Mr. Fiancé(96)

Chapter 3





Duncan





I get a rising junior as my rehab specialist? Even worse, my specialist is a chick? Is this some sort of joke, or is Coach Taylor just fucking with me?

Thoughts run through my head as I get back to my apartment, fuming as I sling my backpack against the couch. I have a two-bedroom spread in the Vista Towers, not the best set of condos around, but good and close to campus. Best of all, I could bring just about any woman here and it won't be a problem. College chicks are impressed by the hardwood floors and handcrafted furniture, while any professional woman thinks that I'm doing well for my age, like they expected their college stud to be living in some frat house or something like that.

Not that I have a problem with frats. Some of the guys that I can possibly call friends are in frats. I say possibly because, to me, well, a guy in my position can’t be sure if they’re just being my friend because they know I’ll be big time someday. Still, at least frats are up front with their aims, so they aren't quite as insufferable as the others.

"Speaking of insufferable," I mutter, thinking back to Coach Taylor and that assistant . . . Carrie. Yeah, that's it, Carrie Mittel. All bitchy attitude and arrogance. Oh, she did a paper on Tommy John surgery. Big fucking deal. I've caused two Tommy John surgeries so far in my football career, laying bitches out.

Still, she has a cute face. I'll give her that. And despite hiding her body underneath a t-shirt that looked like it should have been set aside for someone my size, there was no hiding that rack. Those are prime, that's for sure.

I sigh and look around my apartment, trying to figure out what to do to get my mind off things. My eyes see my helmet, and I grin. Fuck what Dr. Lefort said yesterday. I've been flexing and moving my arm for days now around the apartment, and I can handle my bike. It's not even a real crotch rocket anyway—there's no way that I could get away with that on the team—just a 650 cc Ninja that can walk it out on the freeway, but nothing extreme. Back home in Silicon Valley, I have a 1000 cc Ninja RH that can peel the paint off the road if I want.

A bike ride could be just what I need. In fact, I know just where to go, and I grab my helmet along with my leather jacket and keys. My arm is feeling mighty bare, and some new ink would help me quite a bit.



"You did what?"

Carrie's looking at me with disbelief, her clipboard in her hand and her mouth hanging slightly open, looking at the bandage that's wrapped around my upper arm. "I said I got a tattoo, so I won't be able to go too heavy today," I reply, touching the bandage. "You know, my skin being sensitive and all."

Carrie taps her pen against her teeth, and I'm struck again at how cute she is. She's still wearing ridiculously oversized clothes though, so my feelings that she's an iceberg are probably true. I mean, we're in the weight room, for fuck's sake, and she's wearing pants like she's getting ready to go out in snow—and we’re in the desert of California, for fuck’s sake!

"Fine. Then we'll just have to modify some things,” she finally says, scratching through and scribbling. “I’ll make sure nothing touches the skin.”

"But—" I start, before she cuts me off, jabbing her pen in my direction.

"It's not my problem that you decided the night before starting a Coach Dave Taylor-written rehab and workout protocol, of all things . . . that you decided to go out and get some ink on your arm. Personally, I don't give a damn if you do the workout shirtless to let it show off to the world and air out, but you’re not getting out of your workout.”

"Still—" I try, and Carrie cuts me off again. I swear, this girl needs to be put in her place, and quick. But, I catch Coach Taylor giving us a look out of the corner of my eye, and I know he's willing to try to back up his threat of breaking a barbell off in my ass if I do what I want to do, which is say fuck this and walk off.

"Still nothing. You know, I bet if we put the weights in the middle of the stadium with thirty thousand women watching, you'd be going at this gung-ho. What, you afraid of being shown up by the others?"

Now she's egging me on? Holy shit. "You know what? You've got a big mouth for a training intern. How about you back it up?"

Carrie considers it for a moment, then nods. "Fine. Give me two minutes to change into my workout clothes. You . . . don't move."

Two minutes was all I needed as I pulled off my shirt, just as she practically asked me to do. Turning around, I checked out my best tattoo, a huge set of eagle's wings that stretched from shoulder to shoulder, and the beginnings of my half-sleeve on my left arm. The guys at Downtown Ink only got a little bit done. I mean, there's only so much even a good artist can do in three hours, but they had given me a sketch of what the final product's going to look like, with Celtic symbolism playing a big part in the design.