The Hook Up (Game On Book 1) (2 page)

His comment is a punch to the gut. Yet not entirely out of left field. I’m a redhead. Being called “red” goes with the territory. It’s not the “red” part that bothers me. It’s the “big” part. Having been chubby for most of my adolescence has left me sensitive. It doesn’t matter that I’m now more curves than chub; that I like my body. One stupid word from this guy and I feel the pain all over again, damn it. Somehow, I find my voice.

“What did you just call me?”

The corners of his eyes crease in what might be a wince. “Ahh… If I say ‘nothing’, can we move on and pretend it didn’t happen?”

I almost smile at that one, which irritates me further. “No.”

He shifts his weight to his other foot. “Relax, I was only trying—”

“Do not,” I point a finger at him, “tell me to ‘relax’ when you’ve insulted me, bud.”

“Bud?” He makes a strangled sort of half-laugh.

“I’m not ‘big’,” I snap. There’s more hurt in my voice than I’d like to admit. I hate that too.

His head jerks back like I’ve surprised him. It’s a small movement, one that he tries to hide by putting his hands low on his narrow hips. “I wasn’t trying to insult you. Believe me, I was referring to the best of places.” His butterscotch gaze drifts down and roves over my chest. Instantly, my breasts feel exposed, heavy yet tight. And to my utter humiliation, my nipples go stiff. As he is staring, he sees and sucks in a sharp breath.

Fuck this. “Eyes up, asshole.”

He flinches again, his eyes snapping up to my face. “Sorry,” he says, not even a little sheepish. “I’d like to say it won’t happen again, but I honestly can’t promise that, Red.”

“Jesus, you’re unbelievable.”

He scratches the back of his neck, squinting at me as if I’ve become a painful sight. “Look, can we start over?” He thrusts out a massive hand attached to a forearm corded with muscle. “Hi, I’m Drew.”

I don’t take his hand, and he’s forced to let it fall.

“I know who you are.”

His smile returns. This one far too pleased.

“You said your name less than an hour ago,” I remind him.

His confident attitude falters, but he tries again, I’ll give him that. “Well, at least you remembered. I remember too, Anna Jones.”

I ignore the flush of surprise washing over me and cross my arms in front of me. “And I don’t need to start over. I’m not interested in talking to some egotistical meathead who ogles my breasts and calls me idiotic names.”

I ought to walk away, but I’ve worked myself into a lather now. “I mean ‘Red?’ Seriously?”

He just gapes at me. This time dumbfounded, as if he can’t believe some mental chick is berating him.

“Why not be original?” I go on as if I’m not mental. “Why not call me Blondie?”

White teeth flash in a quick smile. “An esoteric approach, eh? Could work. Though it veers a bit too much toward sarcasm for my taste.”

I blink. His response sends a tingle through me. A pretty face is one thing. A quick mind is nearly irresistible to me. Especially when paired with that grin he wears. No anger there or even triumph, he simply waits for the next volley, enjoying it.

Stranger still,
I
enjoy it. I fight to maintain my bland look as I respond. “I’m not sure if anyone’s told you, Baylor, but there’s this thing called a person’s name.” I find myself leaning in closer, and as if on cue, he does too. His scent and his heat surround me, making my knees weak as I finish. “You might try using it.”

Little white lines fan out at the corners of his eyes from where he’s spent months squinting in the sun. Those lines deepen now as his voice drops to a murmur. “So no to
Red Hot
, then?” It’s clear he’s fighting a laugh.

I grit my teeth. “You’re just fucking with me now.”

Wrong. Thing. To. Say.

His nostrils flare on an indrawn breath, and his gaze goes liquid hot. “Not yet,
Jones
.”

Point two to Baylor, because he’s managed to unnerve me and give me a nickname in one stroke. And somehow I walked right into his trap. Heat rises to my cheeks as I stand there, staring back at him. Like a moron. But then I’m saved from further comment when a professor walks in to start up the next class.

The next day, a box of
Red Hots
sits on my desk. Baylor doesn’t say a word or look my way, but when I get up and chuck them into the trash, he ducks his head and studies his notes. Good. Now we’re clear.

Only I ruin this later, when, in the privacy of my room, I open the box of
Red Hots
that I bought and pop a handful into my mouth. Candy-sweet heat melts over my tongue, and all I can see behind my closed lids is Drew Baylor’s slow perusal of my body. I go so hot and achy with need that I moan into my pillow and don’t sleep for the rest of the night.

MY MOTHER ONCE told me that the most important moment in my life wouldn’t be when I won the National Championship or even the Super Bowl. It would be when I fell in love.

Life, she insisted, is how you live it and who you live it with, not what you do to make a living. Given that she told me this when I was sixteen, I basically rolled my eyes and worked on practicing my pass fakes.

But my mother was insistent.

“You’ll see, Drew. One day, love will creep up and smack you upside the head. Then you’ll understand.”

My mom, it turns out, was wrong in one regard. Love, when it came for me, did not creep. No, it walked up to me, bold as you please, you know, just in case I wasn’t paying attention. It did, however, slap me upside my head.

And while I’d be happy to tell my mom that she was right about that, she’s dead. A fact that hurts even more now that I’ve been struck down. More like shot down. Cut off at the knees. Totally fucked. Whatever you want to call this disaster. Because the object of my affection hates me.

I am man enough to acknowledge that the cluster fuck that is my current love life is entirely my fault. I wasn’t prepared for Anna Jones.

I still cringe at the memory of when I first laid eyes on her at the beginning of the semester. Being late for class, I’d rushed to a seat in the back row, and was trying to remain unnoticed. I can’t go anywhere on campus without getting attention. And though it sounds like an awesome thing, it gets tiring.

When the roll call reached the back row, a soft voice, rich and thick as maple syrup, slid over me.

“Anna Jones.”

Just her name. That was all she’d said. It was like a hot finger stroking down my spine. My head snapped up. And there she was, so fucking pretty that I couldn’t think straight. I might as well have been sacked.

Breathless, my head ringing, I could only gape. I’m not going to say it was love at first sight. No, it was more like oh, hell-yes-please, I’ll have that. With a helping of right-the-fuck-now on the side.

Thinking maybe I was overtired and simply overreacting to something that wasn’t really there, I stared at Anna Jones and tried to make sense of my extreme reaction.

As if feeling my gaze, she’d turned, and fucking hell… Her eyes were wide, almost cat-like, with the corners tilting up just a bit. At first, those eyes appeared brown, but they were really bottle green. And so clear. And annoyed. She glared at me. I didn’t care. One word was playing a loop in my head: mine.

I don’t remember the rest of the class. I watched Anna Jones like a condemned man getting his last view of the setting sun. While she tried to ignore me. Admirably.

The second class ended I shot up, and so did she. We nearly collided in the middle of the aisle. And then it all fell to shit. Because at that moment, I became a bonehead.

I’ve never been nervous around girls before. To be brutally honest, my life has been fairly insulated. Football, and the fame that goes with it, has wrapped me up in its loving arms and given me everything I’ve wanted, women included. Unfortunately, it’s become crystal clear that, when it comes to my sport, Anna is not one of the converted. Poor thing.

Whatever the case, I was ill-equipped to handle her when she glared up at me, one delicately arched brow lifting imperiously, as if to say, “what the fuck do you want?”

Standing there, I became aware of myself, this big oaf, looming over her, my tongue thick in my mouth, a crazy twitch starting up on my cheek. God help me if she noticed that twitch. So I blurted out what is possibly the stupidest thing I’ve ever uttered in my life, “Hey, Big Red.”

Yeah. Shoot me now. What the holy hell had I done? What the fuck did ‘Big Red’ even mean? My mind screamed,
Do something, you idiot! Apologize! Retreat!
I swear I could practically hear an alarm blaring, a call to activate shields and arm the photon torpedoes.

But no, I just stood there and forced a grin as heat flooded my face and a sweat broke out on my back. Yeah. I was that cool.

Her dark green eyes had flashed in outrage.

And then she let me have it.

Needless to say, I hobbled away from that encounter and remain among the walking wounded. Rejection sucks. It sucks so hard that I haven’t said a word to her since. Instead, I just sit next to her during every class, silently pining. Pathetic.

Something has to be done about this. And soon. Because I’m losing my damn mind.

HE’S LIKE THE fucking north wind. He blows in, and I turn his way.

And here he is again. Yeah, that one, the big, hulking jock striding into class like he owns this university, which he kind of does. Football is a religion around here, and he is the chosen messiah. Which sounds kind of sacrilegious considering the fact that he’s smacking a brunette on her ass as he leaves her at the classroom door. And she giggles,
giggles
, like it’s a privilege to be degraded in front of thirty students. And I suppose it is to some. God knows there’s a pack of girls who follow him around campus, all wanting to meet Drew Baylor, star quarterback, the phenom who will take us to the National Championship.

Their faith isn’t exactly misguided. He’s won it for them for the last two years. Even I remember those victories, the way the campus went wild, talk of Drew and his crew on everyone’s tongue. I fled the campus for the safety of my apartment. Not that it did much good; the whole state had been awash in football fever.