FOOTBALL ROMANCE: Tight (Bad Boy Alpha Male College Football Player and First Time Virgin) (Contemporary New Adult Athlete Sports Romance) (4 page)

Mason and Emma stopped in front of her dorm. The outside air was warm and his hand was soft in hers. He put his hand under her chin, tilting her head back and laying his soft, pink lips over hers. She felt the slow and steady hum of electricity pulse through her as Mason pressed himself harder against her.

"I had a great time tonight," he said, finally pulling away.

She blushed. "Me too." She had a million questions racing through her mind, but she didn't dare ask them. The main one was when would she get to see him again. Would she get to see him again? Did he even
want
to see her again?

He kissed her one more time and she felt like he was reading her mind and answering her question. Yes, he liked her. Yes, he'd see her again. His lips still tasted like honey to her and she gently ran her tongue over them, relishing their buttery smoothness. Emma was so lost in her thoughts that she didn't hear anyone approach until the peals of laughter rang through the night air, breaking their kiss.

"Oh my God!" a voice said. Emma turned her head and saw Zoey standing with her friends, her face red, her body shaking with laughter. "What are you doing?" she asked Mason, her eyes bulging. "I mean, I know we broke up, but God... Emma? You must be really hard up."

Mason stiffened and dropped his hand from Emma's back, shifting his weight away from her. Emma looked at him. His face tightened and his lips thinned. She tried not to read too much into it, but it seemed like he was embarrassed to be seen with her. She waited for him to say something, anything, to defend his honor at least if not hers, but Mason just stood there.

"Mason, you know that you could have any girl on campus, right? Are you drunk right now? Is that it? Did you get high and forget that it was Mouse you were kissing?"

His eyes hardened. "I'll see you later Emma," he finally said, and walked away without a further good-bye. Emma's heart sank. He was leaving her to face Zoey alone. She went upstairs and tried to ignore Zoey as she followed her into their room, but Zoey's incessant talking was impossible to ignore.

"I don't know what Mason was thinking," she said, "but he must've been desperate. That's the only thing that makes sense."

Emma put a pillow over her head, hoping to drown out the sound of Zoey's whiney voice as it tried to shatter her ear drums.

"He should've come to me," Zoey continued. "I would've thrown him some pity sex. For old time's sake, you know? It's the least I could do. I should let him know that, so that next time he's this hard up he can at least get in a little action with someone who's not deformed. Right Mouse?"

"Why do you care so much Zoey?" Emma finally snapped. "You were cheating on him for crying out loud? Did you even
like
him?"

"Of course I liked him. He's a football star!"

"Yeah, but do you even know anything else about him? Do you even care? It seems like you only liked him because he played football."

Unfortunately for Emma, she had managed to get to the root of Zoey's true feelings, which only served to piss Zoey off more.

"You're only using him," Zoey said.

"For what?" Emma asked, unable to believe that Zoey could say something so ridiculous.

"You hope it will help your social life. It's understandable. When one has no social life to speak of, they must get very lonely. Do you have any friends at all? Oh wait, let me guess. Your mom is your best friend? Isn't that sweet? Well, maybe when Mason's done with you, you can introduce them. I'm sure your mom could use a little Mason in her life as well, if you know what I mean."

Emma couldn't take it anymore. She grabbed her pillow and a blanket and went to sleep in the common room. It wouldn't be the first time, and it was better than listening to Zoey all night. She curled up into a chair, her head spinning. Things were only going to get worse for her with Zoey, especially if she continued to see Mason. Wait. Would she continue to see Mason? Maybe it would be better if she went back home. She could still go to school here.

Emma hated the idea of moving back in with her parents. She knew she needed to get away from them or she would end up forty and still living at home, but she wasn't sure she had a choice. Especially if Mason wasn't going to stand up for her. She just couldn't go through this alone.

Emma sat in lab the next day, her heart pounding as she waited for Mason to get there. She was afraid she had imagined his feelings for her. What if Zoey had been right? What if she meant no more to Mason than any other girl? She had given herself to him so completely... what if it had been a mistake?

Mason walked into class on time, for once. He high-fived his football friends, like he always did, not even giving Emma a glance. He stopped to talk to one of his buddies, who Emma could hear saying something about an upcoming frat party at their house. Mason nodded his head, standing there for what felt like forever. Emma wondered if he was ever going to come and sit down, and then class started and Mason finally took his seat next to hers.

"Hey," he said.

Hey?
Emma's heart sunk. Was that his standard greeting to girls he'd recently slept with? Hey? What did that even mean? She waited for some other sign from him. Something to tell her whether last night had been a crazy fluke or if there was going to be something more between them, as she'd hoped. Mason just stared ahead, doodling in his notebook as Professor Douglas lectured.

Emma felt her face redden and tried to stop the tears threatening to form in her eyes. She managed to push them off, and when she turned her head again Mason was watching her.

"You okay?" he whispered.

Emma nodded.

"You look upset."

"I'm fine," she whispered.

"Are you sure?"

She hesitated. Maybe she was making things more difficult than they had to be. After all, Mason was talking to her now. He was expressing an interest, concern even. She smiled at him. Then she looked at his notebook and saw what he'd been doodling. It was a cartoon woman with huge breasts—the kind of woman that couldn't possibly exist in real life.

Emma turned her head, disgusted. Was that the type of woman Mason wanted? If so, then Zoey was right; he'd only been with her last night because he was desperate. He'd just broken up with Zoey after all, maybe he regretted it. Maybe he wanted to get even with Zoey for cheating on him by sleeping with Emma. She'd seen Zoey's reaction to Mason kissing her. It was driving her crazy to think that Mason and Emma had been together. What better way to get revenge?

Emma looked at Mason from the corner of her eye. He was playing with his pencil, pretending it was a golf club and swinging it at a little rolled up ball of paper he'd made.

"Alright now everyone," Professor Douglas said. "I have a surprise for you all. Friday's test has been moved to today."

Emma's eyes shot to the front of the room, followed by a series of groans from the rest of the class.

"You can't do that!" someone shouted from the back.

"Ah, but I can," Professor Douglas said. "I want to see how much you have all learned, not how much you can memorize the night before an exam."

Emma's heart thumped in her chest. She'd heard of pop quizzes, but who gives a pop test? It wasn't fair.

"Relax Emma," Mason whispered. "You know this stuff. You'll be fine."

But Mason's words didn't help. If anything, they only irritated her more. Who was he to tell her to relax? He was acting like they were friends instead of lovers. It was infuriating.

Professor Douglas passed the test out and Emma looked down at it, the questions jumbling before her eyes. What was he asking about photosynthesis? Ultimate causation? She knew that definition, she just couldn't think of it. Her mind raced to find the answer to questions she should have been able to answer in her sleep. She just couldn't concentrate. Her mind was filled with too many other thoughts.

She'd made and unmade her mind a dozen times during the night to move back in with her parents. She'd finally decided to wait and see what happened in class today with Mason, but clearly, she wasn't nearly as important to him as he was to her. She kicked herself for falling into his trap at the lab. Those liquid eyes... that rugged face... he'd used his charms to get her into bed and take something she hadn't, until now, thought she would ever want to give. She felt humiliated.

A watery splotch landed on her test, making the ink run. Another tear fell on top of that one. Emma threw her pencil down and pushed the test away from her like it was on fire. She grabbed her things and ran for the door. She felt everyone watching her and knew she was acting like a child, but she didn't care. She had to get out of here now, before she made an even bigger fool of herself.

"Emma!" Mason's voice called to her across the hall.

She turned and saw him running after her. "Emma," he called again. She stopped running, waiting for him to catch up even though she wasn't sure she wanted to talk to him. "Are you okay? What's wrong?"

Tears flooded her eyes and ran over her cheeks in giant rivers. "How," she hiccupped. "How can you act like nothing happened last night? Didn't..." hiccup, "didn't it mean anything to you?"

Mason stared at her, his eyes opening wide. He looked like he'd just seen aliens land on the White House lawn. "What?" he finally said. "How can you ask that? Of course it did."

Emma felt her heart start beating again and tried to get herself under control. She hiccupped again and Mason suppressed a smile.

"Really?" she asked.

"Of course. Is that what's been bothering you?" he asked.

She nodded, starting to feel silly. "I just... when you came into class you seemed so...
normal
. You acted like nothing had changed." She tried to stop herself from blushing but failed miserably.

"So you bombed a test because you were afraid I wasn't into you?" he asked, smirking a little.

"No," she said, turning her head away from him. She tried to stop herself from hiccupping again but lost the battle. They were the only ones in the hallway. Something occurred to her then and head snapped back around. "Wait! What about you? You're missing the rest of the test."

"I finished."

Emma thought she'd misheard. "You finished?"

"Yeah, I got a C."

"How do you know that?" she asked, suspicious.

He shrugged. "I only tried hard enough for a C. I don't need any A's mucking things up for me."

Emma bit her lip, not sure she approved of his lackadaisical attitude about his grades, but not wanting to say anything. "But don't you need a certain GPA to be eligible to keep playing football?"

"Yeah, but my dad will fix things if I run into trouble."

"Oh." She resented the idea that his father could just swoop in and "fix things." She also felt really bad for Mason. If no one ever expected more from him, how would he ever be able to grow and learn?

"Come on," he said suddenly. "I'm taking you out." He threw an arm around her and ushered her down the hall to the door. "You need a nice dinner."

"It's a little early for dinner."

"So we'll see a movie first. You need to get your mind off things. Relax a little. Have some fun."

Emma smiled, and when he opened his car door for her her hiccups were gone. He drove them off campus to a local theater. She couldn't help noting that he didn't want to stay on campus. She didn't mind, but she couldn't shake the feeling that it had something to do with her. Still, it's not like he'd driven them two hours out of the way to see a movie, he'd simply gone into town. She decided she was being silly, overthinking things again, and that Mason was right. She needed to relax and have a little fun.

The movie was bad—a cheesy horror film about a possessed goat—but it didn't matter. They sat in the darkened theater, laughing and screaming at all the right places. She grabbed hold of Mason more than once, and he held her hand tightly when she needed him to.

They had an early dinner and walked around town a while until it started to get dark. They passed a group of people outside a pool hall and one of them shouted to them, "Hey Mason!" Mason turned and his face grew a shade lighter. He dropped Emma's hand.

"Hey," Mason said, "Kenny, what's up?" He peered in through the window and saw several more of his friends hanging out inside.

Kenny's eyes moved to Emma, who blushed. She stood just behind Mason, waiting for him to introduce her.

"You wanna get in on this game we've got going?" Kenny asked.

Mason shook his head. "Nah, another time."

There was an awkward silence where Emma looked at Mason, who looked at Kenny, who looked at Emma. "Well okay, have fun."

Mason turned and walked down the street, hurrying away from the pool hall. Emma hurried to catch up. "Mason," she said. "What was that?"

"What?" he asked.

"Who was that? Why didn't you introduce me? Are you... are you ashamed to be seen with me?"

Emma's heart felt like it was cracking. Clearly, Mason did not want his friends knowing she even existed.

"It's not like that," he said.

"Then what is it?"

"I just... I hate that guy. He thinks we're friends and I try to be nice to him because his father knows my father, but I can't stand him."

"Oh," Emma said. She supposed that made sense. Mason had acted somewhat cold and aloof because he just wanted to get away from Kenny, not because of anything she'd done. She wasn't sure she entirely believed him, but she was willing to accept the possibility he was telling the truth.

"Let's get out of here," Mason said, ushering her into his car. "Before we see anyone else I don't like."