Consumed: A MMA Sports Romance (32 page)

CHAPTER
FOUR

“Evie, come on,” Jess said at my door, a
slight whining edge to her voice. “I need a partner in crime! I need someone to
talk to during the game!”

I sighed, rubbing at my face with my
hands. I had managed to get my studying done, and technically I didn’t have
anything left to do for the evening.

“I don’t care about the game; I don’t care
about football.”

Jess rolled her eyes. “You don’t have to
care about it. It’s an excuse to hang out and watch hot guys throw themselves
at each other and to talk to other hot guys who are all excited by it.”

I laughed. “Put that way it sounds like
we’re going to watch a gay orgy and talk to other gay guys.”

“Well, think about it however you want.
But I
need
you to come with me.”

I tilted my head back against the
footboard of my bed. “What do I get out of this?”

Jess looked at me shrewdly for a moment.
“I’ll get someone to buy you a beer and I’ll help you study for the Stats
midterm.”

I pouted. Jess had a natural talent for
math—how, I had never been able to understand. It wasn’t that I thought she was
stupid; in order to manage good grades with all of her partying, she had to be
smart, but I wouldn’t have thought that math, of all subjects, would be her
strong suit. She was planning to major in Physics and become either an engineer
or a theorist.

“Fine. I will go with you, if you’ll help
me ace the Stats midterm.” If I got an A on the midterm, I could almost—not quite,
but almost—coast until it came time for finals without having to worry too much
about my grades.

“Good girl! Okay, get dressed in something
comfortable but cute; you never know who you’ll run into at a game.”

Jess ran off to her room to get ready, and
I rummaged through my closet. Comfortable but cute. I frowned at my choices and
finally settled on a skirt that came to my mid-thigh and a light sweater in the
school colors. I pulled my hair back into a pony tail and changed clothes,
putting a little bit of makeup on my face before Jess called to me from the
common area of the dorm. “Aren’t you ready yet?”

“Coming!” I shouted back, feeling
irritated already.

We walked out to Jess’s car in the student
lot next to the dorms; by the time we got to the car, two other girls were
waiting for us. My irritation increased. Why did Jess need me to go with her if
she had two other friends already going? Admittedly, I didn’t have anything
special planned for that night—I was going to hit the dining hall for some take-away
dinner, and maybe stream a few episodes of
Bone
s—but
the fact that Jess had gotten me to go along with her on a lie bothered me.

Fortunately, since I was her roommate,
Jess decreed that I had infinite call on shotgun; the other girls piled into the
back seat and we made our way to the game, blasting Beyoncé and Lorde all the
way out to the stadium. The campus was huge—almost a town in itself—so with all
the people headed to the game, it was slow enough to enjoy the ride. I started
to relax; I had watched enough high school games as Zack’s girlfriend to know
what was going on around me, and I had heard that we had a decent marching
band. It could actually be an interesting evening out. It still bothered me
that Jess had convinced me to come even though she didn’t really need my
company, but I told myself that it was something at least that she wanted my
company with her, even with the other girls she’d invited. It wouldn’t be too
bad, all in all, I told myself as we pulled into the parking lot outside of the
stadium.

Jess had managed to score surprisingly
good tickets, and the four of us found our seats down on the lowest level of
the stands, close to the band but with a good view of the game itself, too. The
stadium was packed—both the rival school and our own college were out in force.
The other team wasn’t from that far away—maybe a few hours—and the game was
starting early in the evening, so most of the people from the other school
would have plenty of time to get home. Against my better judgment, I looked
around on the bench in the sidelines and spotted Zack. He looked good in full
gear; but then, he had looked good in his gear in high school, too. It
shouldn’t surprise me that he still looked great. I turned my attention to the
band, to anything but the guy I had dated in high school, while we waited for
the game to get started.

Jess was chatting up everyone around us,
especially the guys; the band was playing a set of golden oldies hits,
something for the alumni in the crowd to appreciate. I had grown up on the
music—my mom had loved the Beatles and Motown—so I sang along under my breath,
trying not to laugh at the way Jess was obviously flirting with one of the guys
seated near us. Her other friends were chatting people up too, and for a moment
I felt like, in spite of the fact that I didn’t really want to, I should be
following their lead.

The game started and Jess at least had to
pretend to be interested in it. I knew our team was decent, but as I watched, I
started to actually get invested in us; I was swept up in the energy of the
crowd. Near the end of the first quarter, I heard myself groan along with
everyone else at the sight of the harsh tackle our QB took—and then everyone
went quiet as he failed to get up right away. We all waited to see what had
happened, and I felt my heart pounding. Football was a brutal sport; even in
high school, with more safeguards in place than professional ball, I’d known
several guys on the JV and Varsity teams alike who went out for a few games at
a time due to injuries. Finally the QB got to his feet and limped off of the
field, helped by one of the coaches. There was no penalty—technically the
tackle had been fully legal—but it was clear from the way the quarterback was
limping that he was out of the game. My heart skipped a beat as Zack walked up
to the coach, nodding a few times before he put on his helmet and charged out
onto the field.

“Man, that’s some bad luck,” the guy Jess
was talking to said, shaking his head. “They better rally fast.”

I looked over, wondering at the comment.
Jess caught me looking and shrugged.

“We have the best quarterback in the
nation,” she explained to me. She turned to the guy she’d been flirting with.
“It is going to be a tough climb—we’re still a few games away. We have to win
this game and the next one to get to the playoffs, and that didn’t look like a
minor injury.”

I nodded; I had heard that we had a great
team—and that the starting QB had held the title of number one in the nation
the previous two years. It was bad luck for him that he’d fallen the wrong way.

Zack huddled and the rest of the team and
the crowd—me included—watched with bated breath. What was he going to do? Would
he be able to take over from Saunders? I knew that Zack was a good QB; he had
gotten into the school on a scholarship, and though he wasn’t a top-line pick,
he was at the top of the second tier of recruits that the colleges had all
looked at. It was just his bad luck that the starting QB was too valuable to
sit out many games. But I knew that Zack was feeling the pressure. For a
moment, I felt sympathetic towards him.

But from the first play after Zack took
over—a long pass that he handled like a pro—it was clear that Zack would be
just fine. He played every bit as well as the original quarterback, and I was
cheering as loud, or maybe even louder, than the people around me as he went
through play after play. In high school Zack had been more of a passing QB; he
had a great arm, and could throw not only far but accurately. It looked like he
had improved his running game since I’d last seen him on the field. I could
barely pay attention to the half time show, thinking about Zack in the locker
room, how psyched he must have been for the chance to prove himself. He hit the
field just as hard in the second half, and I cheered as wildly as before. I had
no reason to be personally gratified by the fact that Zack was doing so well,
but a little part of me was warmed by the fact that the guy I had dated in high
school was kicking ass on the field.

In the end, we won by a wide margin, and I
almost had to sit down as everyone started to straggle and file out of the
stadium seats. It had been such an exciting game, my heart had been pounding
and I had cheered until I was nearly hoarse. I told Jess that I needed to use
the restroom, and that I’d meet her at the gate; she nodded, barely hearing me.
I went to the restroom, shaking my head at my roommate. I was glad, deep down,
that she had convinced me to come to the game. I wasn’t a huge football fan,
but it had been fun, and it may have been one of only a few opportunities I
would have gotten to see Zack playing as a college QB; I had no doubt that the
coaches and staff would work hard to get the starting QB back on the field as
quickly as possible. I washed my hands and smoothed my hair before I left the
restroom, making a beeline for the gate where we’d come in.

Jess wasn’t there, and neither were the
other two girls who had come with us. I stood and waited; Jess was probably
flirting with that guy and she’d be out soon enough once she’d made a date with
him. There were some already-drunk students straggling out of the stadium,
headed to parties around the campus, I was sure—probably at least one on frat
row. It wasn’t that late, but I wanted nothing more than to go back to the
dorms and get a shower, maybe catch an episode of one of my favorite shows on
TV, and go to bed. I was tired.

While I waited for Jess to show up, the
team started to come out of the stadium one by one or in pairs. They paid me no
mind, talking amongst themselves and heading to the frats or their own parties.
After winning such a big game, they’d all be partying it up, and I couldn’t
really blame them. I called out “Good game!” to a few people, just to not look
like too much of an idiot.

Zack came out of the stadium and started
to walk past me, headed to the parking lot; I didn’t say anything. I didn’t
want to call any attention to myself, in spite of the warm fuzzy feeling I had
from his success. But just like before, it didn’t matter; Zack spotted me and
stopped in his tracks, smiling slowly. “I didn’t know you came to any of our
games,” he said, grinning more broadly.

“First game I’ve been to,” I said,
shrugging. “Jess made me come out and just my luck—you get to show off for me.”
My heart was beating faster.

“Are you waiting for a ride, then?”

I shrugged. I wondered what was taking
Jess so long. Normally when she flirted with a guy like the one in the stadium,
she made a quick date and then was on her way. I wondered if she was making out
with him in the nearly-empty seats.

“Kind of,” I said with a little smile.
While it had given me a warm, fuzzy feeling to see Zack doing well, I was still
uncomfortable around him.

Before I could make an excuse to go after
her, or something that would help me get away from Zack, Jess came strutting
out of the stadium with the guy she’d been talking to all night. Neither of the
other two girls was around, and I wondered just what had happened to them.

“There you are, Evie!” The guy’s arm was
around her waist. “Derek has this great party he wants to take me to. Can you
grab a ride home? Unless you want to come with us.”

I considered going with them, but it was
easy to see that it would be a party where I knew no one; Jess would go off
with Derek somewhere and I’d be the sad sack in a corner nursing crappy beer and
waiting for the chance to go home. Zack was still right there next to me.

“I can get you home,” he said cheerfully.
Jess glanced from Zack to me and she grinned.

“A ride home from the winning QB? I’m a
little jelly,” she quipped.

I bit back a retort; the last thing I
wanted—or so I thought—was a lot of time alone with Zack. But for the moment,
at least, it seemed like that would be a slightly better option than a strange
party by myself waiting for Jess to finish hooking up with a new guy.

“Have a good time,” I said to Jess. She
walked away quickly with the guy she’d taken up with for the night, headed to
the parking lot and off to a party. I looked at Zack. “So, where are you
parked?” Zack smiled slowly—a rueful, slightly guilty-looking smile.

“It’s… actually back at the frat,” he
said.

I sighed. “Seriously? You offer a ride
when your car isn’t even here?”

“Would you have hung around if I’d said my
car was back at the frat?” I shook my head. “Besides, it’s not as far away as
the dorms are. It’s only ten blocks.”

I looked down at my shoes. They were
comfortable at least—much more so than the heels I had worn to the party the
other night. I sighed. Ten blocks to the frat. It could be worse, but not much.
I looked up at the sky and told myself that at least it wasn’t about to rain.

We walked back to the frat house together,
and my irritation started to fade as Zack jollied me along. He hadn’t wanted to
take his car to the stadium; it wasn’t that long of a walk, as he pointed out,
and parking was always a nightmare. I could see his point. He was used to
running several miles regularly as part of his practice and training; ten
blocks was nothing to him. It was a little more than nothing to me, and by the
time we arrived at the frat house, I was ready to take a break and sit down for
a little bit.