“Because football is a game of numbers. My girl, maybe the love of my life”—he places his hand over his heart—“will live and breathe numbers…for the whole offense.”
“That’s eleven players!” she replies.
He nods. “A complete analysis for the past three years will work.”
His announcement goes over like a lead balloon as the girls glower and give each other baleful looks, maybe fearing one of the others already has these strange stats in her back pocket?
He continues, “If that’s too much, I totally get it if you want to drop out. My loss.”
“We can do it!” Mila/Bambi and the redhead say.
A worried expression flits over his face, quickly hidden. “Are you sure? You’ll have to talk to coaches and assistants to get the numbers and then make an Excel spreadsheet. Are any of you a statistics major?”
They admit they aren’t.
“Well, that’s just too bad,” he murmurs. “This is going to be a lot of work. I don’t think you have the time to commit to it. You have classes and your own personal lives.” He sighs—extravagantly—his muscled chest wilting, his shoulders slumping as if they’ve just told him his puppy died. He appears so despondent, I half-expect him to wipe a tear from his eye.
My eyes narrow. He’s a faker.
“It sounds easy enough. I’m pre-med with a 4.0,” Mila/Bambi declares, and I stifle a sound of surprise. Jersey chasers for the win, I say! Beautiful, intelligent women can fawn over athletes all they want. I’m a believer in women following their own path, and if she’s in some sort of competition to win this guy’s favor, well, who am I to judge?
Once, I was like her, and I would have moved heaven and earth for a certain musician. I made myself available the moment he called, skipping classes to go to every gig within a four-hour drive of Magnolia. I treasured each moment we shared together, rolling them over in my heart like little jewels, certain he loved me. Newsflash: he didn’t. Not the way I needed. I wasn’t technically a “groupie” because he called me his girlfriend, but it was a very thin line. Part of his appeal was the music.
“I’m pre-law, and there’s no doubt I can do it,” quips the blonde with a mulish look on her face. “Though I personally hate math.”
“Dillon, Babycakes, I can switch my major to statistics,” offers the redhead as she poses in her cow-print dress.
I bite back my giggle at the flash of fear that flits over his face before he covers it up with that disarming, sexy, oh-so-slow smile. “Nah, no need for that, Ashley. You’re a senior—too late to be changing majors. You’ve got a whole future in…” He purses his lips, thinking.
“Music. I texted you a video of me singing Taylor Swift’s ‘Lover’ last week. Remember? I said it reminded me of us.”
“Um, yeah.” Another long-suffering exhalation as he stares at the floor for several tense moments then looks up at them. “Truthfully, I’m asking too much for just a date with me. I know you ladies signed up for this tradition we have between the team and the Thetas, and I’m the prize”—he winces—“but maybe you should move on to Sawyer or Troy and convince them to do it. They’re gonna be superstars, and I’m going to be focused on winning games. This contest won’t lead to a relationship—”
Ashley tosses her red hair and lifts her chin. “The football players voted you as the prize, not Sawyer or Troy, and you agreed in May. We can’t change it and you can’t back out now. It’s not fair. We’ve been at your beck and call since summer camp.”
His face flattens. “Yes, I’m aware of your presence everywhere I turn.”
She smiles sweetly, her nails trailing over his muscled forearm. “We’ll get to work on the stats, and you’ll choose the winner before the dance.” Ashley inspects the other girls, and they nod their assent then look back at him.
He thinks for a moment then plants his hands on his hips, calling attention to long, tan fingers and his taut six-pack. A long, gusty exhale comes from him. “Son of a nutcracker, alright. Until then, no arguing, no name-calling, and no sneaking into my room at night, feel me?”
They nod and he seems to find his equilibrium, then murmurs something as he touches each girl, a stroke of his hand there, a cheek kiss for another, an ass pat for the next.
A bubble of laughter escapes me, but it goes unheard as Patsy Cline sings on the PA system, crooning about being crazy about a man. Seems appropriate.
I pause, nearly dropping the mango in my hand. Wait a minute… Son of a nutcracker? I know that! Where’s it from? It sounded odd coming from him. It’s not a Southern saying—wait, yes! Buddy the Elf!
I grab my phone from my purse. Dang, this is so perfect! Just what I need for the photo/video bingo challenge we have going in the journalism grad department. It’s going to be hard to top someone’s pic of Professor Whitley getting his bum attacked by a goose on the quad yesterday (excellent for the Animal Attack on Campus category), but a woman-wrangling athlete quoting Buddy checks the Likes to Quote Will Ferrell box. Gah, I just might win!
Normally, I wouldn’t be so motivated to win the pool, but the prize is five hundred dollars and this girl needs new tires. Not only that, my poor car is falling apart, overhead lights winking off and on, the motor sputtering at every stop sign and red light. I’m driving on a prayer. The newspaper isn’t paying me for the internship, and my catering jobs are scarce. It would be nice to have extra money and not worry about depleting my meager savings.
Scrambling around in my purse, I finally find my phone and yank it out, only I stumble over a crate of pumpkins—Why are they out in August?—and my cell flies out of my
