Offside: A Bad Boy Sports Romance (4 page)

“You realize I have never played American football before, right? I don’t know what Alex and Dougie have told you, but I’m a rugby player, not an American football player.”

“Are you making excuses already?”

“No, not at all. Just telling you so you know.”

“I’m the one that convinced the owners to bring you in.”

“So you’re the one I’ve got to thank for bringing me all the way out here into the middle of... nowhere.”

“Thank me when you know whether you mean it or not. You might be hating me after tomorrow.”

“That depends what everyone else is like. It’s been a good start so far.”

“Just do your job, and keep out of trouble and you’ll be fine.”

“Sometimes those things are mutually exclusive.”

“Not here they’re not. Especially if you want to stay.”

I don’t think it’s the look I give him, but Jasper decides not to continue that line of conversation anyway.

“You always pick up new players?”

“I do if I’ve selected them.”

“And what’s it like for a woman working in a mostly male environment?”

“Like everyday life.”

“I guess you just don’t date players, right?”

“A year is a long time, Jasper, I suggest you don’t burn your bridges all in one go. Like I said, I’m your best friend here and I pay your wages. You know how this works, right?”

“I know how this works.”

“Good.”

“My card and my mobile phone don’t work, just so you know.”

“Cell phone. And we’ll sort out all of that at the club.”

“Cell phone.”

“Right.”

“I can’t wait.”

“Nor can the rest of the team, they’re excited about meeting you. Oh and word of advice, it’s called football here, not American football, just so you know.”

“Got it.”

Jasper spends some of the rest of the journey asleep, some of it fiddling with the headrest, the seat adjustments, the radio and everything else close at hand, some of it making small talk or looking out of the window at the landscape flying past beyond.

He’s so different to the normal thing we get here, he’s either going to go down a storm or get rejected like a bad donor organ. I still don’t know which way it’s going to go. He’s charismatic, without a doubt, but charisma doesn’t work on everyone and perhaps least of all a bunch of football jocks who don’t want someone from outside telling them how to play their own game even if he’s right.

Jasper Stone could be a really tough sell on this club, even with those sexy fucking eyes.

Jasper

Penny dumps me off at my lodgings to get freshened up before the afternoon meet. I’m expecting an apartment, or some kind of sports complex, or even an upper class hotel, but apparently none of those things exist in Moxlin. I’m in a motel at the edge of town right next to the interstate and Penny’s already disappeared before I can tell her to find me something else.

This isn’t going to do for a week let alone a season. The room is small, the bed is hard and the paper thin walls don’t keep out any sound at all from the other rooms or the busy road across the way.

I haven’t thought this through at all. I’m here in this fucking country under contract to a shitty football team for a year. Alright, in reality, I’ll probably be out of here as soon as the season has ended, unless they kick up a fuss and want me for pre-season and friendlies, but still, that’s as good as a fucking year especially if I’m confined to shitty hotel rooms like this one.

This is not what I expected when I decided to take this on. I don’t know what I expected, but it certainly wasn’t a hard as concrete mattress and a motel room at the very edge of existence.

There’s nothing I can do about it until Penny comes back, so I decide to take a shower, get myself freshened up just in case she’s not the only good looking girl that works at the club and try and get some sleep. I managed a little bit on the plane but nothing worthwhile, so I figure if I’m going to make a good first impression, I should do it having rested up as much as possible.

When I’ve met everyone and worked out how I’m going to survive in the ass end of nowhere, I’m going to need a car to get around the city and out of it when I’ve exhausted all the possible avenues for having a good time. Then I’m going to have to work out how to play football and drag this awful team up by their boot laces. I’ve seen enough games to know that the problem with most ‘ballers is that they are just a bunch of pussies. They wear all that armor shit because they don’t want to get their nails cracked or put their hair out of place, so I’m going to make it my job to toughen them up.

I was working it out on the way over. Alex and Dougie want me to keep my nose clean and stay out of trouble, but there is no way that that’s going to happen. If this team is losing I’m going to do everything in my power to try and get them to start winning again, and there is no way I’m going to be able to do that without treading on a few toes along the way. Penny must know that already, and if she doesn’t, she’s going to know it soon enough.

Oh and by the way, I’m going to make sure I win her too as well. I’m not going to spend the next several months working with her in this environment and not try and get her into bed. That shit just isn’t going to happen. I’d say she’s probably fucked half of the players already, but Penny just doesn’t look like the type.

Judging by that rock on her finger, however, I’m going to have to go through someone else to get what I want. That’s never bothered me before, and I’m not going to let it happen now. If Penny’s off limits so be it, but until Penny tells me that at least three times, I’m not going to give up trying. She’s exactly the kind of girl I like, and if she provides a challenge too, well, that’s just even more exciting for me.

I shower and I try to sleep, but I’m not tired and just end up rolling around the bed with my dick in my hand thinking about Pandora. I wonder which country she’s over now and how much dick she’s sucked in the air. I go for a walk, just to get used to my environment. It’s just after lunch and I’m not outside for long before I realize I’m super hungry. I find a vending machine, and I’m busy punching in the buttons before I remember I haven’t got any money on me to pay for what I want. I’ve got a bit of change in English money but the sour faced woman on the reception desk refuses to change it up for dollars.

I tell her to put the amount on my bill and finally she digs into her cash register and pulls out a couple of bucks for me. The chocolate has melted a little but it tastes good. I sit on the wall at the edge of the motel and watch the cars go past as I eat it, each one of the passengers inside looking at me like I’ve done something wrong already.

It’s the end of summer and you can tell in England that the sun has fucked off again for another year, but here it feels like we’re in the middle of the desert. The airport didn’t seem like it was all that isolated, but as soon as we started driving away from the city, the landscape changed and the countryside came rolling in like waves. Past the busy road on the other side from here, their are dusty fields, mountains in the distance and fuck all else.

If the rest of Moxlin is like this, I’m either going awol or fucking off back home. If I do that though I’m going to need to get my card fixed or tell Dougie to somehow get Alex to keep on paying me.

How the fuck did I get into this mess? You tell one journalist you’re going to have him murdered and two weeks later you’re sat on a wall in the middle of nowhere watching the world go past at two miles an hour.

This isn’t what Jasper Stone should be doing with his life. Right now Corsham will be training and I should be right there training with them, getting ready for another season. It hasn’t sunk in properly at all yet, but no rugby means no international games, no post match clubs and VIP bars, no queues of sexy little girls lining up to suck my cock. What do I get instead? I have to play dress up in order to throw a ball around. It isn’t even the same ball either. I looked at both of them just before coming out and what the fuck are those stitches all about?

There are two teams as well, not that I know which team they want me to play on yet either. Offensive and defensive, as though the game were some kind of strategic battle between two bunches of warriors. These aren’t warriors, not what I’ve seen of them anyway, they are ballerinas more than anything else.

I guess I’ll work it out this afternoon. One game a week for sixteen games and then the play offs if we do well enough. After that I get to go home. My plan? Score as many points as possible, fuck as many girls, drink as much as I can and get into as much trouble as possible without getting kicked out of the country. I reckon if I manage all of that, I might be able to cope with the weird ass desert country I’ve somehow found myself in.

Jasper

We’ve got tons of official shit to sort out. This is what happens whenever a new player signs for Corsham, but I’ve never done it myself because I’ve been at the club since I was old enough to hold a ball.

The training ground is more impressive than I expect. Penny and Harrison give me the tour, while the press arrange themselves and wait for the official unveil. It’s all theatre and I smile and get the shit done just to get it over with. We have photos taken, I hold up a shirt they’ve somehow managed to get done in time, and I answer dumb ass questions about rules and bullshit they all know I’m going to trip up on but ask anyway.

Journalists all over the world are a bunch of dicks, and if it wasn’t so important for Penny and Harrison, I’d tell them all so as well. This happens once, so I figure I can bite my tongue and play the idiot just for their sake, even though I’m about to snap back the fiftieth time someone says my accent makes me sound cute.

Harrison and Penny look like they hate it just as much as I do. Harrison’s a grizzly bastard and reminds me of a kind of young Dougie with an American accent and without the beer belly. He’s the owner and the head coach, and he makes it clear I have to respect both of those things if we’re going to get along.

When the press have gone, they’ve given me the tour of the ground and the facilities, and I’ve shaken hands with every staff member from the head of HR to the cleaners, we go up to their office.

“Sorry about that, but it’s best to get it out of the way. You’re big news apparently.”

“Apparently so.”

“Right. Listen. I’m going to get straight to the point. The reason you’re here at all is because of my daughter. Put one foot out of line and you’re heading straight back to where you came from. What you get up to in England, drinking, fucking, I’m not going to tolerate that here, do you understand me?”

I don’t think he’s going to have much choice, but it’s not going to do me any good telling him that.

“You won’t have any trouble with me.”

“I’m not entirely sure that’s true.”

“Look, I’m here to play football. Let’s concentrate on that shall we?”

“I mean it, Jasper. Step out of line and you're on a plane back home.”

“I get it.”

Even though it’s clear he doesn’t believe me, we finally move on.  

“We train three times as week but we treat this as a full time job. If we need you in you come in. If we want you to put in extra hours in the gym, you do it. You look like you’re in good shape, but you’re going to need to come up to speed with rules and regulations and everything else. Have you ever played this game before?”

How hard can it be?

“No, never.”

“We’re putting you with Topher. He’ll bring you up to speed.”

“Who is Topher?”

“Our quarterback.”

I can see there’s more to the answer Penny gives and it makes me smile at the story underneath her words.

“Topher’s the lucky guy, that’s cute. The quarterback and the owner’s daughter. How long has that been going on?”

“None of your business.”

“It is if it affects his game.”

“Stay out of it, Jasper. You concentrate on your own game, not on anyone else’s. You’re already starting on very thin ice. You’re going to have to pull a rabbit out of that English ass-hole of yours before I begin to have any faith in you whatsoever. Penny seems convinced of your talents, but all I can see so far is a trouble maker, which we don’t have any room for at this club.”

“You’ve already made that clear.”

“Then you’ll fit right in. I don’t care if you try and fuck up, Jasper. What I care about is if you fuck up without trying. This team means a lot to me, and you are supposed to be some kind of saviour.”

I look at Penny.

“That how you described me?”

“You were a tough sell.”

“I can tell.”

Harrison’s a dick but I like him.

“I’m going to need to move hotel.”

“What’s wrong with where we’ve put you?”

“The room’s not big enough for two people.”

It takes him an extra second before he realizes I’m joking.

“Penny will give you a tour of the city when she’s got a chance. Where you stay is up to you, it’s your money.”

Harrison gets up out of his seat to sit on the edge of the desk and glower down at me.

“What you do outside of here is none of my business, as long as it doesn’t negatively affect this club. You can fuck as many girls as you like, but if it gets back to me, we have a problem. You’re here to help this club, and with that badge on you are an ambassador like everyone else here. I do not want to read about you being dragged out of a nightclub at three am or spending the night in a jail cell for pissing in your own mouth.”

“You have nightclubs here?”

“You’ll meet the team tomorrow. Until then you’re stuck where you are for now.”

“I need to sort out my card and a mob- cell phone.”

“I’m sure Penny will sort you out.”

“We’ll work something out”, Penny adds.

“Alright.”

“Harrison, just so you know, there are two things I was put on this planet to do, and I don’t feel right unless I’m doing them both. One of those things is playing rugby and if this game is anything like that, I’ll do everything I can to help Moxlin win.”

Harrison extends his hand and I take it to shake. When he doesn’t let go, I know he’s serious.