Jockblocked: A Novel (Gridiron Book 2)(94)

These past couple months have shown me one thing. Success is fleeting. Enjoy it while you can.

A glass of water appears like magic in front of me. I look up with a scowl. “This is not booze.”

Hammer claps me on the back hard enough that my chest bumps into the edge of the mahogany bar. “Fucker, that hurt.” I massage my chest, wishing the pain inside could be so easily rubbed away.

“Good. I was worried you were too numb for this.” He reaches out and slaps his open hand across my face. It’s not a hard blow. My head barely moves when he makes impact, but the shock of it? The sound of flesh striking flesh? I jump up, forgetting momentarily where I am and who just hit me. My fists come up because my fight or flight instinct? Definitely, one hundred percent fight.

I swing, and then sense or God or something sets in and I check myself inches away from Hammer’s unapologetic face.

I drop my arm to my side. “What the motherf*cking hell?”

“You need to wake up,” he says simply.

“I have no f*cking clue what you’re talking about.” I slide back onto the bar stool and clench the glass of water between my hands so I have something to do other than punch Hammer’s lights out. One of my best friends. I hang my head. What is wrong with me?

“Haven’t you had enough?” Hammer reaches past me and taps the rims of all my empty shot glasses. All eleven of them. I swallowed two within seconds of ordering them—the third by the time Hammer ordered his drink and then four more in quick succession. I wasn’t paying for them. They kept appearing in front of me like a cartoon version of shots where there’s no bottom to the booze and the glasses multiply magically. So I drank them.

“Don’t know. Why don’t you hand me the one at the end that’s full and we’ll see if I’m still upright?” I gesture toward the end of the row.

“Is drinking really making you feel better? Because we’ve drunk every night this week and I’m beginning to feel overstuffed. Kinda like how your pants are too tight right around the time that the second NFL game starts on turkey day.”

“Because I have a dick, I’m not allowed to be sad about something?” I snap. Someone starts playing Buckley’s “Hallelujah,” the saddest dirge about how cold and broken love can leave you. Nice. I grab the last shot glass and down the contents. My throat’s so numb I can’t even feel the burn as the liquor slides down my throat. I’m going to have to switch to whiskey.

“You ain’t sad. You’re feeling sorry for yourself. You’re moping around like someone took your football away. On the field, you’re awesome, Matty, but off of it? You’re letting everything fall apart. I don’t know exactly what went down between you two but I can guess. And she might be a stone-cold bitch and you’re better off shot of her. But at some point, you gotta stand up and work for something off the field.”

He rubs a hand down his face. “I don’t know why I’m trying to have a conversation with you.”

It’s the disappointment in his voice that finally penetrates my thick, dumb skull. “Football gives back what you put into it. The rest of it, like Buckley’s saying.” I wave my hand in the general direction of what I think might be the jukebox although it might also just be a bunch of boxes of empty beer bottles awash in neon. “Love just ruins you.”

“Bullshit.”

“What?”

This is Hammer. Who loves football. Whose entire wardrobe consists of Warrior T-shirts, shorts, and workout gear. He bleeds blue and gold. I knock my hand against my ear. Did he just call bullshit on the only true and reliable facts of our lives—football is it.

“We both know I’m not going pro. Most of the guys that play at Western won’t ever even get to sniff the turf at a pro stadium unless they’re paying to be there. That’s why I took this job writing articles for a woman’s magazine. You think it’s funny as hell, but this is going to get me a good paying job when I graduate.”

Hammer grabs my shoulder and forces me to look at him. “This thing with Ace? It’s not even about winning anymore. It’s whether we’re going to enjoy playing together. Matty, f*ck, this is our last year. I don’t want to go out wondering what if, and regretting the time I spent. Even if we don’t win another title, I still want to know that I gave it all I had because I was playing with the best motherf*ckers in the world. I don’t like saying this, but you kinda need a wakeup call. Is it possible she had a good reason for kicking your ass to the curb?

You aren’t a good risk.

She’d known it all along, and I’d laughed it off. Because on the field, I’m reliable as they come. Off of it, I duck anything close to responsibility. It’s not that I mind a challenge. Challenges are fun. But conquering a challenge isn’t the same as shoving on a pair of shitkickers and getting down in the trenches into messy, dirty, uncomfortable things.

The night we took Lucious out, I got drunk rather than stick to my own rules of no booze, no chicks.

I wasn’t thinking of Luce that night. I was thinking of myself.

I was a good lover because it reflected well on me.

I pursued Luce because it was fun—for me.

It’s always been about me. Even when she broke up with me, I didn’t see things from her point of view.

We were even in this random joint twenty miles from campus because I didn’t want to be around Luce.