Fair Catch (Love and Sports Series) (10 page)

When she got to her classroom she pulled her phone out to turn it on silent when she noticed she had a text
message and of course it was from Jake.

Jake: By the way, I don’t think I got the chance to thank you for being my date last night, even though I blew it, but thank you. It was a pleasure to have you on my arm. P.S. You look beautiful this morning.

Damn it all to hell…

                                          ***

“Taco time!” Margo sang out as she sat down at the table with Lexi and Parker. Parker was looking sexy as usual Margo thought. Not even going out for a late night date with a guy on the football team could cure her need for Parker.

“These look awesome ladies, thanks for having me over.” Parker said with a devilish grin. Margo felt her entire body sigh with content. Just being able to hang out with him was amazing.

Lexi had her elbow on the table and her hand holding her head up as she stared down at her food, not eating it, just pushing it around on her plate.

“You
actually going to eat that Lex?” Margo asked. Lexi just looked up and nodded. This was very unlike her friend, she loved tacos. She loved all meals. “What’s wrong girl? Is Jake really getting to you?”

“Oh yea, you never gave me the details of what exactly went down. I just got the abridged version from Margo.”
Parker said while biting into the crunchy shell of his taco.

“I don’t want to talk about i
t. I just want to forget Jake ever stepped in my life.”

Throw off by the snappy tone Lexi just used,
Margo and Parker exchanged looks of concern. They shrugged at each other and dug into their tacos and forgot about the topic of Jake Taylor.

All three of them just sat
there in silence. Lexi still didn’t touch her food which caused Margo to worry. Lexi worked out every day, sometimes more than twice a day, if anything the girl needed more food to keep up with her burning metabolism.

Margo knew Lexi didn’t want to talk about Jake but she also didn’t want her friend to go anorexic either because of some jackass. Margo stepped into the mother
role. “Lexi, can you please eat? Don’t let Jake bother you that much.”

Lexi snapped her face up and stared down Margo. Margo actually felt fear
creep across her body. Never since the three years Margo had known Lexi had she seen her friend so distraught and just flat out angry about something…or someone for that matter. Lexi pushed her food to the side and went to her room, slamming the door shut.

Margo
blew out am agitated breath and stared down at her food. Parker reached across the table and squeezed her hand, sending chills all the way up her arm.

“Don’t worry about her.” He said, “Just keep being
a friend like you are and she’ll realize what a bitch she’s being.” He winked at her as he shoved a tortilla chip in his mouth.

That made Margo c
huckle. She looked Parker in the eyes and he gave her another quick wink as he tore his hand away from hers to grab one of his tacos, which he so disgustingly shoved in his mouth, making a mess of his entire plate.

“You’re disgusting, you know that?”

He talked with his mouth full. “Distracted you from the little girly drama that just took place, didn’t I?”

“You’
re right about that but for God’s sake can you stop talking with your mouth full, it’s revolting.”

Parker laughed
, causing a chunk of ground beef to pop out of his mouth and hit the table. They stared at the browned meat for a couple of seconds before they both started to laugh hysterically.

“Oh my God, that was so disgusting.”

Parker just smiled at her and shrugged while taking another bite of his taco. Margo sat back in her chair and enjoyed the chips and salsa that were on the table. Even though Parker had zero table manners, she enjoyed watching every little food particle fly out of his mouth. What was wrong with her?

Parker wiped his mouth with a napkin and asked, “So are you going to the mixer on Friday?”

“Possibly, there should be some really hot guys there.” Margo said trying to gauge Parker’s interest in her.

“That’s right, because I’
ll be there.”

“Awfully full of
yourself today, aren’t you?”

“
It’s kind of hard not to be with a physique and face like this.” Parker said while motioning his whole body with his hands. Margo just rolled her eyes at him but secretly agreed. He was practically a god. “Well if you plan on going, let me know. I can pick you up and we can ride together.”

Margo tried to act cool but her stomach was doing flips with the mere fact that Parker offered to pick her up. S
he knew it wasn’t a date but they were going to be able to spend some more time together, one on one. That was what she needed, just a little more Parker time before he went off to do bigger and better things.

“You’re on.” She said trying to be cool, “But you better not be late, you know how I hate missing all the good beer.”

             
                            ***

Lexi managed to get through the rest of the week without hearing from or running into Jake. She apologized to Margo and Parker for her childish outburst during taco night, they were more than understanding. Sometimes she wondered why they stuck around her. They were off to the mixer together, while she headed to the weight room. The last thing she wanted to do was interact with a bunch of drunken idiots and possibly run into Jake.

Not that he would really pursue her if they did see each other. Ever since his morning breakfast escapade
she had not heard from him, which was a good thing. She was able to get her life back on track. He really caused a big disturbance and she didn’t care much for it.

Parker begged
her to go out with him and Margo tonight but she wanted nothing to do with the stupid mixer. Parker reminded her of their deal about going out and having the best senior year possible, sending guilt through her entire body but she didn’t cave. She promised him that after this night she would go to whatever party he wanted, she just needed a little more time to herself.

She didn’t really know what was wrong with her. So what, a guy ignored her when she was his date. It shouldn’t have bothered her that much but for some reason it did. It nagged at her day in and day out. It nagged her so much that the first couple of days after the horrible night, her coach called her into her office and reminded Lexi of her
leadership role on the team. Her coach told her she better get her shit together before the season began or else she would be finding someone to replace her.

The fat, donut eating bitch
was right, when had Lexi ever let a man affect her like Jake had? The answer was never. She played the night over and over in her head and tried to think about why his actions bothered her to the point of not wanting to enjoy taco night. She came to the realization in one of her media classes. The night of the dinner, she was secretly living out a fantasy she never got to have. She never went to one of her proms or was asked to a dance so when Jake asked her, it was like being able to step back in time and have that moment she never had.

It was so corny but she couldn’t help but feel let down, like some reject
that sat on the bleachers and watched all the pretty girls dance with their dates while she sat alone. A flood of raw emotions attacked her in class and she had to leave early so she didn’t embarrass herself. The night with Jake brought back all her insecurities growing up and she associated him with those insecurities.

She grabbed a towel from the equipment room a
nd headed for the weight room. What she needed right now was to sweat and push herself to the limits. She went straight for the bench and racked up her weights. She pounded out a couple of reps and then just sat at the bench, staring at her lap, wondering if staying in tonight was the right choice.

“Hey.”

Lexi nearly jumped out of her skin from the friendly hello. She thought she was the only one in the training facility. She looked up and found herself looking at two pools of light green eyes.

Jake.

Lexi didn’t know what to do or how to react. What the hell was he doing here? It was a Friday night and there was a party full of willing and eager women to please him.

“Uh, hey.
Why aren’t you at the mixer?”

Jake pulled up to the bench next to her and started pumping out reps. The weight on his bar was significantly bigger than hers and
she couldn’t help but stare as his muscles rippled beneath his shirt when he pressed up and rested the bar on holders.

“We have
our first game tomorrow so we’re on twenty-four hour.” Lexi didn’t think the football team followed the twenty-four hour rule of no drinking before a game.

“I didn’t know you football players followed that rule.”

“We didn’t until this year. I suggested it and we all agreed, well most of us agreed.”

Completely shocked,
Lexi nearly fell off her bench. Jake, the party man of the athletic department, enforced the twenty-four hour rule on his team. She better go look out a window because she would bet a million dollars she would be seeing a pig fly right now.

“Wow, that’
s a little shocking.”

“Whys that?” he asked.

“Uh, because you’re the biggest partier on campus and for you to suggest such a rule would be like Parker eating a jelly donut and not getting it all over his shirt.”

Jake picked up his weigh
t again and grunted out, “Not anymore.”

Lexi
decided to stop watching him, took the weights off of her bar and went over to where the exercise balls were so she could work on her core, which she took great pride in. Not a lot of people knew that having a stable core could help any athlete become better in their sport. That was why Lexi spent extra time in the abs department and also because she liked looking good in her bikini which she was able to wear often since she lived in southern California.

They both worked out in silence, aware o
f each other in the room but never making eye contact. Jake actually was wearing ear phones, completely tuning Lexi out. Well if she wasn’t convinced before about Jake being able to forget about her, she was convinced now. He floated around the weight room, focusing on different parts of his body and flexing with every pump of iron.

It took all the energy in Lexi’s body to ignore him and just focus on her workout but after twenty minutes of pure torture she
decided to call it a night. She couldn’t be in the same room alone with him anymore especially when he was deliberately ignoring her. But wasn’t that what she wanted? She wanted him to ignore her? She wanted to go back to her normal life before Jake took a tiny step into it.

She grabbed her towel, took one last
look at him in the mirror and left the weight room. She filled up her water bottle and threw her towel in the dirty laundry bin. What a night, she thought it would be relaxing to workout but instead she had a tension filled night that was cut short by her inability to act like a grown up and share a weight room with a member of the opposite sex.

Once in the locker room,
Lexi grabbed her bag, located her keys from the front pocket and exited her locker room while sucking down her water. When she lowered her water bottle she made eye contact with Jake, once again.

She
placed her hand over her heart. “Jesus, you scared me. You can’t be lurking around in hallways when it’s late at night.”

She could tell he was holding back a smile from scaring the crap out of her. “You startle easily.”

“And you’re a creep for waiting around in the dark by the girls’ locker rooms.”

“Point taken.”

They stared at each other for a couple of seconds not saying anything, so Lexi started walking toward the exit.

“Hey, are you coming tomorrow night?” Jake asked when she was about to open the door to the warm night. She turned around and saw that he didn’t move from where he was standing
instead he was leaning against the hallway wall. He looked like a little lost boy, it was almost endearing...almost.

“I don’t know, maybe.”

“I hope you do.”

“We’ll see.” She was about to walk out the door when he caught her before she shut the door.

“If you do decide to go, there will be field passes for you, Margo and Parker waiting at will call.”

“Field passes?” Lexi asked in a shocked voice. If she told Parker she had field passes
to the first football game of the season, Parker would make her go. The game was fun to watch from the stands, even she would admit that but never had she experienced the game from the ground level where all the action was. Field passes were hard to come by especially since they were given to all the VIP alumni or donors.

“Yea, the first game is always the
best to be on the field for. The excitement in the air is contagious.”