Spring training was in nine days. Then I would be reminding the coaches why I was their number one wide receiver. I didn’t need that boat rocked. I needed to be the first-team player. The player who caught whatever was thrown his way, and some that were not. The Draft was a year away. Nothing was stopping me from getting that phone call from the NFL team that wanted me on their roster.
Nothing.No matter how tight their ass was.
* * *
Practice was over, the locker room was buzzing with the upcoming spring-training excitement, but this morning, there was far too much hilarity coming from the freshman side at the other side of the locker room.
“Why are they giggling like hyenas?” I asked, rubbing my towel over my hair.
“You seen the piece of ass assigned to Whittaker?” Moore said beside me. “She’s got them eating out of the palm of her hand already.”
“I bet that’s not all that’s in the palm of their hands,” our center said with a shake of his head.
Noah choked back a laugh when he saw my glare and dipped his head to hide his grin. I saw Dante shake his head, and I didn’t need Dante to fix this.
“Hey, guys, let’s dial it down.” My teammates looked at me as if I’d grown three heads. I heard myself back, yeah, okay, maybeIneeded to dial it down. “Do we really need her to be reporting that the teams are full of hounds?” I waggled my eyebrows. “I can already tell you she’s fine.”
Moore looked at me, his head shaking in denial. “Already?” he asked in disbelief. “How?”
“Ran into her at Digby’s the other week.” I shrugged it off like it was nothing, very aware of the weight of the stares from my roommates. “She followed me outside, and, well... you know what I mean.” I sighed as I held my hands up in apology. That wasn’t quite how it happened, but it was close enough to the story I needed them to hear. “Didn’t know she was going to follow me to work, ya know.”
The locker room erupted — the guys started talking shit, and I let them. I met Dante’s gaze, and he gave a tiny dip of hishead. I grinned at him in return. This was a role I could play easily... I’d been playing it for years. It meant I just created the very reason why we were staying away from her. The coaches knew I wasn’t shy about getting attention from the girls. I’d had more than one ‘quiet word’ from a coach to ensure I kept my dick wrapped up and didn’t take more than my ambition and skills into the Draft.
It was a harsh reality in our game. The gold diggers didn’t necessarily only come once the gold was in your pocket. Some started mining early, when the potential rewards were as enticing to them as they were to us. I had no time for that. I was always careful.
Well, until I kissed a stranger on the patio behind the bar in winter.
I let the catcalls and the jibes flow off me and took a seat between Dante and Noah. “That should do it,” I murmured. I rubbed my belly. “That food’s thrown me all morning,” I told Dante half seriously. “I feel... heavy.”
“That’s not the pasta’s fault,” he said, tipping his head back and leaning it against the wooden edge of the post that separated the players’ lockers, but he was smiling. He looked at me. “Well played,” he said, his voice low.
“Yeah, I don’t think she’ll appreciate it,” I conceded with a pang of conscience, knowing I’d made it sound like I was the reason she was there. I’d done what I needed to, though; that’s all that mattered. “It gives us breathing space. Coach won’t think it strange we’re staying clear of her if he knows I’ve already been there.”
“Agreed.” He stood.
Noah was listening, as he seemed to prefer doing, rather than contributing. But he surprised me when he spoke. “Game plan changed?”
Dante looked at me, and I nodded at his unspoken question. “Yeah, if she’s going to be here for the month...”
Dante looked over to the freshman lockers where Mike and his friends were still giggling like idiots. “It’s risky.” He shook his head. “Dust’s right, we don’t want the heat from this.”
I heard a booming laugh, and all three of us looked over. Mike was doing some weird dance step, and I decided I didn’t even want to know. “She will eat him alive,” I told them with a shake of my head. “Were any of you buying her innocent act?”
“Nah, she’s good, though.” Noah grinned, leaning forward, his elbows on his knees. He turned his head to look at me. “Hey, why did Moore body-check me coming off the field and tell me to stay to my side?”
Dante snorted. “We told Sutherland you’d be a good tight end.”
Noah looked confused. “Why?”
“Deflection,” I supplied. “I feel like we’re going to have a very long month.” I dragged my hand over my face, already feeling exhausted, and this was only this morning’s practice.
Dante stood, his hand on my shoulder. “Come on, let’s shower, we can worry about it all later.”
“How’s your shoulder?” I asked him to pull my shirt off.
He looked over his shoulder to see who was near us, but our teammates had migrated either to their own showers or to the center of the locker room. “Fucking sore,” he admitted. Noah moved forward, the three of us forming a tighter circle. “Don’t worry, I know not to call anyone,” he added, and was it just me, or was there a hint of bitterness there? “I might see if that PT, Diana, will give me another injection.”
“You were told to stay away,” I reminded him, dropping my voice lower. “I’m all for extra PT sessions for you, but shouldn’t you stick to Doug like you were told?”