Stadium of Lights: A Second Chance Sports Romance (26 page)

“
I
’m starving
.” His face was on my pillow, his body stretched out on top of mine.

“Are you serious?” I laughed.

“Hell, yes.”

“That’s all you can think about right now?”

He pushed himself up on his arms and grinned down at me.

I loved the way he grinned.

“I already took care of the other thing I was thinking about.”

“You pig!” I smacked his arms. It was like hitting granite. His body never ceased to amaze me.

“What do you think? The diner or bar, maybe? I could go for some drinks.”

“The bar? How romantic.” I rolled my eyes as got up and dressed. “The diner is fine.”

“Can you drive?” he asked.

“You didn’t?”

“No, I walked here from the frat house. I had only planned on going to the library.” He looked away, and I thought he might be a little red with embarrassment. So he hadn’t planned on coming to me. I wasn’t sure what that meant, but I didn’t hate it. Besides, he was going to the library? I’d been a better influence on him than I thought. I had a scholar on my hands.

So I drove to the diner, and along the way, we talked about
Hamlet
. He’d finished reading it over break.

“It’s pretty messed up,” he surmised.

“That’s a way to put it.”

“I mean, really. He couldn’t just come out and say he knew the truth about what happened to his dad? He had to be all sneaky about it? If he didn’t do that, Ophelia wouldn’t have gone crazy.”

“You think so? You don’t think she was crazy before that?”

“No. When he started acting like a prick, she went nuts. Then he killed her father. I mean, wouldn’t you go crazy?”

“I guess I would.” I looked out the driver’s side window, smiling to myself. I didn’t want him to think I was laughing at him—I wasn’t, either. I didn’t think he would believe me if I told him how adorable he was.

The diner wasn’t very full, which made sense since a lot of people hadn’t returned from break yet. It was nice, feeling like there was nobody else around but the two of us. The smells of frying potatoes and sizzling beef made my mouth water. I was glad he’d suggested it once we settled into a booth.

He pulled out his copy of
Hamlet
and showed me a particular passage he liked. The soliloquy. “It’s only the most famous soliloquy, like, ever,” I said.

“Really? I thought it was pretty cool, too. I knew I recognized the first line. To be, or not to be.”

“Do you know what he was saying, though?”

“Yeah. He was talking about dying. Pros and cons.”

I gave him a silent clap. “You have no idea how many people misinterpret that one. That, and the line from
Richard III
: ‘Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by this son of York.’ People don’t get that he isn’t talking about actual seasons, but the way people felt. They were discontented, his family. Once his brother became king, things changed for the better.”

“What about ‘Wherefore art thou Romeo’? All the kids in my English class in high school thought she was asking where Romeo was, not why he had to be Romeo and not some other dude her family wasn’t fighting with.”

“Geez,” I murmured. “You’re much smarter than you give yourself credit for.”

He grinned. I had never met his mother, but I hated her for putting restrictions on him the way she had. There was no telling who he could have been if he had been pushed as hard in his studies as he was at football.

Our burgers came, and I watched with a bemused smile as Jake devoured his. I flipped through
Hamlet
, then pulled a post-it note from inside the back of the book and stuck it to one of the pages. “Professors always ask about this one section. The play-within-the-play. Where Claudius freaks out. He sort of gives himself away as the one who killed Hamlet’s father.”

I looked up at him, but he wasn’t staring at me anymore. There was someone over my shoulder that had his attention. I turned slightly to find a tall, dark-haired guy standing at the register. I could tell Jake knew him from the look on his face.

“Who is that?” I asked, still looking.

“Don’t worry about him,” he said. “It doesn’t matter.”

I was still looking, though, and I made eye contact with the stranger. He looked at me, then at Jake. His face first registered surprise, then glee. He left, laughing and shaking his head.

“Who was he?” I turned to Jake. “One of the football players?”

“You really don’t know who anybody on the team is, do you?”

“I don’t.” I shrugged.

“Yeah, he’s one of my teammates. He lives at the frat house with me, too. He’s the one with the injury. Remember, at the beginning of the semester?”

“Oh, yeah. He looks fine now.”

“He’s good.” Jake’s voice was tight. I couldn’t understand why. I decided to change the subject, going back to
Hamlet
. Soon we were discussing whether he was really crazy, or just pretending.

* * *

I
pulled
up in front of Jake’s frat house and gave him one more kiss. We had already made out in the parking lot at the diner. I wasn’t sure I could ever show my face there again.

He groaned, and when I glanced at his crotch, there was no missing the bulge in his shorts. My body responded at the sight of it, but there was no way to give in to that impulse.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said, climbing out of the car. “Library. Don’t wear panties.”

I giggled as I watched him climb the stairs to the front door. So that was the mythical frat house, huh? It didn’t look so bad to me. Sort of dilapidated, but it had charm. I pulled away with a smile.

Talk about a perfect day. The sun shone, kids played Frisbee and touch football along the lawns throughout campus. Everything seemed to have an extra bit of magic. Maybe because my day had been magic.

I could still feel him on me, in me. My lips tingled when I remembered how passionately he had kissed them, and that tingle traveled downward until it settled between my legs. He had kissed me there, too, and I sighed when I remembered how blissful that had been. He showed me depths of pleasure I didn’t know were possible, especially for me. Especially from him.

It was the talking we did afterward that meant the most, though. Jake had finally opened up, and it was an honor that he thought I could be trusted with his secrets. I could, too. I would never use anything he said against him. It only brought us closer and made me like him more, knowing everything he’d gone through to get where he was. I finally understood why football was such a big deal to him, why he worked so hard to get ahead. Why schoolwork had taken the backburner. I wished he saw himself the way I saw him. I knew he was intelligent, warm, caring, and insightful. He only saw himself as a football player.

It wasn’t until I was a few blocks away that I noticed Jake left his copy of
Hamlet
in the car. I was close to my dorm but didn’t want him to miss out on study time. A few more kisses wouldn’t hurt, either. I smiled to myself when I thought about that last one before he got out of the car.

I couldn’t believe how far I’d come in such a short time. At the beginning of the semester, I’d been a gawky, sloppy girl who tried to hide behind books and baggy clothes. Less than two months later I was practically dating one of UM’s biggest sports stars. If not dating, at least sleeping with. I was all right with that, too. I didn’t need it to be any bigger than it was.

How lucky could a girl get? I smiled to myself as I pulled up to the frat house. How many times had I driven past without giving it a second thought? All the while, he had lived there.

Shoot. I was falling in love with him, wasn’t I?
Too late
, my heart said.
You’re already there.

I jogged up the steps and raised my fist to knock on the front door, only to find it open. Should I go in? I thought I’d play it safe and knock anyway. The door swung open, and I made a mental note to remind Jake to close it all the way.

Voices in the kitchen. I told myself it was none of my business, no matter what they were talking about. Only … there was a lot of laughter. Nasty sounding laughter. It drew me in, even as my instincts screamed at me to go.

I took one step closer to the sound, then another. It was coming from the back of the house—the kitchen, maybe. I looked around at the big, messy living room—it was filled with sports equipment, dumbbells, empty water bottles and pizza boxes. I had never been inside a frat house before. It sort of smelled like feet and moldy socks. Didn’t they ever clean when there wasn’t a party going on?

And still, I walked, closer and closer to the voices. They were making fun of somebody.
Get out. Go. Before they know, you’re here
. Only I couldn’t make my feet move away from the voices to the door.

“And who’s he sitting with? One of his usual hotties? Nope.”

“Shut up, man.”

That was Jake. I would know his voice anywhere.

And that meant…

“Come on. Admit it. The girl needs to learn when to push back from the table.”

I froze solid. No. It couldn’t be me he was talking about, whoever he was.

“She’s curvy.” He sounded so pathetic. He should have stuck up for me, but instead, he sounded like a coward.

“Curvy?” A round of laughter. Oh my God. How many people were in there? My cheeks burned hot. “The girl is fat, okay? No wonder you never brought her around to meet any of us.”

I clamped my hands over my mouth. I needed to leave, fast. Right at that very minute, before I heard anything else. Only I couldn’t leave. I had to know if Jake would stick up for me.

“So, have you fucked her yet?” Another voice.

“Nah, that’s not his type. She’s the kind of girl you hang out with when there’s nobody else around. What is it about her, huh? Does she have money?” More laughter.

Another one of them spoke up. “Come on, I’ve been with one of those bigger girls before. They’re the best.” A chorus of boos. “I mean it! They’ll do anything you ask them to. They’re so fucking grateful you’re even touching them! They’re desperate!” More laughter.

I didn’t hear Jake. I didn’t hear him say a word. My fists are clenched, and I shook with rage. I wanted to go in there and claw their eyes out, to scream at all of them that I was a better person than they were, that just because they played football didn’t make them hot shit. They were nothing. They were pathetic. I hated them.

Including him. Oh, God, including him.

“Be honest, Jake. You have a little crush, and you didn’t want to tell us? You tired of getting all the hot pussy, so you decided to step down?” The first voice. He was the worst. He was cruel. His words tore at me.

“Zack, shut the fuck up.” That was the best he could do? He should have killed him for me if he cared about me!

“Oh, that’s it! He fucked her!” A round of cheers and laughter. Tears rolled down my cheeks.

“Was that your charity work for the semester, Jake?”

“Did she let you put it wherever you wanted?”

“Did you have to look around for the hole?”

On and on. I tortured myself, listening to all of it. Every word. I wanted to remind myself of how cruel they were when Jake came to me. I would never let myself forget it.

I remembered at the last second that
Hamlet
was still tucked under my arm. I left it on a table, then turned and fled. The sound of their howling followed me out the door.

I probably shouldn’t have driven with tears in my eyes the way they were, but someone up there must have been watching over me. I made it back to my dorm room and stumbled inside, then threw myself on the bed and let loose the emotion I’d only barely held back until I was alone.

Flashbacks of the horror I went through in high school flooded my mind. The voices of the football players might as well have been those of the kids I went to school with. Mocking me, laughing at what were the most intimate moments of my life. I couldn’t believe I let myself go through it again.

It was all his fault. He had set me up for it. He never cared about me—all he wanted was for me to tell the coach he did a good job, so he could keep playing football. He did whatever he had to do to keep me happy. Even sleeping with me.

I cried until I could hardly breathe, and still, I kept crying. It seemed like there was no end to the tears inside me. I realized my head rested on the pillow his head had rested on, and I threw it across the room with a scream of heartbroken rage. Fuck him.

And I had been so happy, too. I hugged the remaining pillow to me, holding it tight, pressing my face into it to muffle my sobs. I had already screamed—the last thing I needed was for the other girls on the floor to think I was having a fit and come knocking. Though I
was
sort of having a fit. They couldn’t help me. Nobody could.

I felt so dirty and foolish. Ashamed of myself. I would never forgive myself for being so stupid, I was sure. And to think I had defended Jake to my friends. My actual friends. I had pushed Adam aside for him. Would he ever forgive me? I doubted it, and I wouldn’t blame him if he didn’t. I didn’t deserve it. I was a terrible person, terrible and shortsighted and naïve.