Jockblocked: A Novel (Gridiron Book 2)(86)

“Closer,” Ace gestures. “I can’t fit you into the frame.”

“Dude, I can barely stand up.”

“Hold him up, Sarah,” Ace orders.

Sarah slides her arm around my waist. I drape my hand behind her back and rest my hand on Lucious’s shoulder. Nothing about this feels right but I can’t pinpoint exactly what bothers me. The blonde rests her cheek against my shoulder.

“Matty,” she breathes softly. “I heard you were dating someone. Is that true?”

I look down at her, thinking of how much I’d like Luce to be here, holding me up and looking at me with her big brown eyes. I can feel my own face soften. “Yeah, true. I really dig this chick. She’s smart and interesting.” And hot as hell. I can feel my jeans getting tight thinking about her.

“Ahh, that’s sweet.” The girl rises on her tiptoes and kisses me. Right on the lips. Motherf*cker!

“Uh huh. No kisses from anyone else.” I let her go and shake my finger at her. “Not cool, Sarah.”

“Don’t be such a stick in the mud, Matty. It was just a kiss.” The girl flounces away.

“We better get the recruit home,” I tell Ace.

“The girls will take him home,” he protests.

“Nah, he’s our responsibility. Come on.” I peel Lucious away from the lips of Blue Dress.

There’s a chorus of disappointed sounds, but somehow I manage to muscle Lucious outside and start pushing him toward the Playground.

“We don’t want to disappoint Coach Lowe,” I tell him.

“Yeah, I hear ya.” The cold air must be blowing some sense into him.

Hammer and Masters meets us halfway home and Ace peels off to his own place.

“How’s it going?” Masters asks, his wary gaze fixed on Ace’s retreating figure.

“With Ace?” I slur. “About as good as you can expect.”

And then I stumble home, type out a few incoherent messages to Luce, and pass out.





31





Lucy




When I get up I see Matt has sent me a text. It’s garbled and the time stamp says two am.

Matty: Im drnk mss u.

Matty: Plc Matty wtns u.

Matty: Lv u

Plc? Police Matty? Please Matty? Lv u? I think that’s Love you. I can’t figure the other one out. Apparently drunk Matt doesn’t know where the vowels are. I text him back.

Me: It’s tomorrow. Do you need a shot of my insulin?

I’m surprised when a response comes right away.

Matty: No, but I do miss you. I’m still in bed.

Me: On a scale of one to ten, how drunk are you right now?

Matty: Two. I’m still burping up the shots from last night.

Me: That’s super gross. Thanks for sharing.

Matty: np

Me: Need me to come over and rub your back?

I figure he’ll be all over this since he was texting me last night, drunkenly asking me to join him at the Gas Station where he was entertaining a recruit with Ace.

Matty: No. I stink and my head aches. I could get you drunk on my leftover fumes. U never told me Ace could drink entire gallons of booze wo damage.

Me: He’s always had a hard head.

Ace could drink an entire team under the table.

Matty: I need to sleep now. I’ll call you later.

In fact, the next text I get is from Ace. I want to apologize to you. In person. Can I come over?

Does Ace deserve a chance to say I’m sorry? I suppose he does. But I feel like it’s a last time sort of thing. He doesn’t get to keep doing this over and over, no matter how long we’ve been friends.

Sure, I text back. But your apology better be good.

Ace: Buzz me up.

I make a face. His demand is presumptuous, but whatever. Might as well get this over with. He needs to acknowledge that Matty and I are dating and that we can all get along.

I swing the door open at his knock. He straightens from the doorframe, looking out at me through surprisingly clear eyes.

“I’m amazed you’re still upright. Matty texted me this morning and said he was too drunk to move.”

“Yeah, I want to talk to you about Ives, but before we go into that I want to apologize,” he says as he brushes by me. He takes a seat on the kitchen and re-arranges the other chair so that it’s uncomfortably close to him. Like right between his legs, close to him.

I take the chair and move it back about a foot and sit down. “You think?”

He has the grace to look a little ashamed. “I don’t know what came over me. I care about you a lot, and I guess I just don’t want to see you get hurt.”

“I don’t want to get hurt either. You know how careful I am in my life and I realize that dating Matty is a risk. But…I can’t live my life as if I can’t take a blow. You’re the one who accused me of sitting in my safe little box, not taking chances.”

He winces. “Please don’t tell me that my comments pushed you into Ives’s bed.”

“No, but you’re right. I do have a tendency to be too careful. To some extent, I have to because otherwise it could be dangerous to my health, but I’m almost twenty-two. I’m graduating in a year. There’s going to be failure in my future and heartbreak, whether it’s from a job lost or a person lost. Part of being an adult is learning how to deal with that.” I reach over and take a sip of the tea I brewed for breakfast. “Matty makes me feel really wonderful.”