Kicked: A Bad Boy Sports Romance (20 page)

I stood on the sidelines for a while and got myself trashed. Nothing was working. Fucking her made me crazy. Ignoring her made me crazier. Being friends with her made me craziest.

“Goddamn it,” I snarled into my beer, tipping it back and tossing it into a plastic garbage can already half full of bottles. Mason was standing there, of course. And Kai was close by, both of them shooting sidelong glances at me.

“You talking to yourself now, Winship?” Mason shouted over the music. It was an eclectic mix, everyone adding a song or two to the playlist when they arrived. Right now, Fall Out Boy's “My Songs Know What You Did In the Dark” was on. Teagan bounced with the chorus and swiveled her hips around, moving with the crowd. At least she wasn't actually dancing with anyone in particular. Instead, a crowd had formed around her, started by a friend of hers dressed in a Ducks cheerleading uniform, and expanding until several of the guys had joined in.

They were all gunning to fuck her. I knew that. I knew
them.

I wanted to punch them all in the face and tell them to back off.

“I'm just … whatever,” I said as I grabbed another beer from a cooler on the floor and started drinking. There were kegs, too, but I liked the cool feel of the glass in my sweaty hand. “Don't you have girls to piss off and chase after?” I asked, and Mason and Kai both laughed at me.

“Your friend, Teagan,” Mason began, and I swear to God, he
knew.
Somehow he knew that getting with her would kill me. If I let him know that fucking her or worse—dating her—would be a win for him, he'd do it. He'd make it his life mission. “Are you guys a thing or something? You keep staring at her, and your dick looks like it's permanently stuck pointing north.”

I cupped my junk with one hand and took another drink of beer with the other.

“Teagan's alright,” I said with a shrug, giving Kai a look that said I'd kill him if he talked in front of Mason. He stared back at me with his ice blue eyes and waved his hammer in the air around his head.

“She's gay, I think,” Kai told Mason with a shrug of his broad shoulders. “I picked her up at New Intentions a few weeks back and she totally wasn't into hooking up.”

“Maybe it was just you?” Mason oozed, his eyes locked onto Teagan's swiveling form.
Sexy lips, dirty hips, breasts to make a god cry, why are you doing this to me, Tea? Why are you here? Why did you come to Eugene?

Things were so much easier when I was sure we'd never see each other again.

“I'm gonna go dance,” I said, shoving my way into the crowd and working my way towards Teagan. Her cheerleading friend intercepted me and grabbed my hand, leaning over to yell in my ear.

“Hi, I'm Melia, Teagan's friend.” I nodded, but she wouldn't let go of my hand. “Hotline Bling” by Drake started up as she pulled me closer to her. “Dance with me?” she asked as I looked up and found Mason squeezing through the crowd and sliding in next to Teagan.

That fucking parasite.

Fireworks went off in my head, violent red streaks of anger that made me want to scream.

Instead, I nodded and pulled the girl close, easing into the loose grinding rhythm of the crowd. Over Melia's shoulder, I could see Teagan taking Mason's hand and stepping close, his body sneaking close enough to put her between his legs.

When her eyes flicked up and found mine, something weird passed between us.

She didn't want me dancing with Melia; I didn't want her dancing with Mason.

We were both going to keep doing it—and we were going to pretend it was okay.

And I had to wonder how much of this was my fault.

Tyce and I went running in the park everyday that week, but we didn't talk much. Mostly he'd text me one or two word questions like
'park?'
or
'you game?'
and then I'd send him a time. He'd text me again when he was downstairs, and I'd head out, purposefully hiding his presence from Chelease. After our Halloween talk, she'd gone completely dark, could barely even look at me.

Today was Friday, the day before yet another game and Tyce was gone, in California to play the USC Trojans at the LA Memorial Coliseum. I missed him already.

“Teagan,” Melia said, leaning over and kicking me in the shin. When I looked up, I noticed most of our technical writing class was already gone and the next group of students was shuffling in. Oops. “You want to head back to my place and work on the paper together? I seriously have no clue what I'm doing.”

I wanted to tell her that was because she skipped class to smoke pot all the time, but I knew I was being a petty bitch. I just couldn't shake the image of her up close and personal with Tyce at the party. I mean, she'd had a crush on him for a long time, but now she knew what'd happened between us. Shouldn't that have made him off-limits? Wasn't there some girl code thing about not screwing guys that your friends lost their V cards to?

“I can't. I promised Chelease we'd have dinner together.” That was a complete lie, but I didn't know how else to get out of this without hurting Melia's feelings. I might've been stupid jealous about the dancing, but I suppose I had no right to be. I'd danced on and off with Mason Fenna, even spent some time with Kai and some guy named Kirk. At the end of the night, Mason had been moving in hardcore, trying to get me to stay the night, but Tyce had swooped in and acted like an asshole, commandeering Kai's car to drive me home.

I wasn't sure if I was ready to hook up with anybody yet, but that didn't mean I needed him looking over my shoulder like that. He was worried about his friends taking advantage of me, yet hadn't he already done just that?

“Aw, bummer,” Melia said, drumming her hands on the desk in front of her and then standing up and grabbing her laptop bag. She squeezed my shoulder affectionately and smiled. “But you'll be over tomorrow to watch the game, right?”

“Eh,” I started, but Melia was already shaking her head at me. She put her palms flat on the desk and leaned over, her pink hibiscus earrings swinging with the motion.

“Nope. You've been avoiding me all week. Is this because of Tyce?”

I shifted uncomfortably in my chair and stuffed my laptop back in my bag before reaching up to fix my ponytail. I was still picking flecks of paint from my hair despite several washings. This time I came away with some purple.

“I'm not avoiding you,” I said as I slung my bag over my shoulder and started towards the door. Melia followed after me, her loose, flowing halter dress drifting around her ankles. It was sixty degrees and raining outside, but she was wearing sandals and an anklet made of shells. “Why would you think that?”

“I just wanted to dance with Tyce to say I'd done it,” she told me with a half-smile. “I'm not about to pick your cherry popper off the tree.”

“That's gross,” I told her as we moved down the hall towards the door. “And honestly, we're not together. If you want to pursue him, go for it.”
Wow, that felt weird.
I was saying the words and they were technically true, but I didn't mean them at all. If I found out Melia and Tyce had slept together, I'd never be able to look at her the same way again. It was cruel, but true. I hated feeling like that.

“Um, okay,” Melia said, her dark brows knitting together before she shook her head and made some decision based on my facial expression. Apparently that decision was
it's not worth it,
so she moved on. “But you
have
to come to the game tomorrow. Please? We missed you last week. Risika won't stop mentioning that time you promised to teach her how to contour.”

I felt a small smile curl my lips.

“So … is that a yes?”

I thought about my reasons for not going over there, hanging out, making friends. They all had to do with Tyce.
Jesus.
If he was still ruling my life, then something was wrong. He wasn't here, twisting my arm and making me say no. That meant this was all on me.

“Okay,” I said and Melia squealed, leaning over to give me a cannabis scented kiss on the cheek.

“I'll text you later,” she promised and then disappeared into the women's bathroom.

I kept going, outside into the rain and straight to the bus stop.

'What are you up to tonight?'

I stared at the text from Tyce and tried to imagine what he was doing. I hoped sleeping was next on his to-do list because it was getting late, and he had a game tomorrow. I was nervous about watching him. I wasn't sure why. It wasn't like the cameras or the commentators spent their entire time talking about Tyce. But when they did, when they zoomed in on him, shouted his name in excitement, replayed some gravity defying pass or track worthy spring, I felt my heart skip a little. I felt proud.

I felt like he was mine.

'Wondering why you aren't asleep yet,'
I shot back as he sent a Snap from his phone. It was a picture of his bare feet and muscular legs, his right leg popped up at the knee, showing off the sexy tanned curve of one calf. The banner across the middle of the picture said
sleep before the big game—totally happening
with some clouds and rainbow stickers all over the edges. It was so random and weird that I burst out laughing, enjoying being alone in the apartment for once. I had no idea where Chelease was, but I was glad she was having a night out. That rarely happened.

'Seriously, go to bed,'
I texted back, turning on my side and trying my best not to think about our sexting session.
It was so hot.
I wanted it to happen again—badly. Lying there in the dark with my body starting to throb, I almost sent him a dirty picture. Instead, I scrolled back through our conversation and stared at the video of him jerking off. I pressed play and watched it through, my breath picking up and my thighs clenching as I stared at his tattooed hand wrapped around his cock.

Damn it.

I wished he'd have sent me the pics via Snapchat, so they'd be gone by now. Vanished. Erased. Poof. Instead, I was sitting here staring at something I could never have. Not that I was even sure I wanted him. He
clearly
didn't want a relationship, but I couldn't stop thinking about our conversation at the coffee shop.

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

That particular sentence was still playing on repeat in my head. It was an admission from Tyce that he felt something between us, something other than this new physical attraction he felt for me. It was proof that even before he'd left, he'd loved me in his own way.

I sighed.

Pointless path. A hallway with no end. That's what those thoughts were.

'Let's talk about something random,'
Tyce sent.
'Something that's so boring, I'll have no choice but to fall asleep.'

I smiled, my phone tucked in my hands. I felt braver at night like this, in the dark, without his handsome face staring back at me, those blue-gold eyes boring into my soul. I didn't have to stare at his lush lower lip and wish I was nibbling on it. And … that man seriously hated wearing shirts. Most of the time we went running, he was going without. I thought he did it on purpose. Either for my attention or for the numerous women that inevitably got caught in his orbit.

'Okay,'
I said.
'I've got a classic: what's your major?'

I got a big
LMFAO
in response and a stupid emoji of a smiling cactus.

'Journalism, just in case I break my leg or something. And you're computer sciences? We're both boring.'

'Boring? Just me. You're Mr. NFL. You'll be making like seven figures or something, won't you?'

'Eight,'
he texted back and then sent a smiley face with its tongue sticking out.
'Or nine. Kidding. Maybe. Weird to think about, right? I feel like being poor is in my fucking blood.'

'Never forget where you came from,'
I sent back, the ache between my legs dulling a little with our new conversation. It was sobering to think about, Tyce leaving again, turning into a real celebrity with millions in the bank and the world at his fingertips. He'd made a good choice, I realized as I stared at the words on the screen. He'd done right by himself by leaving Quaker Park. Disappearing on me and my mom was like the best thing that'd ever happened to him.