Offside: A Bad Boy Sports Romance (8 page)

With the lights out my thoughts return to Jasper. I know I shouldn’t, but I can’t help imagining what he’s like and what we’d be doing if it was him lying in bed next to me and not Topher.

J
asper

Game day. Guess where they’ve got me playing. Up in the fucking bleachers with the yummy mummies and the rest of the wives and partners. I thought I was going to start. That’s why I’ve been busting my balls in training for the last two days taking a beating from every single side that comes at me, and concentrating on the book bible Harrison gave me for homework at any other free moment, even though it’s obviously had zero effect. Why the fuck they’d even bother bringing me in if they weren’t going to play me beats the hell out of me.

“Not ready.”

“Not ready is bullshit, Harrison, I’m ready.”

“If Topher says you’re not ready, you’re sitting out until he says you are.”

The trouble is, Topher knows I’m a better athlete than he is, and twice as good as everyone else. He’s not going to stick me in the team so I can embarrass him, not for as long as he can avoid it.

At least Penny’s on my side. She can see my potential even if her dad and her boyfriend can’t. I reckon she can see more than she’s allowing herself to let on as well.

The game is a fucking mess. I’ve learned more in the last two days from Harrison’s book than I knew at all about American football before coming here, and if this is the strategy they are supposed to be following, they are absolutely butchering it. I’d say something, but no-one’s asking my opinion. The girls I’m sat with are pretty, but they don’t give a fuck about what’s going on. They know even less than I do about the game, which is really saying something.

At the end of the first quarter Topher has been sacked three times and the Jaguars are 14-0 up. We get like two running plays that go nowhere, and the rest of the time we’re on the back foot. Mosley and Jackson move with the speed of pensioners running for a bus. Mosley looks like he’s carrying an injury too, although no-one seems to be doing anything about it. It’s awful. It’s embarrassing. It’s fucking shocking and I know I could do way better than half of the rest of the team, especially if they just passed me the ball and let me run with it. That’s what Mosley is supposed to be doing, but every time Topher lets him have it, which isn’t all that often he ends up at the bottom of a pile of opposition players, all of which are far too strong, and much faster than he is.

Rugby is split into two halves and for the rest of the time the game kind of flows naturally, so it’s pretty weird seeing it get broken up so much. As soon as the teams get going, something happens and the referee blows his whistle and all of a sudden they stop again and reset formation.

At half time we are 28-0 down and I decide it’s time to go and have a word with Harrison. In the locker room the mood is downbeat. No-one is saying anything, which is bullshit. Someone should be saying something, and if it’s not Harrison it should be Topher.

“That how you normally play?”

“They’re a better team.”

“Bullshit they are. Put me on.”

“And lose by even more? I don’t think so.”

If Dougie saw his team like this he’d sack us all and start again the following week with a whole bunch of fresh players. No wonder this lot don’t win, they seem like they’ve left their confidence at home. They seem like they don’t want to be here at all.

I sit down next to Topher and he gives me a scowl.

“Switch it up to the offside, their number sixteen is week. I’ve been watching him throughout the first half.”

“You giving me advice, English?”

“I’ve been through the plays. I’ve memorised a few. Atlantis and The Switchback. Anything on the left hand side of the field.”

Topher can’t help but laugh.

“You know those are plays they give the kids to work on. That whole fucking book is a basic manual every ten year old knows inside out. Harrison only gave that to you to make you feel better.”

“You’re bullshitting me.”

“Carter. What’s The Switchback?”

“The Switchback? You mean the play the switchback on the left hand side of the field when you pass the ball to the twelve year old and he thinks he’s the king. That Switchback?”

Carter flashes a grin at me that shows off a whole row of gold teeth implants.

“Go back to England, Jasper. Go back to your own game.”

“You’re a fucking asshole.”

“I’m your captain, and you’ll respect that.”

I take it up with Harrison. I’ve been carrying that book around with me for the last few days like my life depended on it.

“They’re fucking with you, Jasper. That’s got plays in you need to know about.”

He jabs the book with a bent middle finger. “I wouldn’t have given it to you otherwise. Don’t tell me you’re soft enough to let them get to you.”

“Put me on.”

“That’s not going to happen.”

“You’re going to lose without me.”

“Then you and I will both have to manage.”

My hand against his chest shocks him, but I don’t take it away until I’m done.

“I came here from the other side of the world because you gave me an opportunity.”

“Penny.”

“Whatever. I can’t help you unless you let me. Don’t waste me, Harrison. I’m going to learn your game and I’m going to prove to you I can play it better than half of the excuses you have here that are supposed to be athletes.”

“That your speech is it? You come here out of the wilderness and tell us how to play the game we invented.”

“The game you are butchering. Fuck, Penny knows more than you.”

“Careful, Jasper.”

“Look at this room. No-one is talking to each other. What the fuck are you saying to them? Nothing. How are you going to expect to win if the team don’t talk to each other? Topher can throw the ball, alright, he’s got a solid arm, but if no-one is there to catch it, and nobody cares about it anyway, what’s the point?”

“Don’t tell me how to run my team.”

“Then who the fuck else is going to? If I’m here, I’m here to play, and if I play, I play to win. Put me on.”

Harrison shakes his head. “Five minutes”, he calls to the rest of the team and then barges past me.

“Tell him to put me on.”

Topher shrugs his shoulders. “I can’t do anything, English. It’s his team.”

“You’re going to sit there and let this team beat you. All of you. No-one’s going to say anything. You’re all fucking worthless. You deserve to get beaten.”

I’ve had enough. Mosley’s got some balls but they’re not big enough to make an impact. Jackson, Carter, Sanchez, Hidalgo, Price, all of those fuckers just eyeball me out of the room, tutting as I go, mouths shut and balls as tight as marbles.

The second half is worse than the first. I sit for some of it with the rest of the team, and then I head up into the stands when I’ve had enough. Topher gives up after the third quarter, and he’s just about the last to go. No-one seems like they want to be here. It’s a fucking disgrace, and when the game ends 50-3, I expect Harrison to tear into them like any good coach would.

“Well, at least we tried”, are his words.

It’s shameful. I don’t know what I expected, but I didn’t expect this. I expected some kind of fight. I expected some kind of camaraderie. That? What I just watched, what I just had to witness, I’m ashamed to align myself with these people. My mother would play this game better. My dead father, bones and dust in his grave would make a better offensive line.

Topher’s statistics make him sound like the worst quarterback in the league, which is probably true. Six sacks for seventy six yards thrown. Mosley and Jackson between them didn’t even get into treble figures on running yards. And the worst thing about it all, no-one seems to even give a shit. This isn’t my country, or my sport and I seem to be giving more of a shit than the offensive and defensive line ups, even the field goal unit.

Those three points came from one kicked field goal. A fluke. A piece of luck for a team that didn’t do anything to deserve it.

Harrison doesn’t want to listen to me, so I decide to look for Penny. I find her with her arms around Topher, commiserating the poor fucker on a terrible performance.

“That was fucking awful.”

“They’re a good side.”

“Are you kidding me? Did you watch the same game I did?”

“Jaguars were semi finalists last year.”

“That team?”

“It’s over, English. We lost. Forget about it. Let’s go for a drink, you know how to do that right?”

“We need to talk.”

“It’s up to Dad whether he starts you or not. I just handle the finance.”

“Not just that, Penny. I know this isn’t my game, but I know how a team should work, and this, from what I’ve just seen, isn’t a team.”

“You’re an expert now, right?”

“You should be ashamed of yourself, Topher.”

He shrugs his big shoulders at me. “You want to talk to the offensive line. I throw the ball and I can’t do that if they don’t stand up.”

“Tell me something. You want to win?”

Topher gives me that lurching fake laugh again and Penny and I catch eyes for a moment.

“You know about that do you?”

“Actually I do.”

“In football?”

“In sport.”

“Right.”

“Tell him to play me, Topher. I’m ready. Penny?”

Penny shrugs. She doesn’t look right with him. She’s hanging off him like it means something, but she doesn’t look right with him. I hate seeing good looking girls get messed around.

“You reckon you can do better than Jackson?”

“I reckon my grandma can do better than Jackson.”

“Training, Jasper. You prove it in training and we’ll see.”

“This club is falling apart and you’re doing nothing about it.”

“So what do you care? Aren’t you only here because you have to be?”

“I don’t like losing.”

“Maybe you’re just going to have to get used to it.”

Topher uses that moment to pull Penny closer to him and to make sure I’m looking.

“So, you coming?”

“Where?”

“To get drunk of course. Fuck, Jasper, don’t tell me you don’t know how to do that?”

“I thought you didn’t drink.”

“I don’t drink during the week. I get drunk on game days. What do you think I am, a fucking animal?”

“You coming Penny?”

Penny pushes herself away from Topher. “Nah it’s a kind of guys thing. Tradition. You’ll see why.”

“You do this every game?”

“Whether we win or lose. Don’t you?”

Something tells me Topher can’t hold his drink. He looks like he’s barely old enough to be able to afford to buy one.

“So, what, I come with you?”

“That alright with you, English? Your mom not going to complain?”

“Fuck you.”

“Don’t get too drunk”, Penny warns.

“That it? No debrief, no warm down, no fucking talk from the manager?”

“You really don’t know how this works, do you?”

Penny fills in for him. “We’ll go through the game on Monday. Until then you’re free to do what you want. Have fun. Don’t get too drunk. Don’t end up in the papers or in jail. Whatever the fuck you do, I don’t want to have to explain that to Dad.”

This club is severely lacking basic communication skills.

“That’s you riding with me, English.”

Penny either looks sad she’s not coming, or sad that we’re going.

“Everybody else?”

“Everybody who else? They’ll all be there to kick your stupid ass, don’t worry about it. Now, do you want to get in the car or do you want to run? It’s the same to me.”

We say goodbye to Penny - Topher in the way I want to and the way he doesn’t seem like he should deserve to be allowed, and me in my way, much more formal and fucking English - and then we get in his car, this time me alongside him in the front instead of way behind running against the choking fumes of his exhaust.

“She’s alright isn’t she, Penny? Hot.”

I nod. I know this fucker is just testing me.

“Tight pussy. She shaves it clean just for me. Tastes like a fucking ripe peach. I’m her first as well, you believe that. Broke her in. Penny knows her place. You like pussy?”

“What kind of question is that?”

“Stay away from Penny, English.”

“You already told me that once.”

“She isn’t for you. She likes baller’s, but she doesn’t like ugly foreigners with tiny pencil dicks like you. You feel me?”

“You’re a fucking dick, Topher.”

“I’m taking you with us because you're a Tiger, but I need to make sure we’re on the same page, because I don’t know you. None of us do.”

“Go on.”

There’s a flash of something mean spirited in Topher eye and I know the fucker is bad news.

“What happens after the games, whatever, you know, it stays with us. You understand that? This is between all of us, the players, the Tigers, nobody else.”

“You can trust me.”

“You wouldn’t be in my car if I didn’t think I could, believe me on that.”

“Alright.”

“Penny’s a good girlfriend, and she’ll make a good wife, but we’re men, right, sometimes one just isn’t enough. The thing is, it’s best she doesn’t know. Harrison can’t afford to lose me, he knows that, but Penny, she’d drop me like
that
if she found out I was playing away.”

“So don’t get caught.”

Topher breaks out into a smile. “That’s it, Jasper. I knew I could trust you.”

“So, every game day?-”

“Fucking A. Just thinking about it makes me dick itch during the last quarter.”

“So where are we going?”

“I’m going to show you, English, just how The Tigers do it in Moxlin. Harrison gave you an introduction, Penny did what she felt like she needed to do to welcome you here and get you settled, and now I’m going to show you the rest. I’m going to get you laid motherfucker, even though you don’t deserve it.”

“I don’t know what to say.”

I don’t know what to say. Getting laid is always good, but I’d prefer not to have to hang around with this jerk to make it happen. I’d much prefer to be spending the night with Penny, especially as I know she’ll be alone. I can’t imagine this guy’s got any class at all. It’ll be cheap champagne, a nightclub and a brothel. This town doesn’t look like it can offer anything much more than that.