TackledP: A Sports Romance(80)

I sulk in the chair and finish off my margarita, shutting up.

Then, I don't shut up. "It's not just the girl, okay?" I blurt out, my tongue loosened by the alcohol. I can feel a flush moving up my neck even thinking about what that guy told me. I should actually stop thinking of him as a creep. At least he was honest.

"What do you mean?"

I shake my head. "I don't want to say it here."

Sable scoots her chair around the circular table until she's next to me, looking over her shoulder at the couple next to us. "Seriously," she says loudly to them. "Is this what happens when you get in a relationship? You have nothing to talk about, so you listen to other people's conversations?"

The girl shrugs and gives us a sheepish look.

I close my eyes, hardly wanting to think about it, let alone speak the words.

"What happened?"

"This guy – on the team – I was trying to find That Asshole," I explain, "and he told me what That Asshole had been saying about me."

"What do you mean?"

"Talking about 'nailing the virgin'," I spit out bitterly. "Telling stories to the guys in the locker room about… all the things we did."

"What?" Sable exclaims, her brow furrowed. "That does not sound right, Cassie."

"Yeah, well, it is what it is, right? He's a jock. I should have expected it."

"No, no, no." Sable shakes her head. "None of this is right, Cass. I – he wouldn't do that."

"I'm not a dumbass," I say, my words clipped. "It's what happened and I'm not going to be one of those girls who looks the other way when shit like that happens."

"Jonathan would know if he did that," Sable explains, her expression puzzled. Her voice hesitates for a split second when she speaks the word know, and I can see it in her eyes; she's wondering if Tank knew. "Jonathan would tell me."

I lean close to her, my voice a loud whisper. "The guy – the one from his team – he knew I was a virgin," I hiss. "Now, who knew about that, besides you and me and That Asshole? You tell me. It's not like I'm walking around campus with a giant V painted on my forehead."

Sable sinks back in her chair, looking thoughtful. "There's a reasonable explanation, Cass," she says. "I'm sure of it."

"Whatever you say, Sable."

She doesn't look so sure anymore.





43





Colton





Something is fucking wrong with me.

Like really fucking wrong with me. In the head.

It's been two weeks. Training – real training, not the summer shit – started up again and I am not in the headspace I'm usually at in the beginning of every other season. There's no focused Colton, the one who tunes everything else out, including all the academic bullshit, to concentrate on the game. In the fall, everything revolves around football. I eat, sleep, and breathe it.

Except this time.

This time, I'm not sleeping. I've driven out into the country in the truck a few nights at one in the morning and climbed into the back to lie underneath the stars in the space that always, without fail, calms me down and gives me clarity about things. Except that the fucking pillows and blankets smelled like her, and then I couldn't sleep because all I could think about was the fact that I royally screwed things up with her.

But I don't get rid of them and I don't wash them because I want to bury my face in the pillows and breathe her in.

It was only a summer fling.

That's what I told myself the first two days. It's what I told my mother when she called to ask if I'd set things right with Cassie about the thesis. The thing with the thesis seems like the biggest fucking joke ever now, in comparison to everything else that happened after that.

I told Drew the same thing when he called after my mother called him. Then I told him to fuck off.

And Tank, who came to me looking for an explanation.

It was just a fling.

That explanation only held water for a couple of days before the stupid knot in the middle of my gut made it too hard to think.

She's better off without me.

That's the realization that came after that, the crushing awareness of my own limitations. I'm not the guy she needs. I can't be the guy she needs, the one who worships her, puts her before anything else.

Football is it for me. My first love. I can't be distracted from it. I can't let her distract me.

It will always be my priority, and she deserves better than that.

I want her to have better than that.

Better than me.

That rationalization doesn't help a fucking bit. The knot in my gut keeps growing bigger.



* * *



"You look like shit," Tank says. "And this room stinks, man. And that's coming from me, which should really worry you. You need to get out of here before you develop scurvy."