I glance at Jesse, thoughtful. “When did you first realize you wanted to play football?”

“Don't know the first time. It seems like I knew all my life.”

Now I turn to Hammer. “Hammer, you played three sports. Excelled in all of them. Got drafted for baseball. Turned it down to play football. Why?”

“Felt right.” Hammer tosses his phone between his hands, thinking about my question. “I loved it more than the other sports. It was the only one that all the sacrifice felt worth giving up everything for. It…felt right,” he repeats.

“It felt right,” I echo meaningfully.

“So she's your football?” Matty asks, quick to understand where I’m going with this. And people accuse jocks of not being perceptive. “What about actual football?”

“I want to have it all,” I say simply. “Don’t you?”

They nod slowly.

Matty speaks up again, wrinkling his forehead. “Okay, so if it feels right, what do you need us for? Text her whenever you want, dude.”

I shift awkwardly, and then release a choppy breath. “But…” Now I hesitate, because the thing about being a team leader? You need to convince your teammates that you’re capable of leading. You know, that you actually know what the hell you’re doing one hundred percent of the time.

“I guess…” I exhale again. “I know I want her, but that doesn’t mean I know how to get her.”

Hammer snorts. “You’re saying you don’t have moves?”

I narrow my eyes. “I have moves.” Then I give a sheepish look. “But for the sake of argument, let’s say I need to win over a chick, how do I go about it? How’d you get your last girlfriend, Hammer?”

He shrugs. “She was some jock chaser who hung around all the time, and it got easier to say she was my girlfriend than argue about it.”

“Lovely.” No wonder he cheated on her. I quickly turn to the rest of the group, hoping at least one of them isn’t a total moron in the boyfriend department. “Who here has a serious girlfriend? None of you?”

“Jesse does.” Hammer points his phone at Jesse, who ducks his head sheepishly.

“I don’t know. I’ve dated the same girl, Caitlyn, since ninth grade. We had the same advisory class, and sort of started dating. I didn’t have to win her over or anything.”

Awesome. We’re a bunch of clueless men. We might know how to execute a blitz, stop the run, read a route, but with women, unless they are offering themselves on a silver platter, apparently our collective knowledge couldn’t fill a shoe. “We need some expert advice.”

“My sister reads Cosmo a lot,” Hammer offers.

“Isn't that the site that said girls should give donut blowjobs?” Jesse asks.

“A donut blowjob?” Matty pipes up.

“Yeah, like it goes over your dick, she sucks your dick, and eats the donut.”

“But teeth?” Matty looks intrigued but scared.

“But blowjobs,” Jesse replies. “And donuts,” he adds as an afterthought.

“Sounds like the best goddamn site on the Internet. Fire it up,” Hammer orders.

16 Ellie

Week 1: Warriors 0-0

I wake up thirty minutes late with grit in my eyes. At least I don’t need to look good this morning. I have Jack’s two classes today, and I need to appear as inconspicuous as possible. I pull on a light gray hoodie, jam a hat over my head, and pull on a pair of ragged jean shorts. After brushing my teeth, I’m out the door.

Riley is still sleeping when I run to class. She told me she was a night owl and tried to schedule her classes after lunch. Mine are scattershot, particularly after my schedule had to expand to include Jack’s classes. The sociology class takes place at eight in the morning, which is where I’m headed right now.

It’s still hot, but I have my hood up, because the last thing I need is for Jack to spot me in the room and subject me to a number of uncomfortable questions. I thought about telling him that I’m taking the classes, but he’d get suspicious. As he should be. I’m working on a good excuse such as “looked interesting” or “are you in this class, too?”

None of my reasons sound very good so I hope to avoid him. Unlike junior college, where most classes had under fifty students, nothing at Western is particularly small. Riley told me that unless it was an obscure major, most of the classes had at least a hundred people in them, sometimes more, which means I should easily hide in a back corner.

I’m right on time and breathe a sigh of relief when I spot Jack halfway down the auditorium style seating chatting with a pretty blonde.

The professor walks in, introduces her teacher’s assistant, and begins lecturing on whether movies reflect societal norms or challenge them. From the online course syllabus, I’ll be able to write the year end paper in my sleep. Frankly, I think Jack will be able to do it as well since one of the movies we’ll be discussing is The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Jack has seen it about twenty times.

I reach inside my backpack to pull out a notebook so it looks like I’m paying attention and my hand brushes against Masters’ book. I pull it out. The reason I’m so late this morning is because I stayed up all night reading. It was every bit as good as I’d anticipated and I couldn’t put it down. I told myself one more page and then the clock flashed three in the morning.

I finished, but the whole time I read, it occurred to me that Masters had made a big gesture. Had it been me first in the bookstore and Masters had shown up panting for it, I'd have told him to wait. I might have even demanded to see a book from his personal collection to see if he was even worthy of lending a book to. You never knew with people. Like Jack? I could never share books with him. He dog-ears pages, sticks shit inside his books. I once found a sock in one. It was clean, and he claimed it was the only thing available to use as a bookmark, but come on.

Masters blithely handed the book over. Granted, I had to give him my phone number, but he hadn’t used it. I waited all afternoon and into the evening, and the stupid phone stayed silent.

I run a finger over the raised lettering on the cover. I haven’t given him many reasons to text or call me despite the fact he’s been nothing but good to me from the start. Yes, he didn’t come forward and tell me his name the first time we’d met, but looking back I see where he came from. Guys like him have to get inundated with people wanting things and it would get worse for him. So he’s gun-shy, which is perfectly reasonable.

I haven’t been reasonable or completely honest. If I’m honest, I’ll admit that Knox Masters is exactly the type of guy I want to date. He dominates a sport I love. He’s confident but not arrogant. He’s funny, able to laugh at himself, and…shit, hot as the fires of Mordor. I mean, the One Ring could be forged in his hotness.

I want him.

Watching him in the bathroom with his hand wrapped around his dick—that was the sexiest thing I’d ever seen. And when he said it was his best sexual experience, I nearly came on the spot.

Knowing that he hasn’t had anyone else is nearly impossible to ignore. I could be the first one to have his tongue between my legs. I could be the first to watch his eyes roll back in his head as I swallow him as deeply as possible. I could be the first one to take him inside my body. Being the first is more potent a drug than I’d realized.

My phone vibrates. I know who it is before I pick it up.

How’s my book?

My thumb hovers over the screen wanting to enter When can I see you. Jack’s given me the go ahead. And he’s right. I could use another person on my team. It’s not like I have dozens of friends here at Western. There’s Riley, of course, but I can’t plan every social activity around her. In the end, though, I chicken out and type out a different response.