Jockblocked: A Novel (Gridiron Book 2) (26 page)

Still, I know he didn’t exactly cheat on me, and even though he’s not here, I’m impelled to clarify things. “Okay, that’s not fair. He didn’t cheat on me. He was drunk and another girl kissed him. Pictures were taken and I felt like a fool when I saw them.”

She tips her head to one side and then the other, as if assessing the quality of my reasoning. “Are you saying he didn’t respect you?”

I think about it. “No. It’s really his life. He’s super attractive. He’s literally one of those guys that every man wants to be and every woman wants to be with. When he goes out to a bar, women are all over him. And even if he tells them he’s taken, they still push themselves on him, hoping to convince him otherwise.”

“How is that his problem? I mean, other than he can do a better job of projecting his ‘taken’ status.”

I shake my head. “It’s not his problem,” I admit. “It’s mine. I told him it was my problem.”

“So you didn’t break up with him because of anything he did. You broke up with him because you’re weaksauce.” Heather chops me down to my knees with a few matter-of-fact words.

But she’s not wrong. “Yes.”

She shrugs fatalistically. “So you’re weak. At least you admit it.”

It’s the ugliest description I’ve ever had applied to me, but I can’t dismiss it. It’s the truth. I didn’t believe in myself more than I didn’t believe in Matty.

“Your lack of confidence is why you can’t do a closing. You know that, right?” she prods.

“Yes, I know that.” I can’t do a closing because my throat shuts down. “It’s a version of stage fright.”

“Which you could overcome if you actually believed a little bit in yourself. Take it from me. If you don’t believe in yourself, no one will. Think I’m standing here because my dad’s a big supporter? Hell no. He wanted me to marry one of his junior partners.” My mouth drops open in shock. “Yeah, your hero, Paul Bell, is a real asshole misogynist. So if I did what my dad always wanted, I’d be married, with two kids, no education, wondering which strand of pearls I should choke myself with before my husband comes home smelling like his secretary. I believe I’m better than that. Better than most people, frankly.”

She reaches under the chair and pulls out my backpack. “You’d be a lot better in everything if you said, ‘Fuck what anyone else thinks of me,’ and just do whatever the hell you want.”

“I don’t operate that way.” The words sound like sanctimonious bullshit the minute they leave my mouth. “Fuck, okay.” I scrub two hands down my face, but the scorn on Heather’s expression doesn’t change. “I know I lack confidence and that’s why I don’t do closings. I stick to the stuff I am good at. That’s not being a coward.”

“So knowing you’re chickenshit is a good excuse? I’d rather suck at something and keep trying than just quit.”

I lose it. I jump to my feet and point an accusing finger at her. “I am not a quitter. I stuck with this team even after I crashed and burned. I have never quit on anyone.”

“Oh really? I bet Matty would disagree.” She throws the backpack into my chest.

I
’m not
real proud of how I handled myself with Luce, but what’s a guy supposed to do after he lays bare his heart and the girl stomps all over it with her sharp, pointy heels? She told me she didn’t want me, and I was tired of trying to convince her otherwise.

I’m not a masochist. I don’t do pain without reward—Christ, I’m starting to think like her.

In the past, whenever I’ve had stress in my life, I’ve coped with booze, weed, and chicks. During the season, it’s almost solely chicks because of the random drug testing, and because unlike Hammer and Ace, I can’t drink like a fool and still get up the next day and do fifty burpees without puking halfway through the set.

Learned that lesson freshman year.

So that’s what I do again. It seems like the perfect antidote after being told I’m not worth some neurotic girl’s time.

Hammer and I cruise the local town bars, staying away from the Gas Station, on the shaky premise that I’m tired of Western coeds. Hammer wisely says nothing as I pick out and discard woman after woman after woman.

I’ve ridden this amusement park attraction for three years and the thrill is entirely gone. It’s not just that my dick is dead in my pants but that I can’t even summon a smile for these pretty women.

“If you keep growling at these ladies, I can’t go out with you anymore,” Hammer declares. “You’re a shit wingman and your conversational skills are lacking. I’d have a better time with a potato.”

“Yeah, yeah,” I mutter and throw back another shot.

Hammer eyes me with caution. “You may want to slow down there, brother. That’s the fourth shot you’ve had in less than two minutes.”

I roll the empty shot glass in my hand, wondering how my perfect life went to shit in under two months. “Worried I’m going to ralph all over your new shoes? Promise I’ll save it for the entire O-line tomorrow.”

“No, I’m worried for your liver. You’ve drank enough this past week to move past pickled and into mummification.” He gestures for the bartender, who hops right to. He’s a fan. So many fans in here. The one person I want to be a fan? Isn’t, of course. Because that’s how life apparently works for me now.

The team that I love is in shambles. We can’t work out at the same time now because half of us hates the other half.

The girl I thought I loved threw my declaration—something I’ve never said to any female other than my mom before—back in my face.

My streak of Academic All-American semesters might be in jeopardy because I can’t concentrate for shit. And because I’m too hungover to haul myself to class. In January, the profs were lenient. We had just won the National title. In March? Apparently they care if you show up thirty minutes late to a fifty-minute lecture.

These past couple months have shown me one thing. Success is fleeting. Enjoy it while you can.

A glass of water appears like magic in front of me. I look up with a scowl. “This is not booze.”

Hammer claps me on the back hard enough that my chest bumps into the edge of the mahogany bar. “Fucker, that hurt.” I massage my chest, wishing the pain inside could be so easily rubbed away.

“Good. I was worried you were too numb for this.” He reaches out and slaps his open hand across my face. It’s not a hard blow. My head barely moves when he makes impact, but the shock of it? The sound of flesh striking flesh? I jump up, forgetting momentarily where I am and who just hit me. My fists come up because my fight or flight instinct? Definitely, one hundred percent fight.

I swing, and then sense or God or something sets in and I check myself inches away from Hammer’s unapologetic face.

I drop my arm to my side. “What the motherfucking hell?”

“You need to wake up,” he says simply.

“I have no fucking clue what you’re talking about.” I slide back onto the bar stool and clench the glass of water between my hands so I have something to do other than punch Hammer’s lights out. One of my best friends. I hang my head. What is wrong with me?

“Haven’t you had enough?” Hammer reaches past me and taps the rims of all my empty shot glasses. All eleven of them. I swallowed two within seconds of ordering them—the third by the time Hammer ordered his drink and then four more in quick succession. I wasn’t paying for them. They kept appearing in front of me like a cartoon version of shots where there’s no bottom to the booze and the glasses multiply magically. So I drank them.

“Don’t know. Why don’t you hand me the one at the end that’s full and we’ll see if I’m still upright?” I gesture toward the end of the row.

“Is drinking really making you feel better? Because we’ve drunk every night this week and I’m beginning to feel overstuffed. Kinda like how your pants are too tight right around the time that the second NFL game starts on turkey day.”

“Because I have a dick, I’m not allowed to be sad about something?” I snap. Someone starts playing Buckley’s “Hallelujah,”
the saddest dirge about how cold and broken love can leave you. Nice. I grab the last shot glass and down the contents. My throat’s so numb I can’t even feel the burn as the liquor slides down my throat. I’m going to have to switch to whiskey.

“You ain’t sad. You’re feeling sorry for yourself. You’re moping around like someone took your football away. On the field, you’re awesome, Matty, but off of it? You’re letting everything fall apart. I don’t know exactly what went down between you two but I can guess. And she might be a stone-cold bitch and you’re better off shot of her. But at some point, you gotta stand up and work for something off the field.”

He rubs a hand down his face. “I don’t know why I’m trying to have a conversation with you.”

It’s the disappointment in his voice that finally penetrates my thick, dumb skull. “Football gives back what you put into it. The rest of it, like Buckley’s saying.” I wave my hand in the general direction of what I think might be the jukebox although it might also just be a bunch of boxes of empty beer bottles awash in neon. “Love just ruins you.”

“Bullshit.”

“What?”

This is Hammer. Who loves football. Whose entire wardrobe consists of Warrior T-shirts, shorts, and workout gear. He bleeds blue and gold. I knock my hand against my ear. Did he just call bullshit on the only true and reliable facts of our lives—football is
it.

“We both know I’m not going pro. Most of the guys that play at Western won’t ever even get to sniff the turf at a pro stadium unless they’re paying to be there. That’s why I took this job writing articles for a woman’s magazine. You think it’s funny as hell, but this is going to get me a good paying job when I graduate.”

Hammer grabs my shoulder and forces me to look at him. “This thing with Ace? It’s not even about winning anymore. It’s whether we’re going to enjoy playing together. Matty, fuck, this is our last year. I don’t want to go out wondering
what if
, and regretting the time I spent. Even if we don’t win another title, I still want to know that I gave it all I had because I was playing with the best motherfuckers in the world. I don’t like saying this, but you kinda need a wakeup call. Is it possible she had a good reason for kicking your ass to the curb?

You aren’t a good risk.

She’d known it all along, and I’d laughed it off. Because on the field, I’m reliable as they come. Off of it, I duck anything close to responsibility. It’s not that I mind a challenge. Challenges are fun. But conquering a challenge isn’t the same as shoving on a pair of shitkickers and getting down in the trenches into messy, dirty, uncomfortable things.

The night we took Lucious out, I got drunk rather than stick to my own rules of no booze, no chicks.

I wasn’t thinking of Luce that night. I was thinking of myself.

I was a good lover because it reflected well on me.

I pursued Luce because it was fun—for me.

It’s always been about me. Even when she broke up with me, I didn’t see things from her point of view.

We were even in this random joint twenty miles from campus because
I
didn’t want to be around Luce.

I feel sick, and it’s not because of the liquor. The acid of self-disgust is mixing with all that booze, and I can feel it climbing upward.

“I need the john. Where is it?”

Hammer sizes up the situation immediately and starts pulling me through the crowd. People scatter in the wake of his two-hundred-and-eighty-pound form until my drunk ass is in the bathroom. I barf up the shots I’d been pounding since I arrived like I was participating in some cheap Spring Break contest. Guy who drinks the most shots in two minutes gets a free chaser of beer and a card with the local ambulance number on it.

I wipe my face with toilet paper. Flush three times and then dunk my head in the sink. After I wash away any residue and hopefully some of my dumbassery, I grab a handful of paper towels and run them through my hair.

“What do you want to do?”

“Me?” Hammer points to himself.

“Yeah, we’ve been doing my crap all week. What do
you
want?”

He ponders this. “There’s a redhead out there who’s been eyefucking me. I wouldn’t mind doing her.”

Okay. “Here or back home?”

“Here. Definitely here.”

Which is how I find myself sitting on the dingy barroom floor, directing people away from the men’s room for thirty minutes while Hammer and the redhead enjoy an energetic and sometimes noisy interlude.

T
he next morning
, we’re greeted with some unwelcome news. Because of our inability to get along, according to Coach Lowe, we’re shipping off for a “retreat.” We’re sent home to pack our bags, which means I can’t go over to Luce’s place like I need to. Like I want to.

I debate texting her, but that’s a low-class move and one that doesn’t have much chance of success anyway. Over the phone, via text, it’s easy for her to ignore me.

If I’m going to apologize, I need to do it in person.

Tensions in the locker room are high as we gather our shit. Players are chirping at each other and not in a fun, friendly, busting your balls way. Fozzy tells Darryl that he’s slower than molasses off the block and snidely wonders whether Carter Hunt, the incoming freshman center, is going to replace him. The two get into a shoving match right in front of Ace, who leans back and watches the interaction as if it’s a goddamned sitcom.

The team is falling apart.

Yeah, it is. And Ace isn’t going to save it. Masters isn’t here anymore. So it’s me or nobody. Hammer gives me a
whatchu doing about this mess
look. I make a face because once I stand up, that pretty much means I can’t pummel Ace into the small ball of dust he should be reduced to.

Responsibility kind of sucks donkey balls, which is why I probably avoided it for so long.

Shooting one last annoyed glare in Hammer’s direction—who gives me an irritating two thumbs up—I rise to my feet and stride over to where Fuzzy and Darryl have their arms interlocked like two combatants in a WWE match. We just need Bish to come flying in with a chair.

“You two think this is a dance class?” I bark out. Darryl’s head jerks around because he’s not used to this from me. Fozzy tries to take advantage of Darryl’s inattention but I’m able to shove them apart.

“I’m sick and tired of you all fighting about this. We are a goddamned team. Let’s act like it.” I turn to Ace. “Bro, I’m sorry. What’s going on with you sucks balls. But you’re wrong. I have never once said to Coach that I think you should be anything but our QB. But it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter what I say. What I do.” I wonder how many people know I’m talking about more than football.

“Coach has moved on. We can either fight with each other or fight for each other. The first option means we lay eggs on the field. We lose and we lose and we lose. I’m not going to like that much, and I don’t think any of you will either.

“The second means putting aside our feelings about what’s going on with Ace and moving forward. We don’t have any idea what Remington Barr’s going to be like. Maybe he sucks. We all know of high school stars who wash out in college because everyone they meet on the field was a high school star. Maybe he’s awesome. I don’t know.

“For about twenty of us, next season is our last. We can look back at it as a lost season, embarrassed by how we went out, or we can look back on it with…” I search for the right word.

“Joy,” Hammer offers.

“Yeah, joy. Thanks, man.” We bump fists.

He winks and gives me a thumbs-up.

I walk over to Ace. None of these guys know how he wronged me, but there’s a strange kinship between us, created by the fact that Luce broke both our hearts.

“I forgive you, brother.” Ace’s eyes grow wide with shock as he stares at my outstretched hand. I extend it even further. “For the sake of this team, I forgive you.”

Ace’s hand rises slowly, as if he doesn’t really want to shake my hand but something deep and decent within him—whatever it was that called Luce “friend” for all those years—pulls it up, inch by motherfucking inch, until his palm is against mine. Our handshake is brief. We will never be friends, but the sad truth is that Luce was right.

No one forced all those shots down my throat. I didn’t have to get so messy drunk. I didn’t have to stand so close I could feel the line of the girl’s underwear press against my jeans-clad leg.

If I’d seen Luce kissing some guy, her eyes glassy with booze, and his arms around her body, I’d have been enraged. And maybe if I’d had the same past as hers, the same fears, I would’ve been done, too.

So I forgive Ace for burning the cord tying Luce and me together because I lit the match.

I leave Ace then and turn to Fozzy and present my hand to him. He knocks it away and lifts me in his arms.

“I love you, brother,” he shouts. My ears ring for hours. There’s a round of handshakes and bone-breaking backslaps and even a few more hugs before we get back to the basics of football—strength and conditioning.

On the ride up to the hotel in some Podunk town in Illinois, about an hour west of Chicago, Hammer peppers me with questions about Luce. He says it’s because he’s concerned. Privately, I think he’s doing research on another article.