Jockblocked: A Novel (Gridiron Book 2) (10 page)

I grimace. “I can guess what happens next.”

“Not really. He convinces his side piece to hide in his gym bag. Girlfriend comes in, starts making out with Hammer, his dick still wet from his previous go around.” I hate it when Ace gets like this, but I started it, so I have to sit back and let whatever is bugging him eat its way out of his system. “But it’s hot in the gym bag, so the side piece pops out and tries to leave. Almost makes it out before the girlfriend sees something move out of the periphery of her eye. The two get into a big fight. Hammer gets bashed on the forehead with a lamp. That’s Ives’s best friend.”

I don’t point out that the story is about the best friend and not Matt but I get Ace’s point. Matt is exactly that expensive purse. I give up on offering up excuses for him and instead, pat myself on the back for relegating him to the
bad for me
column along with carbs and too much liquor.

“Speaking of girlfriends, what’s going on with you and Stella? I’d think she wouldn’t be thrilled about the blonde in your bedroom.”

“Eh.” He shrugs carelessly. “Stella’s always unhappy about something. Why do you think she’s sleeping with me?”

“I don’t know. Because you like each other?”

He looks at me in disbelief.

“What?” I throw up my hands. “Why is that such a stupid statement?”

“Stella and I hooked up because she lives to piss off her dad, has a weird fetish for quarterbacks, and knows she’s not going to break my heart when she’s done with me”—I open my mouth—“or vice versa,” he finishes.

I snap my trap shut. Apparently they have an enemies-with-benefits arrangement. I mean…

“Say it.” He sighs and gestures for me to start talking.

“Sorry! But I thought you had real feelings for her. That one night we hit up that new club along the East River last semester, Stella spent the whole night talking to the basketball guy and you went home in a bad mood.”

“My mom had called to tell me Rascal was sick, remember?”

Rascal was Ace’s dog. He passed away soon after that call.

I nod, but remind him, “You looked more pissed off than grief stricken.”

“Can we just drop it? I want to talk about how you and Ives hooked up.”

“I didn’t hook up with him!” I protest but feel myself turn an alarming shade of red because last night I had a pretty dirty dream.

“Then why are you asking questions about him and defending him?”

I curl my hands into fists so I don’t give in to my urge to slap Ace silly. “You’re the one who brought it up! I told you I hadn’t seen him, and then you decided to tell me some awful story about two of your teammates. What’s going on, Ace?”

“I told you it was nothing,” he says curtly. At my frown, he mumbles an apology and heaves himself to his feet. “I’m going to shower and get ready.” He sniffs his shirt. “I stink. Pick out something for me to wear, will you?”

I guess we’re done with Stella and Matt. Tight-lipped, I do as he asks. There’s no point in pressing him because he’s not going to say anything until he’s absolutely ready. I rummage through Ace’s things and find a clean pair of jeans and a royal blue long-sleeve T-shirt with a waffle texture. After tossing the clothes inside the bathroom, I unpack my things.

Ace wanders out, dressed in the clothes I picked out, his wet, brown hair looking darker than usual.

He stops by the bed and traces the raised letters on the mock trial packet. “You don’t even like football players. You once told me that dating a football player seemed about as exciting as dating a block of cheese.”

“Are you still on this?” I rub my temples. I can feel a headache coming on. “I’m not going out with him and you’re right. I find most football players to be boring. You all have tendency to talk about only one thing, which gets boring after a while.” Except the two nights we talked, Matt didn’t say one word about football.
I
was the one who brought it up. God, am I ever going to get him out of my mind?
Stop it,
I order myself and refocus on Ace. “I love you, Ace. And I love all of your friends, but all you guys do when you get together is talk about the game. Different routes. Throwing down the seam. The seam? Really? Who thinks of these names? They’re all so sexual.”

“Guys think of them. That’s why they’re sexual. And if you think we’re bad, you should watch some wrestling. They have moves like ‘going out the back door’ and ‘rear naked choke hold’ and the ‘camel clutch.’ ‘Running up the seam’ is innocent compared to all that shit. Besides, guys only have one thing on their mind.” He points a finger at me. “Remember that.”

I refrain from rolling my eyes. I’ve gotten this lecture from Ace once a semester since he discovered sex. “What about food? Isn’t food important?”

“Only in the context of getting more sex. Proteins to keep it up.”

“Ewww. Can we not talk about dicks and hard-ons?” I shudder. I hit him with a pillow, which he wrests easily from my grasp. He might only be the quarterback but he’s still damn strong.

“Have you taken your medicine?” He jerks a chin toward his desk where my box of needles, medication, and blood tester rests.

“Not yet, Dad. But thanks for the reminder. I haven’t done this for the last ten years by myself or anything.”

He shrugs off my testiness. “Just making sure.” He abruptly, and wisely, moves on to a different topic. “Are you sure you don’t want me to say something to that Heather chick?”

“And say what?”

He pats me on the head. “Dunno. Stop making my best friend’s life miserable. I know you aren’t a fan of conflict.”

I give him a hug and realize he’s just looking out for me. “No, it’s too late. We’ve already spent the money on the registration. Is everything in life so expensive?”

Ace doesn’t have an answer because there is no answer. We both grew up in modest families. We are in that sweet spot where our parents make too much money for the really good grants, but not enough to pay for our schooling. Ace has a full ride due to his arm and I’ve got a half-tuition scholarship, but neither of us has a lot of extra spending money.

“I don’t think you should have given up your closing position to her,” he tells me as he pockets his ID.

No money for Ace. He doesn’t need to buy a drink on this campus. Everyone else is happy to buy it for him.

“She’s better at it than I am.” Or at least that’s what I believed after hearing her audition. I’m having second thoughts.

“"Meh, you’re smarter than her.”

“You haven’t even seen her in action.” And smarter doesn’t mean better. The debacle of my freshman year pretty much proves I suck at closing argument. “Besides, it was a condition of her joining the team. Sometimes you have to make sacrifices for the better of the team.”

He snorts. “Making selfless sacrifices means you get left behind.”

Classic Ace. Always looking out for himself, but maybe I should take a page from his playbook. After all, my mock trial team can’t make it out of Regionals and Ace took his team to the National Championship game. “Well, on that depressing note, you should go or my inspirational closing argument that I’m writing for Heather will be full of negativity, and I doubt we’ll win any points for that.”

Gratefully Ace accepts that. “Are we still up for the movie this Thursday?” he asks.

“What movie is that?”

“The Expendables 3.”

I make a face. A bunch of aging action stars running around making jokes I don’t get because I never watched the original movies to understand the references? No. “I close the Brew House on Thursday.”

“Not to worry. Movie’s over at four forty-five. Besides, you promised,” he reminds me.

“I’m sure I was drunk.”

“Drunk or sober, you said you’d go. I’ll see you on Thursday at two p.m. sharp.” Hand on the door, Ace calls back. “Stay away from Iverson. He’s bad news.”

“I don’t have any reason to see him,” I reassure Ace.

“
S
on of a bitch
!” The curse words greet me as I open the door to Jack Cameron’s pad. Flash, as we like to call him, offered up a half-full bottle of whiskey when we ran out of booze at our place.

We rock, paper, scissored it and I lost, which is why I ran three houses down to fetch the liquor. The pleasant buzz I’d fostered at the Gas Station is wearing off, and that needs to be remedied as quickly as possible.

Jack said the booze is in a cabinet next to the refrigerator and I make a beeline there.

“Honey, I’m home,” I yell out just in case someone’s having fun in the kitchen. In these houses, you never know. Being an athlete on a team that’s expected to compete for the National title every year carries a lot of stress. Most of us forego heavy drinking during the season, which leaves us few options as an outlet for that pent-up stress. Sex is the easiest, and most fun, way to burn off that mental pressure.

I don’t find anyone making out in the kitchen. Instead I find something better: Lucy Watson, complete with an apron tied around her waist. Her hair is tied up and with the apron on? She looks like a page from the fables my mom read to me when I was a kid. Goldilocks. Unfortunately, Goldilocks has had an accident and if she actually gets the butter out of the wrapper onto her fingers, it’ll only make the burn worse.

My pants get tight as my dick tries to rise up and greet her. Why does she have to have long legs in addition to a nice rack? Why? I tell my traitorous equipment to settle down as I stalk over to the kitchen sink.

She spins around, her lips forming a perfect “O” of surprise. “Matty!—uh, Matt—Matthew,” she sputters, and I try not to laugh. The fact that she went with the nickname first says a lot. “What are you doing here?”

“Came to grab booze.” I twist the faucet. With the cold water on blast, I beckon for Goldie to come closer.

“I thought you were supposed to put butter on burns,” she says warily.

“Old wives’ tale.” I tug her over to the sink and plunge her fingers under the water.

She flinches at the shock of the cold, and I briskly run my fingers over hers in an effort to warm her up a little. Or at least my intention is to be brisk, but the minute I make contact with her, my touch slows down.

Her fingers are slender, elegant. The middle finger has a slight callus as if her pen or pencil has been pressed there one too many times. I rub the tip of my finger over it once and then again. I have my own calluses from lifting, from slapping the tackling dummy a hundred times on the right, and then a hundred times on the left and repeat. My calluses say my hands are my weapons. Her callus shows her skill is with the pen.

She doesn’t make a sound. Not a complaint that the water is too cold or that I’m standing too close to her. Our faces are only inches apart. If I leaned just to my right, I could rub my cheek against hers, like a big cat seeking a scratch behind his ears—among other places.

I try to focus on the water, but I don’t see it. All I can focus on is her hand in mine. All I can hear is how her breathing has changed. How it catches and releases faster than is normal.

I rub her fingers again, slower still. My finger traces the curves between each digit. I fall down the tiny valley and climb up to the tip only to take the same exhilarating trip all over again. The cushion of her palm makes me imagine other tender, plump places on her body.

I turn my head and her eyes lock onto mine. Her lips are parted slightly and she stares at me with disbelief. I can’t believe it either.

“How do you feel?” My voice comes out hoarse. Jesus, I’m rock hard just from touching her fingers. Under
cold
water.

“Since you’re giving my fingers an ice bath, I don’t actually have feeling in them,” she lies through her teeth and deliberately breaks our connection. Pulling her hand out of mine, she lifts her fingers to inspect the damage.

“Then they aren’t burning,” I say rather unsympathetically because I’m exasperated at how she keeps denying this thing between us. I push her fingers back under the water. I leave her to stand at the sink while I pick up the now cooled cookie sheet.

“I can do that,” she protests as I kneel down and hand sweep the dead cookie remains into a pile.

“I’ve no doubt that you can, but surprise, so can I.”
And this way I’m not staring at the way your nipples are poking against the Harry Potter T-shirt you call a nightgown or the fact you have man socks slouched around your ankles.
I am, stupidly, bothered by that fact. It looks intimate and wrong—mostly because they aren’t my socks. I bet they’re Ace’s.

“If you’re looking for Ace and the guys, they’re at the Gas Station tonight,” she informs me, as if she can read my mind.

“I know. I was just there. I told you, I came to get some booze.” She frowns at the curtness of my voice. And frankly I don’t know why I’m pissy. Or, more accurately, I don’t want to acknowledge why my buzz has burned off and I’m stomping around like a kid who had a toy taken away from him. What I do know is that I want her. Desperately. I want to kiss her and touch her and fuck her and— “Dust bin?” I force myself to ask.

“I don’t think they have one.”

“Right.” Because the cleaning fairies come once a week. I drag the trashcan closer to the cookies and scoop up the mess as best I can. Behind me, Goldilocks makes a frustrated noise. I check my watch. “You’re probably good to go now.”

“Thank God. I’m turning into Elsa here.” She wipes her hands on a towel. Her voice is unaffected, but her legs are shaky as she strolls over to a cabinet next to the refrigerator and pulls down a half-full bottle of Jack Daniels. At least I’m not the only one affected by this. That would suck. “This what you are looking for?”

I start to take the bottle, but I realize if I do take it, I’m done here. And I’m not ready to be done. Not by a long shot. I’m not sure what her hold up is, but I’m starting to think it might be Ace.

There’s a pile of baked cookies on the counter near the fridge. My stomach rumbles at the sight of them. “What do I have to do to get one of those?” I gesture behind her.

She turns to look at the cookies. “Feel free to have one, or ten. But they’re sugar free.”

My hand pauses over the pile. “What’s the point?” I can’t help myself from running my eyes over her again. She’s nicely rounded all over. Hips, tits, face. I like it all. It’s as if I shook a bag with all my preferences and out she fell.

Luce merely shrugs. “I like them that way.”

Hell. A cookie is a cookie. “Sounds delicious.”

“And you sound dubious,” she laughs, completely unoffended. “Go sit down and I’ll bring you a plate. Want milk?”

“Does Elmo like to be tickled?” I grab a chair and watch her bustle around making me a plate of cookies and milk.

“I actually don’t know if he does. What if he hates being tickled but everyone does it anyway just to hear him laugh?”

“But he does laugh,” I point out.

“Sure, but it could be a nervous reaction. Like someone laughing at a funeral when they’re actually super sad.”

“You’re ruining my childhood with your theories,” I say with mock sternness.

She presses her lips together to keep from laughing. “I didn’t take you for an Elmo lover.” The plate of cookies slides into view.

“Are you insulting my manhood now?” I pick up one of the cookies and take a bite. It’s…pretty good. I tell her so. “These don’t have sugar? I feel like you’re just full of lies.”

“Entirely sugar free,” she declares and takes a seat next to me.

I fake a shocked gasp. “You’re sitting down? At the same table as me? The guy who’s too risky to go out with?”

She flushes. “I was just...”

“Just what? Being polite?” I arch a brow. “Being a good hostess?” A smile tugs free. “Just admit it—you like me. You like talking to me, and you like being around me.”

She sighs.

“I promise I’ll keep your secret, don’t worry.”

I polish off the remainder of the cookies and milk and lean back, shoving the Jack Daniels behind me. I’m in no hurry to go anywhere.

“So why
are
you playing hostess?” I ask curiously. “And how come you’re here by yourself?” She opens her mouth, but I hold up a hand. “Wait, let me guess. I’m going to assume that you’re here because your roommate is celebrating her six-week anniversary with her new dude. You needed a place to crash and wandered around campus until you found this house. Knowing the guys, the door was unlocked and you thought that with all the empty rooms and beds, this must be a campus-designated safe place for young, temporarily homeless women such as yourself.”

She grins, almost in spite of herself. “And why am I not in bed?”

“Because, like Goldilocks, you couldn’t find a bed that was comfortable enough. Hint, you’re in the wrong house.”

“My apartment complex is being exterminated for supposed cockroaches. Ace said I could crash in his room.”

Hmmm.

“What’s that noise mean?” she nudges my foot with her socked toe.

“So you’re Ace’s…” I let the answer question hang between us, willing her to fill in the blanks.

“Friend,” she finishes.

That doesn’t sound right to me. Actually, it sounds perfect to me, but I don’t think I trust my judgment. She’s here, alone in his house, wearing pajamas, and what I believe to be his socks. I’ve had girls steal my T-shirts, try on my jerseys, but never my socks. That’s real intimacy. My skepticism weights the silence that hangs between us.

She huffs, “Don’t tell me you’re one of those guys who believes girls and guys can’t be friends.”

“’Course not,” I lie.

One delicate eyebrow arches in disbelief. “We are friends. We met in the nurse’s office in the third grade.”

“Why haven’t you dated him? I mean, I’m a guy but I’m confident enough in my masculinity to say that Ace is attractive. Plus, he’s the quarterback, and I understand from girls that the position automatically adds a couple points to his tally.”

“So what? I mean, there are dozens of good-looking guys around here, but I’m not interested in dating them. Are you interested in dating every attractive girl you see?”

“No,” I answer truthfully. Dating doesn’t interest me. Sleeping with them? At least once? I might be down with that. “I asked you out, though. If you turned me down because you’re after Ace, I get it.”

I don’t like it, but then I don’t have to like it.

“We’re
friends
. I saw him eat a worm once.” She shudders. “It was gross. You can’t ever date a guy you see eating invertebrates.”

“Okay.” I pause thoughtfully. “So if Ace isn’t in the picture, I guess this brings us back to your unfounded belief that I’m a ‘risk.’” I air-quote the word, and her brown eyes flicker with resignation.

“You think I’m nuts,” she says. “I get it. I know I can be anal about—”

I snicker. Yeah. I’m thirteen, apparently.

Lucy looks like she’s fighting laughter. “Seriously? You can’t hear the word
anal
without—”

Another snicker. Goddamn it. I’m usually a lot smoother than this.

“Fine, I give up. I’m not saying it again.”

I drag my mind out of the gutter and fix her with a serious gaze. “Anyway, about this risk thing. You know what I think?”

“No, but I bet I’m going to in the next five seconds.”

She sounds resigned, but the fact that she’s still here, talking to me, feeding me? It all gives me encouragement. “Prepare to be enlightened. I feel like you haven’t given me a proper risk analysis. Maybe you weighted things incorrectly or haven’t accurately identified all the benefits. If you’re going to turn me down in the face of our clear attraction to each other, I deserve to see the assessment.”

“Hmm, let me think.” She taps her cheek with one finger. “And no.”

“I know you’ve got “football player” in the con column, but do you have increased stamina, ability to hold you up with one arm so my other hand is free to do lots of things like—”

“No.” She nudges me warningly with her sock-covered foot to tell me I shouldn’t finish my example. I really hate that sock.

I grab her foot and pull it into my lap. “Let’s do a risk/reward test.”

“Let’s not.” But her foot doesn’t move.

I massage her foot beneath the sock, pressing hard against the ball and then digging into the arch. She releases a tiny moan, and her head falls back in a dick-hardening sexy motion.
Fuuuuck.
If this is how I feel from just touching this girl’s hand and foot, what would it be like to be between her legs, to suck on her tits, to feel her pussy pulse around my dick? Light-headed and incredibly aroused, I almost fall off the chair.

I gotta focus here. If I’m ever going to get past the foot and hand, I need to convince her that the reward with me would be off-the-charts amazing.

Clearing my throat, I keep rubbing her foot. “Having your foot in my lap, that’s a risk, right? But you’re enjoying the rubdown. That’s a risk worth the reward.”

“Keep rubbing and stop talking,” she orders. Her eyes are closed.

Okay, but I’m not touching some other guy’s sock, particularly the guy whose bed she’s sleeping in. I don’t know if I fully buy into her “just friends” explanation for Ace. He has her picture in his locker. She’s wearing his socks. For all that, he’s at the Gas Station dry-humping a Kappa and Lucy’s home alone. I pull off the sock and toss it aside and stare at her toes.

“Your nail polish is blue.” Since when did I think toes were sexy?

She wriggles them. “Yes, on both feet. You’re very observant. Haven’t you ever seen a girl’s toes before?”

“I’m sure I have.” I just don’t remember them. I have this strange feeling I’ll remember hers, though.

I run a light caress over the anklebone, down the spine of the Achilles tendon, and around the edge of her instep.

Her breathing hitches, so quiet and so soft, I might have imagined it.

“What’re you doing?” Her words are a husky whisper, and my body responds accordingly.

My balls tighten, and my dick’s so hard I’m worried it’ll snap in half, but I can’t reach into my jeans to readjust or I’ll scare her away.

“We’re testing your risk assessment.” And driving myself crazy.