Jockblocked: A Novel (Gridiron Book 2) (6 page)

Matt looks a little winded by my example, so I hit him with another one.

“Remember how hot it was last fall?” He nods. I’m sure he does. Ace cursed about it every day, saying he’d rather play for a cold climate team than a hot one. “My roommates and I went to Lake Wanachakee. There’s a little private watering hole on the north side. My roommates, Sutton and Charity, decide to strip down and go skinny-dipping despite the big white sign that says ‘No skinny-dipping, punishable by a fine of up to $500.’ They yelled for me to get in while I considered all the scenarios of getting arrested, of being dragged down the beach without any clothes on, of how many snakes were in the water. I’d read an article about a woman getting leeches up her girl parts.” Matt blanches at this as any sane person would. “And since it wasn’t chlorinated, how many people had peed in it? But I was so hot, and the water looked so good.”

“Did you do it in the end?” he asks, but he probably knows the answer.

I shake my head. “By the time I decided to take my clothes off, Sutton and Charity were cold and got out.”

He sighs. “Sounds like your risk assessments keep you from having fun as opposed to keeping you safe.”

“I don’t look at it that way. The odds are in my favor. Risky behavior is labeled risky because there’s a chance someone is going to get hurt. There’s nothing negative with wanting to avoiding being hurt or injuring someone you care about.” I find myself explaining my reasoning in elaborate detail. Is it because he looks interested? I wish I could shut up.

“You don’t regret not swimming with your friends? Because it kind of sounds like you do. That was a wistful note when you said the water looked so good.” He leans toward me again. “How about this. I’ll take all the risks and you just come along for the ride.”

“Matt, dating isn’t the risk.
You’re
the risk.” I lay down a few bills for my meal. “I’m not unhappy with how I live now. There’s nothing wrong with making measured decisions and weighing the risks versus the benefits.”

He watches me while I pull on my coat. “You’re right that there’s nothing wrong with how you’re living. I’m not judging that. I’m just saying maybe your life could be happ
ier
. And that sometimes taking a risk gives you big rewards.”

“And you’re that big reward?”

He smiles wide. “You won’t know unless you give me a try.”

“
W
hat crawled
up your shorts and died?” Hammer bursts into my room the next morning. Hammer isn’t happy I’ve skipped going out with him.

I swivel in my desk chair, hoping my head blocks the computer monitor behind me. “Are you missing me when you go out to the bars? Is it difficult to pick up chicks when I’m not around? I told you that you got to stop using the line about being an advice columnist. That shit isn’t attractive.”

“Are you studying?” he asks incredulously, ignoring my insults. It’s three in the afternoon, and I can smell the booze on him even though he’s ten feet away. Granted, it’s Friday, and off-season Fridays are meant to be days spent drunk and lazy. “Is this because of the girl that turned you down?”

“Nope. Just trying to keep my head down,” I lie. Geez. I’m lying to randoms and to my best friends. The only person I’m being completely honest with is Lucy, and she doesn’t want to have anything to do with me.

But I did take away something other than rejection from dinner last night. Lucy’s approach to risk-taking is crazy as all get out—who makes an extensive pros and cons list about
shampoo
?—but one thing she’d said had stuck in my mind.

I look at it from all angles
.
Every. Single. Angle
.

Me, I’m a one angle kind of guy. As in, the easiest option available to me. The path of least resistance.

This particular issue needs more finesse. Coach wants me to persuade Ace to give up the
quarterback
position, for fuck’s sake. And to persuade the guys—including the offense, who are rabidly loyal to their QB—to support this course of action. They say you can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs, but in this case, I’m smashing the entire frickin’ carton. There’s no way to do this without pissing off some, if not all, of my teammates.

And seriously, when did I become the omelet chef in this scenario? I’m not sure I even
want
to be captain, dammit. Responsibility makes the back of my neck itch. I’d much rather be one of the happy, oblivious sheep than the stressed-out shepherd who has to guide them.

Except…the thing is, I can’t say no, not when it comes to football. This sport is in my blood. I live and breathe it. I’m good at it. And, corny as it sounds, I think I was
meant
for it.

I wasn’t ever supposed to play football. I’d been born prematurely, with a weak heart, having been nourished for the last twenty or so weeks in the womb by only a tiny bit of placenta. The rest had detached from the uterine wall. I was lucky to be alive.

My mom coddled me, and my dad watched me with worried eyes. I didn’t look like I could run a mile, let alone deliver a hard hit, until I was fifteen.

Somewhere along the line, I shot up like an unchecked weed. Filled out. Starting lifting and took to football as if I were weaned on Gatorade and leather.

One reason I’m so good on the football field is my uncanny instinct to know exactly which weakness I can exploit in the easiest, most economical way, ensuring that my hits at the end of the game are as hard as the ones at the beginning. Part of it comes from hours of film study, which helps me to immediately recognize what play is going to be run based on the position of the offensive players. The other part is God-given talent.

I operate the same way off the field. I don’t have to analyze or overthink the dilemma but just pick the solution that makes the problem go away the fastest. There’s no film study for life. Or if there is, I haven’t found it.

This is why, for the last four hours, I’ve been watching videos of Mr. Texas. The captain’s patch is currently burning a hole in my desk drawer, but I don’t want the captaincy bad enough to dick over my quarterback. I might not always love what Ace does on the field. There’ve been a few games when the offense couldn’t generate more than thirteen points and made the load on the defense fucking hard. And even though we won those games, a few of us grumbled under our breath. But thinking you’d like to kick your quarterback in the ass is one thing; doing it is entirely different.

Hammer studies me and comes to some inebriated conclusion that requires him to drag my reading chair from by the window over to the desk.

He folds his hands and gives me a serious look. “Do you have a fucking test or something? You can’t be failing any classes yet. The semester just started two weeks ago.”

“I’m not failing anything. You smell like you took a bath in a tub of vodka, Hammer.” I wave a hand in front of my nose. “Where were you?”

He lifts his shirt and sniffs. “Fuck, I can’t smell anything. Do I really stink, because I got a girl coming over in”—he checks his phone—“ninety minutes.”

“Then you best go take a shower.” Anything to get him out of here.

“Nah, I mean, if you got a problem, brother, then I can meet up with this chick later.” He types something into his phone and looks up at me with bleary eyes.

Damn, he’s a good friend, and frankly, I need someone to share this shit with. As soon as this recruit signs his intent papers, it’s going to be all over the news anyway. But…I’d rather talk to a sober Hammer. It’s hard to tell with him. His capacity for alcohol is kind of shocking.

“How much of your stink is from your drinking and how much is just from you rolling around on the floor of the Tau Omega house?”

He throws up his size fifteens onto the desk, and I push them off. “I had four shots.”

Four shots is sober for Hammer. I wheel away from desk and turn around. “Come here.”

He leans over, one hand braced against the desk. “Please tell me we’re watching porn.”

“With you hovering over me like a mother on her first recruiting visit? I’m not even going to watch a cooking video with you this close.”

“Mmm. You know I love me some Giada De Laurentiis. That chick is a fucking goddess.”

“Swear to God, you touch your dick right now and I’m going to punch you in the nuts.” I click through my list of previously played videos and pick the one where Mr. Texas played the worst. He only passed for 240 yards that game, and his team only won by twenty-two points. Only.

Hammer makes a grunt of annoyance when the video starts playing. “Shit, son, are you so bored during the off-season that you’ve resorted to watching highlights of North Arlington High? This is what you’re blowing me off for? Jerking off to some high school player in Texas—” He stops talking when the quarterback slides out of the defender’s grip, steps up into the pocket and releases an arrow thirty yards downfield off his back foot. “Wait, what did I just see?”

I reach back and try to massage some of the tension out of my neck. The tightness appeared midway through Coach Lowe’s lecture and hasn’t left me since. “We’re not scouts, Hammer. We play the game someone else has invented. We take the playbook, study our opponents, and then try to make them cry on Saturdays. That’s the full extent of what we’re supposed to do, right?”

“I guess?” he says cautiously. “I mean, we study film, so in a way we’re scouting the opponent.” He peers over my shoulder again to stare at the screen. The smell of souring vodka is too much, so I push away from the desk and start pacing.

Hammer begins cycling through the videos. After five minutes of total silence, he jerks to his feet. “Let’s get Darryl and Masters in here.”

“Masters isn’t on the team anymore,” I point out. Masters' early declaration for the draft makes him ineligible to play another down, so the lucky bastard doesn’t have to deal with this. Instead, he’s training like a demon so that he kills it at the combine in April.

“Yeah, but like you said, we aren’t talent scouts. Let’s get some other eyes on this.”

There’s no point in protesting because Hammer’s out the door by his last word, yelling for Masters and Darryl, our nose tackle, to come up.

Masters appears first. His new wife must be busy because usually they’re in Masters' upstairs apartment trying to break some kind of record for most sex in a twenty-four-hour period. Masters was a virgin before he and Ellie hooked up, and now he’s trying to make up for all those lost years. It’s a miracle Ellie can walk.

Masters claps his hands together. “Heard you were holed up in your bedroom for two nights running, so either your pipes are getting backed up or you have some girl stashed under the bed. And I have to tell you that the type of girl willing to live under your bed for days at a time is the type that will kill you in your sleep.”

“Is this from personal experience? If so, I want to be the first to tell you that it was nice knowing you and I hope you’re okay with me comforting Ellie after your unfortunate passing.”

Masters gives me a death glare. “I’m going to kill you right now, asshole. Right now.”

“Hold up,” Hammer says from the doorway. “No killing until after we watch these videos.”

“What’s up? We playing a game?” Darryl appears, eyes bloodshot and feet unsteady.

Yeah, it’s called
Rip the heart out of your starting quarterback.

Masters points to each of us. “Seems to me if I lay waste to all of you, I can avoid watching game film and go upstairs to—”

“My wife,” we all chorus in unison.

He’s addicted to calling Ellie his wife. It’s mildly irritating, but Masters couldn’t give a fuck. He’s always marched to the beat of his own drum.

“What’re we watching?”

“This.” I start playing the videos. The guys crowd around the monitor while I watch them. Their expressions turn from
slight boredom
to
interest
to
this guy is the greatest thing since Joe Montana drank his chicken noodle soup at halftime and went out and scored three touchdowns
. Video after video plays, each showcasing Mr. Texas’s perfect passes, his pocket sense, his rocket arm, and his ability to elude the defense.

“Was that an eighty-yard pass?” Hammer asks.

“Did he just get by five tacklers?” Masters wonders. “I know this is high school ball, but that Houdini act of his is ridiculous.”

“That run got me hard,” Darryl groans.

“Me too,” Hammer agrees.

“Dick’s in hand,” Masters confirms.

Finally, Hammer pushes away. “Someone shut that porn off. I can only get so erect.”

He collapses on the bed and looks at the ceiling. Darryl looks confused, but Masters catches on right away.

“Is Coach recruiting this kid?” He jerks a thumb at the computer screen.

“Has recruited. Has a commitment. Wants me to smooth his path.”

“What about Ace?” asks Darryl. He’s not the brightest crayon in the box, but he is one of the best run busters in the country.

Masters strokes his chin. “Recruit has a better arm than Ace. Makes decent decisions on the field. Ace’s primary skill is not making mistakes, keeping a cool head, and seeing the short option down the field.”

Last year, the few explosive, big-time passes came courtesy of our running back, Ahmed Strong, who averaged eleven yards after the catch—meaning he caught short passes and muscled his way down the field for a ton of extra yards.

“We wouldn’t have won the National title without Ace.” I feel the need to defend him. He is our quarterback, after all. “He’s smart and had only a few fumbles and a handful of interceptions.”

“But the strength of the Warrior team is in this room,” Masters points out. “And you lost two starting offensive linemen who are being replaced by sophomores and juniors.”

We all fall silent. Last year’s team had seven first team All-Americans, six of whom were on the defense. Ahmed was the only decorated offensive player. The new offensive line might be even worse than it was this year.

But we won last year because our defense didn’t allow people to score. We were big and mean and tough up front, so Ace didn’t need to be a superstar. We needed him to hold on to the ball, not turn it over too often, and make a few first downs. He did all that.

Introducing a high octane offense might change our dynamic, change the whole makeup of our team. I’m not convinced it’s the right move.

“What’s this got to do with you?” Darryl asks.

I exchange a grim look with Masters. He gives me a sympathetic glance but remains silent, his eyes telling me this is my show now.

The defensive unit operates near flawlessly because we’re so tuned into each other. When one person is out of sync, like the time that Masters and Ellie were fighting and he played like utter shit, we struggle. If we want to repeat as National Championship winners next year, we need to work as one unit.

That means everyone has to support the choice of quarterback.

I give my neck one last squeeze and then drop my hands to my sides. “Coach is going to make this change regardless of whether we’re on board, but he wants us to be supportive. I think if the team stood behind Ace, Coach wouldn’t start this guy. He’d let Ace play until we lost. And when we lose, the loss will be on our shoulders and not his.” Masters nods in agreement. I continue for Darryl and Hammer, in case they haven’t fully grasped what a shit show our team could turn into. “Coach wants me to persuade Ace to move so that the switch from him to the new guy is bloodless. No unhappy, anonymous leaks; no sock puppet forum posts; no rumors of locker room dissension.”

“Why not move Ace to backup?” Hammer asks.

I sigh because I don’t know for sure. “Coach didn’t share his reasoning with me, but if I had to guess, this is a way to make nice for Ace. He still plays, plus he positions himself better for the draft. No one is drafting Ace at the QB position.”

Everyone falls silent because while we all know it’s true, it’s not the kind of thing we like saying out loud.

“The minute Mr. Texas announces, all those sports guys are going to be talking about what this means for our future anyway,” Darryl points out, finally catching on.

“Not if Ace is willing to move to safety. No controversy, just a celebration.” Which is what Coach wants. Even though the screen has gone dark, the plays the high school quarterback made keep running through my mind. I make one last-ditch effort at convincing my friends that Mr. Texas is not the golden child. “We watched an admittedly great high school player, but so what? Every starter on Western was the best high school player in their division. Good high school stats mean squat in college.”