Jock Rule (Jock Hard #2)(61)

Spend another few minutes in the car on our way back to her apartment. The silence is almost deafening and ridiculous and so uncalled for I can’t stop the bitter laugh rising from my chest.

“What’s so funny?” Teddy asks, signed grant check clasped in her fingers protectively.

“Nothing. This is just so fucking stupid, that’s all.” I put my car in park, turning to face her, arm resting on the steering wheel. “Why are you acting like this? I haven’t done anything.”

“I guess—I don’t know. I know I’m being weird, okay?”

“Actually, it’s not okay, Teddy.”

She ruined a perfectly good evening, one I looked forward to all week.

“Everything was great this morning, and now you’ve done a complete turnaround.” She came to my game, sat with Renee, Miranda, and another teammate’s girlfriend, cheered for me the entire time and patched me up afterward.

We went for lunch before I dropped her off at home then I went for my haircut and shaved and—

“That was before I knew what you looked like.” Her voice is small, coming from the dark recesses of my SUV.

“I’m sorry, what? That sounds like an insult. And since when is it a bad thing for a guy to be attractive?”

“It’s not. This isn’t about your face.”

Could have fooled me. “Then what is it about?”

“I honestly have no idea.”

“Okay, so what now? What do we do? I can grow the beard back, Teddy—I can grow it back starting tomorrow.”

“But I already know what you look like.”

“Jesus, Teddy, why are you making this such a big deal?” I can’t stop my voice from rising.

Hers rises, too. “I don’t know Kip! I don’t…know. Honestly, I loved the way you looked before.”

“Honestly, Teddy, I loved the way you didn’t judge me before.”

“Ouch.”

“Yeah, well, the truth hurts, doesn’t it?”

I regret the words as soon as I say them because they come out harsh, and rude, and bitter.

I soften my attitude. “Come home with me. Please. That’s the only way we’re going to get past this.”

Let me change your mind.

Every nerve in my body screams that she’s going to say no. She’s going to reject the idea, hop out of my car, and I’m never going to see her again.

“Yes. You’re right.”

I let out a breath, a puff of air, then clutch the steering wheel with both hands. “All right then. Great.”

I’m so fucking relieved.

Putting the vehicle in reverse, I take us back the way we came. Past the administration buildings. The student union and library. Away from campus and three miles out of town.

Only when we’re sitting cross-legged on the living room floor does Teddy speak again.

“I think…I reacted so badly because…the differences between us suddenly became so pronounced. You came strutting toward me looking so handsome and fancy, and I was standing there wearing a borrowed dress and borrowed shoes. I borrow a car—I have nothing.”

“That doesn’t matter to me.” I say it with conviction. “And I don’t strut.”

She laughs, stretching out her leg toward me. I take her foot in my lap and begin massaging her pretty ankle as she talks. “But it matters to me; the way we were raised and the roads we’re taking, you know? It became so very clear to me after I realized it was you.”

“I can’t help the fact that my parents are wealthy, Teddy. You can’t hold that against me—people have been doing it my whole life. It’s a hard thing to escape. That’s why I came here.”

“I know. I get judged too, for being poor, and I hate that. I’m not saying it was horrible being me, but my mother works in a bar—and not a very nice one. A few times we’ve lived above it, and it was loud and smoky, and I’m never living like that again. That’s why I’m busting my ass now.”

“I don’t think we’ve talked about this, but…I’ll probably work for my dad when I graduate. Is that going to be a problem?”

“That’s not my decision—why would you ask me that?”

“Uh, because you’re my girlfriend?”

“I am?”

How did she not know that? “Affirmative. And you probably won’t be able to get rid of me.”

“Oh.” She bites down on her bottom lip, pleased. “Well in that case, you should probably take me upstairs.”

She doesn’t have to tell me twice.

I stand, bending at the waist and scooping her up as if she weighs nothing—she doesn’t—and carry her up the stairs. Over the threshold to my bedroom, setting her on the edge of the bed.

“I don’t think I got the chance to tell you how pretty you look tonight.”

Blue is a great color on her; the dress is prim but sexy, both hugging her curves and hiding them at the same time. Her toned arms and legs are the only skin showing, but when she slides off the bed to stand on the floor and presents me with her back, I get to see more of her as I slide the zipper all the way down.

It whirs, causing both of us to shiver when it splits.

Smooth skin.

No bra.