More importantly, we played with intensity. Today everyone was hungry—and not just Ace and I showed it on the field. After the game, when game balls got handed out to the players, Coach talked about building off this win and making sure that our best games were ahead of us. This second game was just the start. Then he told us that we had no curfew, but he didn’t want to read about our names in the papers tomorrow unless it had something to do with scoring on the field or saving a busload of old ladies on their way to bingo. Then we were excused.

Now we’re here, basking in the praise and adulation of our classmates.

Or some of us are. Hammer heads straight for the bar to do shots. He doesn’t have his name just because of the hits on the field. Matty already has some Alpha Phi hooked to his hip. She has half her body pressed against his arm while he gestures for the bartender for another drink. I think she’s either trying to assimilate into Matty’s body or absorb him. Later tonight I’ll find some half man, half sorority sister passed out on my living room floor.

Someone presses a bottle into my hands. What the hell? But I might need to get lit tonight if Ellie doesn’t show up. I find a place off the edge of the bar where I can see the door.

I’m not certain she’ll be here. According to Jack, she doesn’t go to the games. The starting whistle blew before I had time to question him further. Post-game, I asked again. He gave me a look that said I was being obvious, but what did I care? The punk. If I wasn’t so fucking happy at his play, I might have punched him in the mouth.

But if she didn’t show up to the post game celebration, it wouldn’t be because she hated football. Just one player. Me.

I fucked it up, making too big of a deal about her slip of the tongue. Girl’s got a few barriers. Someone hurt her—someone she cared about—hard, and she’s worried. Not just for herself, but for her brother. I can get behind that, and even better, I understand it. If Ty had gotten the ass end of a stick, I’d be wary, too. And wasn’t that about half the reason I haven’t been laying pipe the whole time I’ve been here?

I blame my asshole attitude on the fact that most of my thinking power went in my pants last week. Jesus, the first taste of her was enough for me to shoot my wad. I already hovered on the razor’s edge just by kissing her thigh. Who knew that particular part of the body felt so soft?

All week I couldn’t get the taste and feel out of my mind. I’d fucked my fist so hard and so often it’s a miracle my dick isn’t so much raw meat right now.

I exchange high fives, receive back slaps, and more than a few invitations, but my gaze doesn’t waver. There’s only one girl for me, and if she doesn’t show up, then I’ll go to her.

So what if her head wasn’t in the same place mine is? Maybe the universe doesn’t move at the same rate for her. In the meantime, I need more of her. I’ve only had a sample, but I wasn’t lying when I told her I could have stayed between her shaking legs all week. Nothing on this fine earth tastes as good as she does.

Early on, after I’d decided I would wait, I’d marked below the waist as a no go zone. I pride myself on my personal self-control and self-discipline, but even I knew that a hand below the waist meant clothes would come off and the virginity thing would be in the past. It’s also why I didn’t move to the bed even though Ellie panted that word like it was the only one in her vocabulary.

A bed and Ellie made too much temptation for a poor boy like me to resist. But I’m done resisting. I’m done making demands. I’ll lay myself at her pretty little toes and smile if she decides to walk all over me. Because eventually, eventually, I’ll wear her down. Eventually I’ll get her. Like I’ve read every offense. The first time it might take me by surprise, but after a little film, a helluva lot of practice, there’s no O-line that can stop me. No barrier I can’t overcome. No defense I can’t wear down. Eventually.

I glance at my phone. Its blank screen mocks me, as does the door that opens, but never seems to spit out the one person I want to see. Time to take the mountain to Mohammed then. I look around the room to check on my guys. Matty, Hammer, and Jesse take up one side of the bar. Matty nods at me. He’s in charge and will make sure our side of the field gets home. Ace sits in the corner staring hungrily across the room at Stella, who’s talking to some basketball player. Ace looks like he’s about to throw the beer bottle into the guy’s head, and the way he tossed the ball around today like a dart and not some awkward oblong piece of leather meant he’d make good contact.

I stride over. “You’re not fooling anyone. Keep your head in the game. Play like that next week, and we’ll wear the crown.”

Ace rolls the bottle in his hand and then glances over my shoulder. “We’re not all made like you, Masters. Some of us have a life outside the game. Some of us want a life outside the game.” He tips his head back and drains his bottle.

I set the drink someone shoved into my hand in front of him. “Then go get that game. Don’t sit on your ass waiting for it to come to you.”

“Is that what you’re doing?” Ace mocks. “Pursuing your objective? Because I haven’t seen Campbell’s sister tonight anywhere.”

It stings a little, but not so much that I can’t provide an even response. “That’s why I’m leaving.”

“Or maybe she doesn’t want to be with you.” He tips his head toward the front of the bar, where Ellie stands wearing a shirt that must be too big for her, because the shoulder keeps slipping down to expose a golden circle of skin. A circle of skin that some dickhead is staring at.

Ace grabs me as I start to stalk toward them. “Be gentle. We need that dickhead.”

I must’ve said something out loud. I shrug him off. “We never reach that far into the wideout depth chart anyway.”

Hopefully he only needs one hand to catch the ball, because the one he laid on Ellie's shoulder is getting ripped off.

“Mother o’ God, who’s the smokeshow?” Matty whistles near my ear.

“Ellie Campbell,” I say abruptly.

“No shit?” he asks, following close behind as I cut a swath through the bar patrons. “I don’t remember her being so, ah, fit. The whole makeup thing and big hair really looks good on her.”

“Go away, Matty.”

“Gone.”

The freshman leans close to her, his eyes bright with excitement as he uses his height to leer down the front of Ellie's shirt.

“Hey, Emma, right?”

“Close…I’m Eliot.” She dips her shoulder down until the dillweed’s hand falls away. But that motion only serves to drop her shirt farther down her arm. The fabric of the top clings to the tops of her breasts and the big hoop earrings she wears flash in the light. She’s wearing a lot of smoky eye makeup and red lipstick and all it says to me is fuck me, fuck me hard. “This is my roommate, Riley.”

She tugs her tiny roommate’s arm forward.

“Riley? Eliot? Are you two...guys?” Asshole frowns.

“That’s right. We’re two guys.” She looks at Riley, who smothers a laugh behind her hand.

“Hey, Knox.” Riley waves. “Enjoy your book?”

“I did, thanks for asking. Need something to drink?”

“Sure. I’ll have whatever is light on tap.”

I tip my chin toward the bartender to get his attention and then turn toward Ellie, but before I can take her order, the dipshit starts talking again.

“Ah, right. We met at Hammer’s party. The Coke drinker.”

I can almost hear her eyes roll in her head but she gives him a courtesy smile.

“You planning to have some fun tonight or drink your Coke?”

Somehow, despite being a few inches shorter than the idiot, she manages to look down her nose at him. “I plan to have zero fun tonight and you’re doing a good job of making that happen for me.”

He scratches his nose in confusion because he apparently can’t make out whether she insulted him or complimented him. “Did you watch the game today? I play the slot receiver. Number 87. Maybe you saw me on the field?”