Stars (Penmore #1) (4 page)

Sure, going pro would mean that I could set my mom up. She’d finally have the life she deserved after having to dealing with the shit my dad and teenage-me put her through. Besides my mom, football has been the one constant in my life. I love the game. The rush of adrenalin and the fucking beauty of watching a ball I threw sail through the air; it’s pure bliss.

But since I started writing when I was eight, I’ve had this feeling in my gut. This feeling that even though football was something I was good at, I wasn’t sure it was something I wanted to do for the rest of my life. Although, I highly doubted that anyone could be talented at more than one thing. My writing probably sucked ass, which meant I would need to pay attention in every one of the creative writing courses I finally had the courage to enroll in this semester. I’m just not ready to tell anyone yet, not until I worked out what I wanted more. Plus, I figured if I said my thoughts out loud, everyone would think I was crazy for throwing away an opportunity with the pros and probably have me committed.

What I did know for sure was losing Leyton might really fuck with all our pre-season training. And even if I wasn’t certain about my future as a quarterback, I knew the team still deserved to succeed. So instead of following my usual routine before the season started, I spent a good portion of last night convincing Leyton, through shots of Patrón, to help us win another championship before he started talking to his agent. Definitely before he started setting his sights on the New York Giants. Which led to us drinking all night and deciding to bond at the sketchiest tattoo studio in town. Seeing as though I’m the only one on the team who doesn’t drink regularly, I’m the only one fucking up every second play today.

As practice ends and all the boys head to the showers, D walks up beside me and nudges me with his shoulder. The dick, of course, does it so his shoulder pads scrape directly against the bandage covering my healing tattoo. “Shit, man,” I hiss, keeping my voice low in case Coach happens to be near. Andy just laughs and opens the door to the locker room, letting the scent of the team’s hard work and football gear invade my senses.

It was disgusting. Sweat, blood and too much deodorant.

However, the smell makes me grin. Since starting Pee Wee football a year after my dad left, the odor of the locker room reminds me of the people who have showed me what being a man is really about. This smell forces me to remember my high school football coach and my long-time friends. The same friends who taught me that, no matter what, real men support and protect one another. Even if it means I end up sporting a tattoo I might regret when I’m eighty.

“Leyton and the boys are talking about hitting Lucky’s tonight, if you’re interested?” Andy says as he drops by his locker. “Can’t. Helping Maris move into her new place then going to touch base with Ma to check if everything is all good at home,” I reply, removing my practice uniform and getting my shit together so I can hit the showers and head straight to Marissa’s new flat. Sometimes I hate that Penmore is so far away from my hometown and from my mom. I love being here, but can’t help but feel selfish. By selecting to go to college, not only was I unable to give my mom the money a pro career would have enabled me to throw about, but I wasn’t even able to ensure that she was still okay living alone.

“Dude, please tell me you aren’t still hung up on
Marissa
?” Andy says as he drops to the bench and starts removing his shoes. Andy has this thing about Marissa; since they first met, they can’t seem to say a single nice thing to or about one another. But Maris and I are just friends. After meeting our freshman year, she had actually become my closest friend after D. She’s funny.

She’s constantly wearing vintage band T-shirts and ripped-up denim. She actually reminds me a lot of Ma with her strawberry-blonde hair, freckles and no-bullshit attitude. If I couldn’t be around to help my mom, I liked helping another girl who wasn’t looking at me to get laid or improve her popularity on campus.

“D, you know we’re just friends. You can stop worrying I’m going to run off with her to Vegas. Plus, she wants some banker or some bullshit guy with a nine-to-five that pays big. She is
crazy
upfront about that crap and her baggage.” After talking to Maris during a finance class, it wasn’t hard to work out that she’s got issues with making sure her future is secure.

He still seems pissy, so I remind him, “She also doesn’t like the fact that I’ve slept with most of the girls she works with.” And her believing my current career path could be over with an accidental injury means I don’t qualify for Maris’s boyfriend conditions. It did, however, allow her to slot me into the friend zone, which I was more than comfortable inhabiting.

“Then why the fuck you helping her move her shit?” D asks, looking at me like I’ve got some screw loose.

“Because, dude, like I said, we’re friends.” The fact that she isn’t afraid to say what she thinks and laughs at all the fanfare thrown my way makes me keep her around. There aren’t too many girls on campus who want to spend time with me and not
Grayson Waters, the football star
. So, I help her out, we hang out after practices and then I spend my weekends letting the girls who are always chasing me finally catch me.

D just shakes his head. “Fucking hung up.”

I ignore Andy’s bitching, because I know people don’t get our relationship. They’re all too used to seeing me with different girls and getting laid. The situation, however, seems pretty fucking perfect to me.

*****

I’m just about home free, thinking about swinging by the closest burger joint before heading toward Maris’s new place, when Coach signals me into his office. I like Coach Hardy; he was a big part of the reason I was excited to come to Penmore. He has ensured the Herons remain in the top ten highest ranked college teams in the nation for six years. If we make it this year, it will be lucky number seven. Even if I decided to go with writing instead of football I knew I could learn a lot from him, but I hated spending any time in his pristine office. The room is painted all white with a basic timber desk, old school laptop and two metal waiting chairs. Unlike the locker room, it smelled strongly of disinfectant. Every time I step through the doors, I feel as if I’m heading into a fucking doctor’s office, about to get a vaccine shot.

Not only did it smell like sanitizer, but every surface is completely sterile. Lacking in life, except for the single framed photo on his desk. It’s an old photo of Coach’s estranged daughter, on her sixth birthday. The small girl is smiling as she leans over, her golden ringlets in pigtails with yellow ribbons and her lips pursed, ready to blow out her candles. She’s cute.

But that eight-by-ten, slightly faded photo pisses me off. Mostly because it’s the reason he’s calling me in. Coach Hardy hasn’t seen his daughter once since his bitch wife took off following their separation ten years ago. I guess this makes him feel like he understands my life. Sure, I played like shit today, but Coach knows about my dad. He also knows that after ten fucking years of barely hearing from the bastard, last year when my name landed on ESPN College Football, my dad decided to get in my face about building bridges. It wasn’t hard to work out that the only bridge he wanted to build was one that landed in the deep pockets of the teams that kept coming to scout me. Dad didn’t know shit about me. He thought because I’m a jock I couldn’t work out that he’s a con artist. He was talking about ‘caring about my future and needing to meet the scouts to protect his boy’. When all he really wanted was to talk to anyone with money about his latest Ponzi scheme.

Dear old Dad had no clue that I have a perfect GPA and always have.

Not that it takes a genius to see that my dad is a dick. Thankfully, it’s been a couple of months since I’ve had to deal with him showing up at the stadium or lurking around the tunnel. Although Coach knew that my dad had a tendency for showing up when he was least wanted, with it being the start of the season and my playing like shit, I’m sure he thought Anthony Waters might be close by.

As I sit in one of Coach’s uncomfortable fucking metal chairs, I try to look anywhere but at his photo. “Waters, want to explain what that was out there today?” he asks, as he leans against his desk. He is looking at me like a father asking his son why he borrowed the family car without asking. His eyes are a little pissed, but mostly filled with compassion, concern and understanding. “Just a bad day, Coach,” I reply, trying to get him to end this shit quickly. The only thing I hate more than dealing with my dad is wasting my time talking about him.

“You going to be ready for the game against Florida State in two weeks?” he questions, still looking at me like he’s waiting for me to break down.

“Yes, sir.”

“All right then. But you play like you did today at our next practice and you’ll be riding the bench until you remember how to use your eyes again.”

“Understood.”

I wait until Coach walks around his desk and sits in his ugly brown leather chair, taking it as my cue to leave. I already know Maris is going to have a field day when I tell her about this conversation. I’m never fucking drinking before practice ever again.

PARKER

I have decided that, in order to successfully start my new life at Penmore, I want to get a job. Okay that’s not exactly true. I decided that if I’m going to start my new life, I need new clothes. Since I decided to relocate miles away from home, that means I
have
to get a job to purchase said clothes.

After exploring the campus with Keeley a couple of days ago and seeing all of the girls dressed in cute skinny jeans and tank tops, I suddenly felt the urge to rip off my entire outfit. Not in public, of course; I didn’t have a sudden urge to become a stripper. Well, at least not until I’ve had a look at the job market. I just rapidly realized that I was
really
badly dressed. Now I’m looking at my entire wardrobe laid out on my bed. I don’t know how I ever managed to get dressed for an event without Millie or someone telling me that I looked like my grandma Mimi. Not that I don’t adore my grandma Mimi. She was the closest thing I had to a mother growing up. I love it when people talk about how we have the same golden-brown eyes and sharp wit, but my grandma isn’t stylish by any means. She always wears brown faded slippers, jeans that look as if she plans to dance to
Saturday Night Fever,
and large sweaters that often have pictures of cats on the front. Not that she likes or even owns a cat. She just thinks that everyone else believes cats are cute and by wearing photos of them, it makes
her
cute.

And I know she enjoys giving me kitten sweaters for my birthday. I just didn’t realize that over the last few years she was the
only one
buying me new clothes. Staring at the array of sweaters and dated jeans amassed across my bedspread, it seems like I may have accidently started to emulate her entire wardrobe. Just without the slippers. To say I am thankful that I forgot to return Millie’s little black dress before I left home, so I had something nice to wear to the only place I’ve seen Grayson, is an understatement. I might be ready to start living my average life and stop living in fantasyland, but I’m also pretty sure that didn’t mean I couldn’t dress well.

Next week, I plan on going to classes and meeting people, not just loving them from afar and hiding in stairwells, which meant I was in
desperate
need of a makeover. Unfortunately, all of my savings from the small Pizza Hut job I had during high school had gone to my very own beaten-up green Volkswagen beetle. It isn’t the sturdiest of cars, but it would help me get around town and find someone who might be willing to let me work for them. “Hey, want to go check out the new burger joint I hear all of the football players love?” Keeley teases as she leans against my door jamb.

Over the last few days, I slowly started to confide in her. Okay, that’s a lie. She hounded me until I broke about why I left the frat party early last weekend. I look between my piles of hideous rags and her stylish appearance. She’s dressed in her favorite pair of black skinny jeans, biker boots and a tight leopard print tank with sequin sleeves. Yep, I’m decided. I
need
a makeover right this instant. “Okay, I think before I can traipse around campus anymore, I’m going to have to find somewhere that will hire me. I’m pretty sure new Penmore me hates old high school me and is demanding money for a new makeover. Do you want to join me as I drive around and try to find a place to work? ”