The door to the stadium was open!

Then he spent the whole time pretending he wasn’t a football player even after I’d hinted broadly that I knew who he was. I should punch him for that.

Now he’s playing another game.

Bodies don’t come harder or finer than his. Sure, there are great forms everywhere in college, particularly among the athletes, but Masters is of a different caliber. Already people are whispering Heisman and First Round in connection with his name. Panties probably decorate the sidewalks as he walks to class. Women all around the campus have to be offering themselves as tribute on the altar of his purported virginity on a nonstop basis.

Jack sits in the middle with his arm around an empty chair. His brows furrow when he spots Masters carrying my tray.

“I’ll take that.” I tear my eyes off Masters’ butt, pluck my tray out of his hands, and settle into the seat Jack has saved for me.

Masters isn’t done with me. Jack’s eyes get wide as a child’s on Christmas when Masters whispers in my ear, “You can run, Eliot Campbell, but this campus is too small for you to hide.”

Gulp.

He leaves me without another word and ambles casually down toward the other open seats, as if he didn’t—I’m not certain whether it was a threat or a promise.

“What was that all about?” Jack mutters under his breath.

“I thanked him for carrying my tray,” I make up.

“And his ‘you’re welcome’ was a secret?”

I dig my fingernails into my palm under the table so I don’t blush. “I don’t know what’s in his head.”

That’s as truthful as any answer I can give.

“Then you aren’t looking hard enough,” Jack says wryly.

I look up to see Masters standing—looming really—across the table from us. All the seats are filled, but he sets the tray down anyway in a small sliver of space.

“Move down, Telly, will you?”

“Sure, Masters.”

Telly, the Warriors center, shoves his tray down one spot. Soon the entire right side of the table is shifting, one player by one player. Masters calmly takes his seat.

“Thought I’d sit with the offense tonight. See what secrets you all are cooking up.”

“Hell, man, you got to ease up during practice,” Telly jokes. “I thought you would tear Ace’s head off there a couple of times.”

Before Masters can say anything in his defense, Ace leans across the table and points his knife in Masters’ direction. “Don’t you ever ease up on me. You think Ohio will go easy on me, or Wisconsin? How about the teams from Michigan? Think they’ll go half speed because this is my first year as a starter? No fucking way. The minute Masters goes soft on me is the minute he’s given up on this team, this year.”

Telly raises his hands in surrender. “I got you, brother, just joking around with the big man here.”

He pounds Masters on the back a couple of times. Masters doesn’t even flinch. He calmly lifts his giant hamburger to his mouth, bites off half of it, and winks at me.

That’s the last interaction I have with him for about twenty minutes. His teammates unknowingly do all his dirty work to ferret out my information.

Telly asks me where I’m living.

“With a girl named Riley Jensen in the Maplewood Apartments.”

“Those are sweet.” He nods with approval. “You’ll have to have us over.”

“I can fit about four of you in the living room.”

“As long as one is me. I like chocolate chip cookies, if you’re taking baking orders.”

I wait for Masters to insert some remark about liking certain cookies, but he’s completely silent.

Ahmed Lowe, one of the two main running backs, asks me what my major is.

“It’s English Lit. I plan to write technical works for a living, like grants or instructional booklets or anything anyone wants written, but doesn’t write themselves.”

“Ellie proofs all my work. She does a great job,” Jack interjects.

“You can write my papers,” Telly says.

I somehow keep smiling as if his innocent—I hope—joke doesn’t stab me in the gut. “When you’re out of college, I’ll write whatever you want, but I wouldn’t want to affect your eligibility.”

You are an awful person, Eliot. Awful.

Clifton Knowles, the strong side offensive lineman, asks if Jack and I are twins because we’re both juniors.

Jack answers for me. “We’re ten months apart. I got held back a year and so we ended up being in the same grade.”

What Jack doesn’t say is that we’ve been taking care of each other for as long as we both remember, which is why I’m the only female sitting with the football team. There’s nearly a hundred guys who dress and seventy who travel, but in the sea of muscle and testosterone, I’m the only girl because this is my third night here and Jack doesn’t want me eating alone.

He takes care of me. I take care of him. No matter what.

“That’s cool,” Masters says. “I have a twin but he plays—”

“—Defensive end for MU,” I finish for him. It’s common knowledge. Again, they appeared on the same cover of Sports Illustrated.

“Ellie probably knows more about football than I do.” Jack ruffles my hair affectionately.

My hand goes up reflexively to smooth the errant strands, but a warm look in Masters’ eyes—one that gives me those unwanted feelings again—has me dropping my hand to my lap. So what if my hair is messy and looks like a static-y monster? It’s not like I want to impress any of these guys. Not at all. I cross my legs and shift in my chair. Masters’ green eyes gleam at me. Bastard. No way he doesn’t know what affect he has on girls. This whole virgin thing is probably designed to convey he’s unattainable for me.

“Hey, boys.” A sultry voice interrupts my stupid thoughts. We all look up into a glowingly beautiful face surrounded by a cloud of gorgeous honey blond hair. Her shirt fits tightly and shows off a pair of breasts that rival my generous rack, which I choose to hide under an oversized, baggy T-shirt I stole from Jack in high school.

She places a hand on Masters’ shoulder and leans over, her breasts touching the side of his face. “When you’re done with your terrible food, I’ve something special for dessert for you.”

The lack of surprise from his tablemates tells me this is a common occurrence.

“Sorry, Bree, you know you’ll get a better response from anyone than me.”

He squeezes her hand and then gently removes it from his shoulder. She shakes her head in good-humored regret. “If you ever get tired of holding that line, let me know. I figured since this is my last year, I have nothing to lose.”

“That’s a good policy.”

“But it’s still a no?”

He gives her a nod, friendly but distant. “Still a no.”

She walks off to join her friends, who wait for her at the end of the long row of tables.

“Don’t like dessert?” I blurt out.

My brother kicks me under the table and his size fourteens hurt. As I bend over to rub my abused calf, Masters says, “I’m saving myself.”

“For what? Marriage?” I joke, because as I told Jack, I don’t know if I believe this virgin stuff.

“Not exactly, but close enough,” comes the serious but casual reply, and Masters shoves the last bit of hamburger into his mouth as if he didn’t just proclaim that the earth was flat.

The chicken breast is as flavorless as I thought, and I’m desperately wishing for sour cream or butter, or hell, I’d even squeeze a mayonnaise packet onto my baked potato if I could find one.

But if I’d been sitting at a five star restaurant and eating the best meal of my life, all the food would have tasted the same—flavored with surprised bullshit.

Which I almost said out loud. Bullshit. There is no way. I’ve seen this guy on television. Knox has more moves than a dancer in Vegas. He can swivel out of an offensive lineman’s grasp in one step, run down a wide receiver, and introduce a quarterback to the soil of the vaunted Western State’s turf.