterback, but Masters is the leader of this squad. I suspect that if he told the squad to strip and run naked in the quad right now, they’d jump up and start ripping off their clothes without a moment’s hesitation. He holds them in his large palm. As his smile pulls up at one corner, I feel like I’m there too. That’s far too dangerous of a place for me.
I jerk back. Maybe Jack’s back isn’t big enough for me to hide behind. I think I need to put distance between myself and temptation. “I think I’ll stay in tonight. I have a lot of unpacking to do.”
Jack, like the good brother he is, doesn’t point out that I’ve already unpacked everything. He tosses his napkin on the table. “Sure. I’ll walk you back to your apartment.”
Masters stands as we do. “Bring her to Hammer’s party. She’ll enjoy it.”
It’s an order, not a request.
6 Knox
So that’s what scurrying looks like I think as Eliot Campbell runs away. I shake my head. Eliot’s all wrong for her. Her brother calls her Ellie. Ellie fits better, but it’s still not quite right. Maybe mine?
“Hard to believe those two came from the same family. Do you think one of them is adopted?” Telly asks as we watch the Campbells exit the dining hall.
“Kind of plain. I barely noticed she sat there.” Hammer appears out of nowhere. For a big guy, the lineman moves like a ninja.
“She’s got a nice ass.” Telly rubs his chin as if seriously considering all of Ellie's well-hidden charms. Tonight she wore what I guess is the baggiest T-shirt she owns. I didn’t like seeing her in a guy’s shirt, even her brother’s. I had to stifle all my instincts when her brother put his arm across the back of her chair.
Seeing her with another male—no matter how little of a threat he is—rouses a very deep response in me.
As for plain…shit, these boys are blind. Ellie has the prettiest brown eyes that spit fire when she argues, and those lips? Holy hell, I’d like them pressed against me and wrapped around my dick. Whenever she pushed them together, I wanted to pry them open with my tongue. Still do.
“How can you tell under the tent she has on?” someone else asks.
“You are men of little imagination,” I murmur. I check my watch. It’s a little after seven. I should be able to call my brother before I hit Hammer’s place. “What time are you opening the doors?” I ask him.
He’s staring at me. They all are. I may make out with a random girl here or there at parties, but I’ve never shown any serious interest. While my sexual status was a joke when I was a freshman, my ability on the field has made it something of a holy artifact. Half the team believes our success is the result of my intestinal fortitude. “I thought sisters were off limits,” he stammers out.
“They are to you, Hammer.”
•••
Matty Iverson, our weak side linebacker, is in my apartment drinking a beer when I get home. The house we live in is one of eight in a block. A booster bought them and gave them back to the university for subsidized athlete housing, but only the starters live in the Playground, as it’s called. I’m not sure who named it, some alum four teams ago or something.
I’ve got my own place on the third floor, but most of the time one of my teammates is up here.
“Why weren’t you at dinner tonight?” Eating together every Thursday night is a team tradition. It’s not mandated by the program, but you better have a damn good excuse for not showing up. Better to bring your sister, as Jack did, than not come at all.
“The parental units are still in town. They cleared it with Coach at the last minute. I texted you.” Matty lifts his phone to show me his text. I pull my own phone out of my pocket.
“So you did.” I find the sheet coach gave us of players to watch for and find Jack’s number. I punch that into my contacts. If Ellie doesn’t give me her number tonight, I’ll have to get it from her brother. “You still hungry?”
One dinner a night doesn’t really satisfy anyone’s appetite, not when you’re working out three to four hours a day.
“You know it. What you got?”
I rummage around in the freezer. “Burritos?”
“Hammer having a party tonight?”
We look at each other and then the burrito. I toss it back into the freezer. “Right. Nothing says sexy like ripping one while you’re trying to close the deal. Hot Pocket?”
“Yeah, I’ll take two.”
I throw two in the microwave. “Three minutes, bro. Be right back. I’m calling my brother. You need anything else?”
He throws his feet onto the coffee table. “Nah, I’m good.”
I shut the bedroom door and flip open my computer. My brother, Ty, answers the video call on the first ring. He must be watching porn or game film on his laptop.
“When’s your bye week?” I minimize the video screen and open a browser window.
“Not until Halloween. Trick or treat, dickhead. Why?”
“Shit, that’s nine weeks away. Maybe I can come up there. We’ve got a bye at the end of September.” In the search box, I type Ellie's name. She’s on the second page of results. Her header is a picture of her and Jack, and her profile picture is the back of her head. Her profile is locked. It tells me nothing other than she was born in February. She must be twenty with Jack twenty-one.
“Sucks that you have one so early,” Ty says. Later in the year, byes are better for our bodies and our teams. We get an extra week to heal, take a mental vacation, and come back ready to fight a major opponent. Instead, we got a fourth week bye. Sucks, but it is what it is. “Why do you want to come up anyway, and what the hell are you looking at?”
“I’m checking out a girl’s Facebook profile. It’s locked, though.” I send him the link.
“Eliot Campbell? Is that a guy?”
“No, her brother is the guy in the picture. She’s the one with the ponytail.”
“What kind of name is Eliot?”
“She’s the one, bro.”
“The one what?”
“Dude.” I frown. “The one.”
“Oh, shit. Did she pass the test?” His eyes get comic book wide.
“No, I haven’t run it yet. She’s new, a transfer student. I was running in the stadium today, doing my early morning routine.” Ty winds his hand for me to speed up the story. “Her brother is our new transfer tight end from that juco program out west.”
“If she didn’t pass the test then she ain’t the one.”
“I’m telling you the Earth shifted when I met her. I got pissed off that she’d interrupted my workout, and then she started talking about football like it was her religion. She’s got a scar on her knee.”
“Knox, man, you’ve got a weird fetish for chicks with scars.”
“One other girl I thought was hot had a scar.” I close the browser. “It’s a sign she’s athletic. Not scared of getting hurt. Pursuing life with both arms fucking wide open.”
“Or it means she’s fucking clumsy.” He leans back in his chair and folds his arms across his chest.
“This is useful,” I gripe.
“Look, the earliest we can get together is your bye week. You think you can keep it in your pants that long?”
“Shit. I don't know. I practically mauled her on the football field this morning. Her T-shirt got a little wet and even though I couldn’t see a damn thing—fucking sports bras—” Ty gives me a thumbs up in agreement– “I wanted to take her to the turf in front of God and everyone. At dinner, she sat by her brother, and I had to sit on my hands from reaching across and ripping his fucking arm off when he draped it across her seat. I don’t know if I can keep my hands to myself. I know I can’t ignore her. She's too fine. Some other guy will swoop in.”
“Jesus, Knox, you’ve kept it together for twenty-one years, and you’re throwing it away on a girl you’ve known for less than a day.”
“It sounds crazy, but isn’t the whole concept of the one crazy? Isn’t the test that we Masters have based on metaphysical bullshit that could never be proven? We accept it on faith. You believe it and so do I.”
“I don’t believe it like you do,” Ty grumbles and looks away.
“Bullshit. I know you believe in it or you wouldn’t have broken up with Marcie.” Marcie and Ty were high school sweethearts everyone expected to marry, until she tried to climb into bed with me one night. She claims she didn’t know the difference. It would’ve been better for her if she confessed she’d done it intentionally. Once Ty heard her say she couldn’t tell us apart, he dumped her. He hasn’t had a steady girlfriend since.
Ty flicks me off but doesn’t argue. Someone shouts in the background.
“Hold on.” He gets up and slams out of the room. “I’m fucking talking to my brother, you assholes. What is the problem?” More yelling takes place. I can’t make it out. Ty returns looking hassled. “Aw, fuck. Gotta run. Someone’s hazing the freshmen even though we told them not to. You’ll regret it if you don’t make her take the test. And pictures don’t count.”
I don’t think I’ll regret shit when it comes to Ellie, except not making a move when the gap is open. I’m nothing if not an opportunist. The time between beating the tackle off the snap is a millisecond. You see the opening and go, or you’re dropped on your ass and some lesser talent posterizes you, putting you on ESPN for all the wrong reasons.
I’m not sitting on my thumbs waiting for anything, especially not Ellie.
