SPIKED (A Sports Romance) (17 page)

I smiled at him instead. “Bye, Jacob.”

I
knew
in an academic sort of way that I’d initiated the breakup. That I’d been the one to walk out of the dining room after that beat down by Jacob’s parents, that I’d been the one to jump in the passenger seat of Jenna’s car to be driven home. It was my decision, from start to finish, and I even knew that it was the
right
decision.

I felt raw and broken all the same.

Kiersten and Piper were at the suite when I returned, and looked surprised to see me— concerned, actually, when they saw my face was tearstained.

“Seriously?” Kiersten said. “You broke up with him?”

Piper scowled. “There’s no way. He dumped you, didn’t he?”

“As cheesy as it sounds—it was mutual.”

“Why?” Piper asked, arms folded.

I shrugged a little. “I guess the simplest explanation is just that we want different things.”

Piper rolled her eyes. “I could have told you that. You were never his type to begin with.”

“Maybe,” I said, shrugging again.

“So the real question, Sasha, is does this mean Piper can have him?” Kiersten asked playfully.

“I don’t want Sasha’s freshman cast offs,” Piper said loudly, like Kiersten had suggested she take on insects or drug-resistant bacteria. “Besides, Adams and I are a thing now, and he’s way better in bed than Jacob Everett dreamt of being.”

“You never slept with Jacob,” I muttered. I instantly regretted the words— why the hell did I want to start another fight this evening? Piper’s nostrils flared and her eyes went dark.

“No, I didn’t, and it’s a good thing, too. You took my place as his sloppy hundredth. Come on, Sasha. You thought you were his girlfriend? You were his comfort fuck while his arm healed. He’ll go get his hundred and first piece of ass first thing tomorrow.”

“Oh! It could be me!” Kiersten said excitedly. Piper narrow her eyes. “What?” Kiersten said, and made a face at her. “He’s basically my hundred-and-first too. Besides, everyone else got a piece of Jacob Everett. I wanna be cool,” she joked.

“Go for it,” I said flatly. “I’m going to sleep.”

* * *

T
he thing about ending a relationship
, I realized— for the first time, as this was my first real adult relationship— is that you’re suddenly made aware just how much of your life has been knotted up with the other person’s. Jacob had been the thing I filled my time with before class, in the evenings, after hours. He picked me up and drove me to the cute little restaurants in Bulkhead, introduced me to the secret menus at the local bars, knew how to sneak into the quarry where they filmed the zombie shows. Without him…

I was just a college freshman. In Atlanta. Who apparently had no friends, since I’d devoted so much of my social life to Jacob. I went to class and came back, keenly aware of the fact that people were whispering about me in the mirror-world, dark version of the way they had when me and Jacob went public. A girl in my anthropology class— the one where Jacob had come and passed me that note ages ago— leaned in and asked me if the rumors were true, that Jacob left me because I’d lied about being on birth control so he’d sleep with me, and then had had to get an abortion.

Yeah. So that happened.

The morning of the Clemson game, Kiersten and Piper woke early and began the long process of styling wind-and-beer-resistant hair. They both had lottery tickets, though Piper would be sitting in the friends and family section courtesy of Adams.

“The only downside to him wanting me to suck him dry before every game is the size of his cock,” she said loudly from the bathroom. Kiersten giggled, and Piper went on. “I mean, I give great head, but eleven inches! You have to be able to deep throat to satisfy him. There’s just no other way to do it. Lucky thing he came to someone with experience for all this, huh?”

I didn’t say anything; I knew this was another one of Piper’s large supply of pebbles to peg me with. Rarely a day passed without Piper loudly exclaiming how glad she was she didn’t let Jacob’s “used up dick” inside her, or how “nine inches is the new four inches”, or how she’d heard Jacob was now fucking the entire rhythmic gymnastics team, “at their training facility, and he tied them up with those ribbon dancer things they use”.

It got to me— far, far more than it should have. It made me feel crushed by the need for him, the want to call or text or show up at his apartment undressed and let him pull me against his body. It’d gotten to the point that when I touched myself, I barely had to do anything but
picture
Jacob to make myself come. And it was never the earth-shattering orgasm that Jacob gave me.

“I’m guessing you’re not going to the game, seeing as how you’re still in your pajamas?” Kiersten asked me.

“I have a paper to write. And I don’t really want to go anyway. Football’s not my thing,” I said firmly.

“Football’s barely Jacob’s thing anymore,” Piper snorted. “I can’t believe they’re going to let him play again.”

“Hey now! Don’t be a fair-weather friend. Jacob Everett did right by the team for years,” Kiersten said, sticking her tongue out.

“Yeah, well, Adams has been doing right by them ever since Jacob brushed his arm or whatever,” Piper said. “If Jacob gets out there and fucks up this game like he did that last one he played in…let’s just say I’d hate to be him.”

Kiersten and Piper finally muddled their way out the door in a cloud of styling spray and setting powder. I eagerly locked it behind them and sat down to my laptop to work on my paper…and to watch the game.

It was no big deal to watch the game, I told myself. So I got the tiniest, littlest bit into football while dating Jacob. That wasn’t a problem. Plenty of people got into new stuff in college. Really, it was a good thing— I could have gotten into drugs or shitty music or bad tattoos.

The game hadn’t started when I turned the television on— first muted, then at an ever inching-up volume— but the announcers were in a frenzy over Jacob’s return to the field. They showed clip after clip of him at practice, had a sports medicine guy in to explain the injury (complete with a creepy muscle hologram), and of course, did the side-by-side comparison to Adams. When Jacob led the team out of the stadium tunnel to thunderous applause, I caught myself grinning. Maybe Jacob would be all right— maybe he really was fine to play. I wanted him to be fine. I wanted him to be more than fine. I wanted him to make Adams look like a rec league player, to get his NFL contract, to be the Harton hero again. Part of my brain laughed at myself, cheering for my ex like this— wasn’t I supposed to be wishing that his kneecaps fell off or something?

Whatever. You’ve got this, Jacob
, I thought, staring at the television for the starting kick.

The game moved quickly, the sportscasters shouting and cheering along with the fans. Someone was tailgating in the apartment’s parking lot, and the smell of beer and burned hamburgers wafted up to my nose; I opened the doors and let the fall air and smoke encircle me. The Rams were up seven to zero, but Clemson had heart— each yard Harton gained hard won. Jacob was spectacular, according to the sportscasters. “He’s not just his old self again, he’s
better
!” one exclaimed after an impressive pass.

I kept my eye on Jacob throughout the game, trying to spot a hint of pain or hesitation in him. I saw neither— though, granted, the cameras weren’t especially interested in capturing glints in his eyes. They rolled into the fourth quarter with Harton still in the lead. Adams was pacing on the sidelines; the cameras panned to him during down time, speculating on how it felt to be relegated to the second string once again.

“And with that in mind, you’ve got to wonder what it’s like to be Jacob Everett right now,” one of the way-too-cheerful sportscasters said during a long shot of the marching band. “He’s more or less got to pack a season’s worth of amazing plays into the next few games if he’s still hoping to be a top NFL draft pick.”

“That’s right, Dan,” the other sportscaster— who I thought might also be named Dan?— said. “And you know, this is when we start to really talk about the difference between scoring the most points and really
winning
a game. Jacob Everett has made a truly amazing comeback here, and that’s no small thing given the measure of his injury…but he’s going to have to be more than just the Harton Hero if he wants to gain back the attention he lost while he was out.”

I decided that all men named Dan could go fuck themselves. What more did they want from Jacob? They said he was better than before, he was winning the game, he was spectacular— that was the word they’d used!
Spectacular
.

I suddenly didn’t care quite so much about how tender my heart felt about all things Jacob. I wanted him to win. I wanted the NFL people to see him and be amazed. If I wasn’t Jacob’s type, fine— that was only because he was going to be a super famous football player, the kind you see in Coke commercials and on Dancing with the Stars. Jacob Everett was going to be everything he’d ever wanted to be.

He wheeled his arm back. The clock was ticking down, the last thirty seconds of the game. There was no real way Clemson could win, but it was also unlikely Harton could score again, making the game a tidy win rather than a talked about upset, like Jacob needed. Jacob looked left, looked right, time slowed— this was his chance, his last chance in the game, to do something to get everyone’s attention. I knew, somehow, even before the ball left his hand, that he was going to take it. He was going to end the game and secure his place as the hero. He was going to get everything he’d wanted.

“Come on,” I whispered aloud to the television.

The ball rocketed from his hand, so fast it looked more like it’d been hit than thrown. The wide receiver ran backward, farther, farther, the announcers starting screaming. Forty yards, he’d thrown the ball forty yards, and there was no chance of anyone catching it except—

The wide receiver— Greene, it was Greene— leapt into the air. The ball landed neatly in his arms, and the moment his toes hit the ground, he started sprinting for the goal line. The stadium was in uproar, I was on my feet, my school work scattered on the ground,
go go go go go
—

“Touchdown! And that’s the game! An unbelievable pass by Everett, that was such an amazing risk and it paid off—“ the announcers were yelling breathlessly, like they’d just witnessed a miracle. The stadium exploded in green and gold color, the cameras panned across the coaches getting soaked with buckets of water, I collapsed back onto the couch, hands knitted together in pain and excitement. I wanted to go to Jacob, I wanted to celebrate with him, I should have
been there
to celebrate with him.

But it wasn’t meant to be
, I reminded myself.
That doesn’t mean you can’t be happy for him.

A petite blonde sportscaster on the field elbowed her way amongst the players, looking for Jacob. I stared, rapt, waiting to see his face on the screen—

“This doesn’t look good, I think something’s happening,” the reporter said, trying to look both at the camera and over her shoulder, at the same time. Coaches were shouting, players looked dire, the cheerleaders appeared to be huddled together, vying for the best view. When the crowd cleared, my head sunk.

It was Jacob. Oh the ground, being tended to by sports medicine doctors and coaches. Clutching his shoulder.

“I’d hate to think he played too soon and re-aggravated that injury,” one of the announcers said. “For a quarterback, shoulder problems can be career-ending.”

* * *

I
turned
the television off for several hours, though I couldn’t focus on much of anything. Where was Jacob now? The hospital? With his parents? Where was Adams? Was he celebrating with Piper? As the sun began to set, I dared to turn the television back on, hoping for an update to lessen the now overwhelming desire to text Jacob and check up on him. ESPN was just starting up their evening recap of all the college games, ticking through them before they finally began discussing Harton. Jacob’s pass was considered the play of the week, a bittersweet trophy given what the anchors said next.