Consumed: A MMA Sports Romance (45 page)

I took a deep breath. No—I wouldn’t
respond to him. I wouldn’t even reply to tell him that I was too busy with
homework. If I did, he might offer to come up and study with me; of course,
knowing Zack, he would be able to very quickly convince me to do anything but
study.

The next day, he tried again. I was in the
library, in the private study room that I’d reserved for the afternoon trying
to make heads or tails of the new Stats lesson. My phone buzzed, on silent per
library rules.

Hey,
are you mad at me? Can I at least get a chance to figure out what I did wrong?

My heart wrenched in my chest. It took all
I had not to open the message that was flashing on my screen and reply to
it—tell him that he hadn’t done anything wrong, that I wasn’t mad at him, that
I just needed some space and thought he did too. But instead I turned it off
altogether and tried to bury myself in my textbook.

When I got back to the dorm, there was a
note taped to my door.

Jess
let me in—I’d hoped you were here. Call me, please?

It was signed in Zack’s messy scrawl. I
ripped it off my door and went in, closing myself into my lonely room and
deciding that I’d rather just curl up and go to sleep rather than risk running into
him at the dining hall. I turned off the lights and tried not to think about
the times that Zack and I had been together, or the sound of his voice, or the
way that he seemed so interested in being with me. He would give up soon enough
and maybe later—if I hadn’t ruined things for good—I could explain to him that
I had just needed space, and wanted him to have the ability to focus on the
game. Even if he couldn’t forgive me for that, I needed to be able to tell him.
Maybe, I thought with a mixture of dread and hope, he would just forget about
me completely, and move on with his life. The frat he belonged to must be
having parties; there would be plenty of girls all around him vying for his
attention, more than happy to take his mind off of me.

The next morning, I woke up with my
stomach in knots, twisting in on itself from hunger. I realized that I had left
my phone turned off all night and dug it out of my bag, turning it on. At least
I hadn’t managed to oversleep. As my phone loaded up, I saw the flash of two
more messages and a voicemail—all of them from Zack.

Look,
just tell me you’re okay. I can’t find you and your roommate won’t tell me
where you are.
The second one read:
If I did something wrong you should at least give me a chance to
apologize.
 

Steeling myself, I opened up the voicemail
he’d left me. It was three minutes long. “Evie, come on, I know you’re avoiding
me. I just want to know why. My phone is showing all the texts are
delivered—and I saw you read most of them. What’s going on between us? I
already told you: no more public spectacles. I promise. Just give me a chance
to figure out what I did wrong and how I can make it right.”

My eyes stung as I deleted the message,
unable to listen to it all, and took a deep breath. I didn’t think he’d try to
contact me again after that. At least I hoped not. I just hoped that once
everything was said and done, I’d have some kind of a chance to explain to him
why. But then, I thought, I didn’t even fully understand why I was doing it
myself.

It would have been bad enough to handle
Zack’s texts if I was able to keep my reaction purely emotional; it bothered me
to hurt him—and I definitely was—but the sex I knew I was missing out on
bothered me almost as much. I had gotten so used to not getting any; even
before I started college, I had cut myself off from sex, having too much to
deal with after my mom died. Even more to the point I didn’t even particularly
want to date anyone after—not just because I was wrecked by having my biggest
support and cheerleader gone from my life, but because I had discovered that
guys were just a bunch of trouble.

But from the first time Zack and I had
made out, I felt the juices flowing in my veins again. When we’d had sex on the
couch at his frat, I’d been easy prey—it wouldn’t have been that difficult even
for Zack to convince me to head to his bedroom at the frat house during the
party. Now that it had happened again I was consumed with the memory of how
good he’d become, of how great it felt to have him touching me, tasting me. I
shivered in class as my brain—against my will—reminded me of how great Zack’s
cock had felt deep inside me, brushing against my inner walls, filling me up. I
couldn’t focus on my work the way I used to be able to easily; I was
distracted, having to take breaks to get myself off to the thought of Zack in
my bed again, going down on me or working me with his fingers, thrusting into
me, rocking his hips against mine until I came. I didn’t tell Jess about it,
but I was almost afraid of how intensely I wanted sex—how much I wanted to just
give in and call Zack, tell him to come over and screw my brains out.

I told myself that it would pass—that it
had always passed before—but I was on fire constantly, hoping and dreading that
I would run into Zack. If I just saw him, I knew I’d end up throwing myself at
him, begging him to forgive me and find us somewhere private where we could be
together. I could only grit my teeth and hope that it would pass in time, that
I would be able to get back together with Zack once the football season ended
and I could be with him without distracting him. It occurred to me more than
once that it was—for me at least—more distracting to be separated from him than
it was to be with him. But I had to stick with what I had decided. Even if it
was torturing me slowly every day.

****

I had to miss the staff meeting for the
newspaper; I told Professor Grant in advance and also emailed Lisa that I
couldn’t be there because of a class. They both told me that it was a perfectly
valid excuse, and Lisa said that I could drop by her office in the student
union after class to get my assignment from her. I hurried over to the student
union as soon as the professor let us out of class, and made my way to Lisa’s
office, still drinking the last of the coffee I’d brought for my late class and
ready to take notes on the assignment she had for me.

“Hey, come on in,” Lisa said, gesturing to
the chair on the other side of her desk. “I wanted to tell you we all really
loved your piece on the last game. The interview was great—you really got Zack
to open up!” My cheeks burned with a blush but I didn’t say anything,
struggling to keep my composure. I nodded, not quite trusting my voice. “In
fact, we didn’t have to do much editing to it at all! Good work.”

“Thanks—that means a lot.” I took a deep
breath. “So what have you got me on for next week, Chief?”

Lisa grinned. “Since you did so well on
the game last time, I figured you were a natural to cover the final game of the
season. This time, though, we want you to get an interview with Coach Bullden,
about our prospects for the nationals, that sort of thing.”

I nodded quickly. The very last thing I
wanted in the world was to have to go to another football game and watch Zack.
But I couldn’t exactly tell Lisa that the reason I’d been able to get Zack to
open up to me was because he and I had a history together—a history that I was
risking by staying away from him. Besides, since I couldn’t make the meeting,
there probably weren’t any other assignments open anymore, and I wanted to make
sure I was in the campus paper as many times as I could be.

Lisa gave me the details and asked me to
do some research on my own about the coach—his career, his strategies, the kind
of material that would make a good profile on the man to accompany the coverage
of the final game of the season and the one that would determine our position
in the national level. I took notes, trying to calm myself. I wouldn’t have to
even talk to Zack, I told myself over and over again. I would just ignore
him—as much as you can ignore the quarterback when it came to a major football
game. I would cover the game, talk to the coach, and have done with it. If I
had any luck at all, Zack would just head straight for the showers after the
game and I could get my interview without any fuss or even any attempt from him
to talk to me—he might not even know I was there until the article came out.

CHAPTER
THREE

Jess had a date for the night of the
game—away from campus, with a guy she had met in Women’s Studies. So I went to
the stadium all on my own. I had my campus newspaper ticket and my press pass
that would allow me to get onto the field after the game, and I told myself
that I would be just fine on my own, that it didn’t matter; after all, when I’d
gone the last time, Jess had left when I went out onto the field to talk to
Zack. With my notebook and camera, I’d be left to my own devices, more or less,
by the people seated with me.

I thought about what I should wear. Jess,
I know, would have suggested that I dress up for the event—wear something cute,
something just a little sexy. Especially since she would assume that I would be
waiting for Zack at the end of the game. On the other hand, the very last thing
that I wanted was to look as though I was interested in flirting. I decided to
dress as plainly as possible; the main benefit to that was also that it would
at least be comfortable—but I also didn’t want to look like a scruffy,
unprofessional college kid. Not when I had to interview the head coach. I put
on my least-ratty pair of jeans and a medium-brown cardigan over a matching
camisole. I put my hair in a bun, smoothed back but not overdone. I kept my
face mostly clean, just a little powder and lip tint to make me look polished.
It was a relief to be going to a game without having to worry about if I would
smear my eye makeup or my lipstick. I could focus entirely on the game; I’d be
practically invisible.

The stadium was absolutely packed with
people—as it should be, considering it was the last game of the season, with
some of the highest stakes. But the team we were playing against wasn’t huge
competition—they were ranked third or fourth overall, with more losses than the
team we’d been up against the last game. It should have been a decent game, but
overall the chances of us winning were pretty good.

I grabbed pictures of the packed stands,
of the marching bands on either side warming up the audiences. I tried to
figure out what my angle for the article would be; after all, it wasn’t going
to be a massive struggle like it had been for the team they were up against the
previous week. There was no real rivalry between our school and the one we were
playing. I couldn’t focus on Zack—because I already had in the previous
article, and because I frankly didn’t think I could handle it. I decided that I
would—without Jess’ flirting to distract me—look at the game as a way to show
off my knowledge of strategy and tactics in football.

Part of my research on the coach had been
on football strategy in general. Of course, the skill of individual players
came into play with the game—it was unavoidable. And if you had the best
possible players in all positions, you didn’t have to worry that much about
strategy. But knowing that another team had a particular weakness on the
defense, or a lag in their offense because of certain players, could mean the
difference between win and loss. I had looked over Coach Bullden’s usual
strategies and tactics, the way he put his players to the best possible use.
I’d also done a little bit of digging on the strategies of the coach that
Bullden would be up against.

I was starting to feel more than a little
bit fidgety as the bands played on, and the crowd of people continued chanting,
watching the cheerleaders on the sidelines performing. I just wanted to get the
game over with; it would be a definitive win, and then I would get my interview
and have a rest from the pounding of my heart.

The opposing team took the field first,
coming out of the lockers with a roar. They may not have been the best team in
the division, but they looked energetic, in their white, black, and gold
jerseys. They warmed up on the field, garnering plenty of cheers from their
fans in the stands. They were clearly hungry to prove themselves—they were up
against the number one team in the division, which should have daunted them,
but it would be a great opportunity if they could manage to score a few times
against us; at least if they put on a good game, they could lose with dignity.
They went back to their sidelines, jumping up and down, smacking themselves,
and I grabbed a few more pictures of them.

Our team finally took the field with a
burst of enthusiastic musical noise from the marching band, running out of the
locker rooms and basking in the cheers of the fuller section of the stadium
that belonged to the home team. I tried not to look for Zack while I snapped
pictures of the team warming up and showing off. The team looked confident, as
they should; they had a winning record, they were on their way to a bowl game,
and they were almost certain to win that night’s game. I thought, with a sudden
sense of foreboding, that I hoped they wouldn’t take it too easy on the other
team—even if they were the best team in the division, they couldn’t afford to
become overconfident.

As the game started, it was difficult for
me to try and piece together just what the problem was; the teams had both
taken the field full of energy and looking confident in themselves. But from
the first play, I was shocked at how disorganized our team was. Zack went down
in a tackle right away. I watched in concern, but he got up onto his feet and
shouted something, and then they were onto the next play. The other team seemed
to sense something different in our team; they took advantage, rapidly getting
their first touchdown early in the first quarter and then managing somehow to
keep our offensive line at bay through most of the rest of the period. I shook
my head, and I wasn’t alone; the people in the stands next to me were murmuring
amongst themselves between plays, wondering out loud what was wrong with Zack.