Kicked: A Bad Boy Sports Romance (15 page)

“I know we have a lot to talk about,” I said, leaning back in the red leather chair and gazing across the short space in front of me to Teagan. Between us, there was some weird coffee table thing that was half beanbag/half chessboard. The checkered wood was positioned on top of the black beanbag, and it wasn't very sturdy. Whenever I touched it, it moved. “And there are a dozen places we could start, but … I need to know what happened to Venus.”

Teagan reached over to the coffee table/chessboard and grabbed her chocolate croissant. It was balanced on a white china plate, sliding around as she slopped it onto her lap. She
really
didn't want to talk about her mother.

I held my paper coffee cup with the compostable biodegradable faux plastic lid and enjoyed the warmth against my palm. It was storming like crazy outside right now, the wind chill driving icicles into my blood. I hoped it would clear up for the game tomorrow. Even sitting across from Teagan like this, I couldn't stop thinking about football.

“She died about six months ago,” Teagan said, staring down at her croissant. I really, really wanted her to look at me, but I guess she wasn't ready for that. Maybe she couldn't look at me without feeling my cock between her legs, wondering why I didn't stop when she asked me to stop.
I'm such a stupid fucking asswad.
“Good thing I was already eighteen when that happened,” she added. To somebody who wasn't from our town, it might seem like a cold statement. But there was only one place in Quaker Park where foster kids were sent. Trust me, I knew, I'd been there. It was the deepest level of hell.

I took a drink of my coffee, but it was bitter and wild. I needed cream and sugar lumped into mine, so sweet it sipped like freaking cake. I kept it clutched in my hand and watched as Teagan studied my shoes, a brand spanking new pair of black and gold Nikes. We were handed this stuff like it grew on trees. I felt bad wearing such nice shoes when Teagan's were practically falling apart at the seams.
No matter what we talk about today, I'm getting her some goddamn cross trainers if I have to beat up Kai to get a loan.

“My mom got, uh, pneumonia,” Teagan said, and then she stopped talking. I watched her take a bite of her croissant. I figured she was planning on elaborating, but she just kept eating until there was nothing but crumbs.

“Pneumonia?” I asked, feeling my chest get tight.

“Yep,” Teagan said, reaching down and grabbing the coffee stained napkin from under her cup. “There was no exciting murder trial, no news worthy falls from Mount Everest, just … one day she got sick and then after that, she got sicker. I don't think she knew how bad it was, even towards the end.”

Bam.

Those green eyes snapped up to mine and grabbed hold fast and tight, hard. That crash of thunder and lightning I'd noticed before hit Teagan's face.
Hate.
There it was again. Hatred. For me. I didn't think she wanted to admit it, not even to herself, but it was there.

“She kept asking me if I could find you, bring you in to see her. Those last few days, the doctors kept telling me she was going to go in the night. And she didn't. She was waiting.” Teagan kept her gaze narrowed in on mine. “She was waiting for
you.
” A surge of anger in those words. “She went to
jail
for you. My mom was always fighting for you, Tyce, but I guess that didn't matter, did it?”

“I had to get out of there, Teagan!” I raised my voice; I yelled. Total dick move. I was freaking out a little inside, and I didn't know how to handle it. I didn't have any family. The closest I'd
ever
had was Teagan and her mom. Now Venus was dead, and I had to live with the fact that I ran away and never went back. I meant to, but as time passed, it just seemed weird. And I got scared, scared that if I showed my face there again, heard Teagan's voice, that I'd break and just give up, go back.

Teagan sat back suddenly and crossed her long legs at the knee. She might've been short, but she was perfectly proportioned, so sexy in those leggings, those sneakers, that plain white tee. Her makeup was still smudged, but she didn't need it, not with that face.

“I loved Venus, okay.” Deep breath.
Just get it out and you can go.
That's what I told myself. “And I loved you, too, Tea.” Her cheeks and neck flooded with color, but she wasn't looking at me anymore, staring at the old wood floors beneath our feet. I thought this building used to be an old train depot or a warehouse or something, I wasn't sure. “But what would've happened if I'd stayed in Quaker Park? I would've been a loser, a nothing. I was good at football, great. But nobody would've seen it there, nobody would've known.”

“So you left to play football. I get it, Tyce. I'm not an idiot, but why did you have to disappear in the middle of the night? Why didn't you visit? Call? Write? Email? Text? Jesus, you could've sent me a Tweet or a Facebook message. There are a million ways you could've told us you were okay, put a smile on my mom's face. I just don't get it.”

How do you look a girl in the eyes and tell her you loved her too much to be with her? Or maybe that you didn't love her enough to include her in your plans? I wasn't really sure. Even now, my feelings for Teagan were confusing and hard to sort out.

“If I'd stayed, we would've gotten married and had kids and lived in a shitty trailer by the cemetery.”

Teagan slammed her coffee down on the beanbag table, the paper cup crunching and splashing all over her wrist. It was lukewarm when we got it, so I didn't think she was burned, at least not physically, but I stood up to get some napkins like she was on fire.

When I came back and handed them to her, she snatched them away with chipped red nails.

“So you were doing me a favor? Protecting us both from a fate worse than death?” Teagan was shaking now, slapping at the coffee with the napkins while I stood there and fumed, too. I missed saying goodbye to Venus, screwed Teagan up by trying to save her. Or maybe my mistake was not walking away when I saw her at the park. I shouldn't have ever started talking to her again. “You were making sure we didn't fall in love by screwing my older friends, making them pity me, giving my mom the finger for all her sacrifices as you sprinted off into the sunset and draped your pathetic ass in green and gold?”

“What do you want me to say? I want a future. I don't have much of a past to fall back on, do I?” I waited for Teagan to respond, but she didn't, still leaning forward with her ruined coffee cup clutched in her hand. “I'm fucking sorry, Tea. I left because it was better for both of us. And maybe I was right? Look, you got out, didn't you?”

“I don't want to fight with you anymore,” Teagan said, proving that she really had grown up since I'd left. She was way more in control than I was. “I don't want to make that my life, Tyce. Fighting, screaming, arguing with you. That's all we do when we see each other now. I guess … I guess I know all I really need to know. You left to make a life for yourself. It was too hard to call or something stupid like that. Let's just walk out of here and go our separate ways, okay? Smile, wave, if we run into each other in the future.”

I felt empty at that statement, like I was getting mummified, having my brain ripped out through my nostrils and my heart shoved into a jar. Teagan was telling me exactly what I thought I wanted to hear and yet, I couldn't have been any less thrilled.

“You're right,” I said, sitting back down and pushing my coffee towards her. “We're in different places in our lives right now. It was good to see you again, though. Really.” Teagan lifted her head finally and looked me in the face without any sign of that red veined hatred pulsing behind her eyes. She studied my face, searched it thoroughly and then nodded. If we'd done this to start off with, before we'd kissed, slept together, whatever else, then it might've worked. At this point, I wasn't so sure.

“You don't have any diseases, do you?” Teagan choked out, making me raise an eyebrow. It actually took me a whole minute to figure out where she was coming from. Oh. Fuck. Condom. Or lack thereof.
Jesus.

“No, no diseases,” I whispered. I had enough physicals to know that for sure.

“Good.” Her voice was hoarse as she continued to stare at me. “And I wanted you to know, I'll delete all the pictures and videos from my phone, so don't worry about it.” The reminder of last night sent a thrill through me, turned my cock to stone. Teagan saw, but she didn't say anything. What was there to say? It was hot, sure, but it was over now. “I'll be watching the game from my friend's living room tomorrow. Can't wait to see you crush the competition.”

She stood up and I followed suit, getting ready to drive her home.

“Thanks.” I smiled. “I'll wink at the camera for you.” I got a tiny, half-smile in return. “Oh, and if you really don't want me to go back to the park, I'll stay away. I haven't been there since.”
Since
I fucked you and made you bleed.
GODDAMN IT. I didn't want to think about that anymore.

“It's fine, really. It's a big park. Run there if you want. If we run into each other, maybe we could jog a mile or two together?” The thought made me more excited than it reasonably should. This whole
cleansing
thing wasn't exactly going the way I wanted it to. “Oh, and I have places to go around here. I'll call a cab when I'm ready to go home.”

“Are you sure?”

“I'm sure, Tyce.”

Saturday, game day.

How exciting.

For everybody else that was; I wasn't watching. Instead, I had videos of the star quarterback jacking off and telling me how hot and wet I was, how he couldn't concentrate at practice because I was always in his head.

Guess that was all bullshit.

Today, the University of Oregon Ducks faced off against the Arizona State Sun Devils, and I couldn't have cared more or pretended that I cared less. I'd given Tyce an easy out in that conversation and he'd snatched it right up, looking ridiculously relieved, like I was an anchor strapped to his leg. He'd been beyond happy to cut me off.

My phone buzzed, but I ignored it. Melia was texting me nonstop, asking what time I was coming over. I'd already told her I wasn't.

“Are you okay?” Chelease asked, standing in the kitchen and clutching a wooden spoon in her hand. I think she was making cookies, but it didn't matter much to me. Food had once again turned to ash in my mouth, so I was kind of on a temporary fast. Come Monday, I'd pick myself up and eat three square meals a day. For now, I didn't give a crap.

“I'm good, thanks,” I lied as I tucked my legs up on the couch next to me and enjoyed the fact that Chelease didn't have a TV. I could've cracked open my computer or used my phone to watch Tyce, but I was sure a sports package cost more than I could afford. That is, if I was even interested in watching. “Why? Do I look mopey or something?”

“You just look sad,” Chelease told me pulling the spoon from the dough and rinsing it carefully in the sink. She completely and utterly bought the whole salmonella from raw eggs thing and refused to take a single lick. Personally, I liked to live on the edge, but I
really
didn't want to piss her off again today. Yesterday, she'd lost it completely when she heard I was going on a coffee not-date with Tyce. I knew a ton of people that disliked sports, but I'd never met someone with such a vehement hatred. I didn't understand Chelease at all.

“Thinking of my mom again, that's it,” I said, which wasn't entirely true. Yesterday, I'd gotten those Polaroids out, dug through them until I found my mother's smiling face and sobbed like I never had back home. The whole time my mom was sick, the day she lost the fight and closed her eyes for good, I stayed dry-eyed. Since I'd run into Tyce, something had shifted in me, made my eyes water all too frequently. This whole thing with him was like a handful of salt into the open wound of my heart. Today, though, I was thinking pretty much exclusively about him. Mom was dead; it might've been easier if Tyce
were
dead.

I spun around on the couch and watched Chelease scoop balls of cookie dough out with a spoon. They were oatmeal raisin, I think. I stared at her long, strong arms, the way she moved with careful purpose for even the simplest of tasks. There was a focused, determined way that Chelease did things that made me wonder about her. Either she was just driven, or
something
was driving her. I couldn't tell. Maybe I was just reading too much into nothing? If there was anyone in this house with issues, it was me.

“I think I'm gonna go study a while,” I said, but I felt too restless to study. My phone kept buzzing with new texts from Melia, a few from Risika. It sounded fun to go hang out, have a beer or something, but I didn't know if I could stomach shots of Tyce in his uniform today. Yesterday was so clinical and dull, our conversation frustratingly mature and utterly unhelpful. I guess we'd just write off our history, the sex, the dirty pictures, pretend none of it happened and move on. In theory, a great plan.

In practice, not so much.

I closed my door and locked it, sitting down at the small vanity in the corner and poking through the sea of cosmetics until I located some green and gold. I might not be feeling the team spirit much today, but I had a healthy following of Instagram followers that liked to check out my makeup. Maybe they'd appreciate a little nod to the game?