The Studying Hours (How to Date a Douchebag #1)(67)

“Amaze-balls?” I tease.

“No. It’s better. It’s majestic. It’s the eighth wonder of the freaking world is what this shit is.” She shoots me a look. “Would it be weird if I took pictures for my spank bank?”

“Girls have those?” I refuse to say the words ‘spank’ and ‘bank’ together in a sentence.

“This girl does. I mean, Jesus, James. Look at all the poly-covered c-o-c-k in this room.” She covers her mouth. “Shit, sorry. I just... It’s just that you can literally see everything. I mean, that guy from Wisconsin looks like he stuffed an entire eggplant emoji down his—”

“I’m well aware.” But thanks for mentioning it.

Allison stares pointedly across the room at the female fans in the student section. With their lewd signs and skimpy outfits, their objectives are evident to anyone with a set of functioning optical senses.

My roomie states the obvious with a hair flip. “You don’t honestly think they’re here to actually watch wrestling, do you? Bitches, please.”

“Remind me again why I brought you?”

“Because after this meet is over, you’re gonna have to elbow your way through that crowd of hoes to properly congratulate bae on his v-i-c-t-o-r-y and I’m going to help you do it.”

Hoes?

I sputter on the pink water bottle poised at my lips. “There were so many things wrong with that run-on sentence.”

“Shhh, shhh, they’re starting.” Allison hops up and down on the balls of her feet. “Oh em gee, I’m going to have a million pictures on my Snap story. Everyone is going to be so jelly.”

I roll my eyes, but my face lights up with a smile. “Whatever you do, do not tag me in those. I’m not kidding this time Allison—those pictures you posted on Instagram last week weren’t funny.”

She snaps a selfie and shoots me a sidelong glance. “But you were wearing a puffy coat.”

“So?”

“It was forty-five degrees!”

“Some people get cold, Allison.”

“Stop being so huffy, hardly anyone saw it.”

Deep breath, James.

“Allison,” I reason with her calmly. “Two hundred and sixty-seven people double-tapped to heart it.”

She disregards my annoyance with a flippant, “Are you going to watch your wrestler or start an argument?”

Dammit, she has a point. Resentfully, I direct my attention back to the action, to the collegiate athletes in front of us. Two young men grapple on the center mat while their coaches hover near the ground, getting low and shouting out directions. Referees lie flat on the mats, arms spread wide to catch every move, whistles at the ready for any point or penalty.

It’s loud. Chaotic.

Exhilarating.

My heart pounds as one Iowa wrestler after another fights for victory in the center ring. The lightweights Gunderson and Pitwell. Bower. Middleweights. Some insanely good-looking Hispanic named Diego Rodriguez.

Zeke Daniels.

The crowd goes bat-shit crazy when Oz begins the warm-up set for his match, the cheers deafeningly loud while he goes about the simple stretching of his hamstrings. Arms. Bending at the waist and touching his toes.

My hungry eyes fly to his fantastic…round…squatter’s…ass. That ass. Those thick, powerful thighs.

Without even thinking, I lick my lips, the blush creeping up my chest, neck, and cheeks as Oz goes through the groom check. I press my hands to my face to cool it and resist fanning myself with the program we were handed on the way in.

“You should see yourself right now.” Allison laughs. “Seriously. You look like you want to rip your sweater off.”

I want to point out that my cardigan is cotton, not a sweater, but the words get caught in my throat because I do—I do want to rip it off. I’m burning up, and it’s not from the temperature of the auditorium.

Anxiously, I watch the match begin, hear the ref’s whistle blow from a false start. They begin again. Hand fight. Grapple. A few hips are thrown before Oz gets his opponent in a headlock—then in seconds they’re both on the ground.

It looks like they’re fish flopping around, and—

“Does it bother you that everyone can see his balls through that singlet?” Allison asks.

“Oh my god, Allison, you can’t just say shit like that!”

“What! Why? I’m just saying what you’re thinking. Be honest. I mean…that junk is right. There.”

“Right, but I don’t need to hear about it.” Because now all I’m going to be doing is looking at it.

“Face it, James: every girl in here is checking out his cock-a-doodle-do.”

A nervous, inappropriate laugh bubbles up within my throat and I’m helpless to stop it. “Stop it Allison!”

My roommate bumps me with her hip. “You’re so cute when you get all hot and bothered. That’s it, isn’t it? You want him to make sex with you and this gets you all turned on.”

Make sex with me?

I give one jerky nod because if I’m being honest, yes—I totally want him to make sex with me.

“Shit. I should totally text Parker and see where he’s at. I’m getting horny.”

“Um…”

“Calm down.” She shoots me a look, typing furiously on her cell. “Not from staring at your boyfriend, from the room full of peen.” A shrug, as if that explains everything. “I’m a hormonal teenager stuck inside a twenty-one-year-old body, James.”