Consumed: A MMA Sports Romance (47 page)

I left the stadium, shivering against the
chill in the air. It was a long walk across the campus to the dorms, but I
didn’t mind it. I had a lot to think about; in the back of my mind I could
still see Zack’s face—hopeful, excited—as he’d called out to me, asking if I
needed to interview him again. I closed my eyes and swallowed against the lump
in my throat. It wasn’t fair—it wasn’t nice—but I knew I had made the only
choice I could in the situation.

I managed to get the article done just as
quickly as the first I had written for the newspaper; I sent it to Coach
Bullden to get his approval—I hadn’t embelished anything, or tried anything
fancy at all. The story of the game was compelling on its own, and I was glad
that I had done my research to learn about passing game and running game,
strategy and tactics; it fleshed out what there was to say about the game
itself and the reasons that it had so nearly gone poorly for us. The coach
replied to my email quickly, thanking me for doing such a thorough job and for
getting his quotes precise.

You
have a bright future in front of you as a journalist, Evelyn. Keep your
wonderful manners and obvious passion for getting it right, and I think you’ll
have all your subjects eating out of your hand.

I turned it into Lisa, and she looked over
it while I was in the office with her. “This is fantastic, Evelyn!” she said as
she finished it. “You really captured the drama of the game, the complexities
of what was going on—and I like that you put in the different theories the
people in the crowd had for why the team was struggling, alongside the coach’s
explanation.” She scrolled through the pictures I had included, nodding a few
times. “We’ve got a lot to work with. I’m glad Grant signed you on. You’re
working out really well!”

I couldn’t help but beam at the
praise—after all, as the newest member of the staff, I had the most to prove.
As long as I could keep Lisa happy, keep the people I was interviewing happy,
and most importantly, keep my grades up, it would be a very good addition to my
resume.

Once the assignment was over, though, I
still found it hard to keep myself focused. Zack didn’t try to call or text me
again after the game and I was almost surprised—though why should I be, when I
had ignored him so obviously. I must have thought that he would try harder to
win me back. But that was ridiculous—stuff out of a bad romantic comedy. Zack
had gotten my message; even if he had gotten a stronger message than I had
intended. He was obviously already moving on.

CHAPTER
FOUR

After a few days, Jess cornered me in the
dorm room while I sat in front of the TV, studying History and half-watching an
episode of
Bones
. “Something is up
with you,” she said, sitting down in a chair nearby without preamble. “Spill
it.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,”
I said, shrugging and pulling my History textbook closer to me. There were so
many battles to remember—so many dates in the Civil War—that I despaired of
ever keeping them all straight in my head for the final. I highlighted
something that was totally irrelevant, shaken slightly by Jess’ opening.

“Oh come off it already, Evie. Anyone who
knows you even a little bit could tell you’re off your feed. What’s wrong? Did
you get a C on something?”

I smiled slightly, pushing my hair away
from my face and setting my textbook aside. It was clear that Jess wasn’t going
to leave me alone until she got an answer to her question.

“No, I haven’t gotten any bad grades,” I
said, looking at the TV rather than at her. “I will hopefully have an A in
everything except Stats, and I’m more than happy to scrounge a B in that
infernal class.”

Jess laughed. “Okay, so then what is it?
Because every time I see you you’ve got this gloomy look on your face like
someone is holding your puppy ransom.”

I rolled my eyes. “I just…okay. Fine. So
here’s the thing.” I took a deep breath. “I haven’t been seeing Zack for a
while. A couple of weeks. It’s no big deal or anything, but it sort of has me…
confused, I guess?”

Jess raised an eyebrow.

“So let me get this straight: the cute QB
who you told me is now apparently great in bed, who proclaimed his love for you
in front of half of the student body, just brushed you off?”

I shook my head.

“Not…exactly.” I looked down at my lap and
picked at lint balls on the blanket I’d spread over myself, twisting my lips
into a grimace. “See, I’m…I’m the one who’s not seeing him. Not the other way
around.”

“What? Why the hell not? He didn’t like,
try and do something gross, did he?”

I shook my head, my cheeks burning. I
sighed, deciding that I would have to tell Jess the whole story; I owed it to
her.

“So after Zack and I had sex…when I got
back from classes, there was this guy hanging out outside of our dorm.” Jess’
eyes widened. “It was one of Zack’s teammates—one of the tackles, I guess. I
don’t know if he was offense or defense. But he told me I shouldn’t hang out
with Zack anymore, or have anything to do with him.” I rolled my eyes.

“What an asshole! Did he tell you why?”

I shook my head. “No, just said that even
though we didn’t really know each other, he’d consider it a personal favor. I
don’t know what he was thinking.” I scrubbed at my face with my hands. “Anyway,
I told him to get the hell out of the dorm before I called one of the RAs. He
left but it got me to thinking—I was really kind of letting things go too fast
with Zack anyway.”

“Well, I mean, a date and sex twice—that’s
not really that fast.”

“But we have history,” I insisted. “I was
already…I mean, look: I wasn’t like, planning our wedding or anything, but he
was already starting to be a distraction, and I guess I sort of figured that I
was a distraction for him too—otherwise why would one of his teammates hang out
like a creeper at my door to ask me not to have anything to do with him?”

Jess shrugged. “Maybe the guy knows
there’s a case of herpes raging through the locker room and doesn’t want you to
get it.”

I rolled my eyes. “It wouldn’t be a favor
to him, then, would it? He’d be doing me a favor.” Jess shrugged and nodded,
conceding the point. “Anyway, I decided to sort of put Zack and me on hold for
a bit.”

“Ah, so that’s why he was in here the
other day looking for you. I just sort of figured he was really horny and you
weren’t in any of your usual haunts.”

I rolled my eyes. “I kind of…didn’t tell
him, exactly.” I felt my cheeks burning with embarrassment at how poorly I’d
handled the situation. “I answered the first text he sent me saying that I was
busy and couldn’t hang out but after that I just sort of…didn’t answer.”

Jess sucked her teeth, grimacing. “I know
you’re not exactly one for confrontation, Evie,” she said, her voice sounding
only slightly disapproving, “But man, that’s not the way to go. You should have
just said ‘Zack, I think we should take a break.’ Or something.”

“But he’d want to know why and I’d be kind
of a bitch to tell him one of his teammates came to try and talk me out of
having anything to do with him, right?”

“Well yeah, but it’s more of a bitchy move
to just ignore the poor guy.” She made a face, thinking for a moment. Her eyes
went wide. “Oh, shit—you had to cover the game and interview the coach! How did
that
go?”

I bit my bottom lip, remembering all too
well how it had gone. “He saw me coming onto the field to do the post-game
interview and came over, asking if I needed a quote from him.” My cheeks burned
as I remembered the way he’d called out that he wouldn’t even make me go on
another date with him for it. “I just sort of…ignored him and went right to the
coach.” I twisted my lips, feeling ashamed of myself. “I’m kind of a bitch,
aren’t I?”

Jess laughed. “If you really were a bitch,
you wouldn’t be asking that question like it’s the worst thing you could be.”
She went into the mini fridge that we kept in the common area and took out a
bottle of water for each of us. “Okay, so this dude shows up and tries to
convince you to stop seeing Zack. You tell him to go to hell, but when you
think about it you decide it’s probably a good idea after all.” I nodded. “So
when Zack tries to hook up, you basically put him on ice, because it’s too hard
to explain everything that’s going on.”

“Basically, yeah. I probably should have
asked you for advice first, huh?”

“Yeah. Live and learn. So Zack gets all
worked up and then gives up because, of course he does…and then at the game he
nearly blows it.”

“Oh come on, that can’t be my fault. There
were a whole bunch of mistakes and things that happened, and that other team
was just looking for an opportunity to score on us.”

Jess shrugged. “Well yeah, but where did
the mistakes come from? Like was it the whole team, or was it Zack?”

I thought about what I had seen in the
course of the game. The team itself had been disorganized, confused—Zack wasn’t
where he was supposed to be, he was slow, and he didn’t get the ball where it
needed to be at the right moment.

“It was…okay, so it was mostly Zack.” I
sighed. “But come on, that can’t be my fault. Zack was probably feeling the
pressure.”

“You tell me: when he played in high
school, was he the kind of guy to crack under pressure?” I picked at the
blanket, not wanting to admit what was apparently already clear to Jess.

“No,” I said reluctantly. “He lives for
pressure. He thrives on it. At least he did in high school.” Jess smiled
slowly.

“I don’t know why you’re so down about it.
The verdict is clear: Zack plays better when you’re in the picture. Without you
he’s all distracted and stupid.”

“He’s pretty stupid, generally,” I said,
smiling in spite of myself.

Jess laughed. “Well yeah, but you saw how
he played. It’s obvious he can’t function properly without you.”

I rolled my eyes even though I was still
smiling, my cheeks warm at the thought of Zack being unable to function
properly without me. But then my pleasure at the thought came crashing down.

“If that’s true,” I said slowly, feeling
guilt tugging at my stomach, “then I’ve totally screwed him up.”

Jess shrugged. “Well, so then fix it.
Shouldn’t be hard.”

I groaned, rolling my eyes. “How am I
supposed to fix it? Run up to him and make out with him in the quad?”

Jess laughed. “Well that’s one way. But
probably you should at least explain to him what’s going on, give him a chance
to understand why you acted the way you did.”

“What if he hates me?”

“I mean, if he hates you it’s because of
what you already did—not much you can do about that.” I had to acknowledge that
that was true. “You know you’re going to be miserable until you go back to him
and at least try to explain things.”

I looked at my history textbook. “You’re
right. I’ll do it tomorrow.” Jess giggled, taking her bottle of water with her
back into her room.

CHAPTER
FIVE

The next night, I made the trek across
campus to see Zack. I knew the frat was throwing a party—there were fliers for
it all over campus—but I wasn’t there to get drunk. It was just a question of
not having the opportunity until evening to actually talk; my schedule was too
packed. It was already dark when I left the dorms; Jess had detained me in my
room until she was completely satisfied with how I looked to confront Zack and
tell him what was on my mind.

“You can’t just go over there looking like
you just left the library,” Jess told me when I announced I was going to go
find Zack.

“Why not? I did just leave the library.”

Jess groaned and dragged me to my bedroom,
sitting me down on the bed as she rummaged through my closet.

“You need to look like you’re on point,
girl,” Jess said, picking up and putting back hangers, flipping through the
different dresses, skirts, shirts, and everything else in my closet.

“If Zack doesn’t want to listen to what I
have to say then wearing something different isn’t going to change that.”

“First of all,” Jess said, turning to face
me with her arms crossed over her chest. “You don’t know that for sure. Looking
sexy could very well tip the balance. Second of all, you’re going to be seeing
a bunch of his frat brothers too—you don’t want them to give you the
run-around, do you?”

“They’re not going to treat me any
differently based on how I’m dressed, Jess.”

Jess sighed. “Okay. Say Zack has given up
on you and told his frat brothers he doesn’t want to talk to you. You show up
looking like you’ve been under a pile of books all afternoon, you’re nothing
more than a mousey freshman. Easy to run interference on. Roll up looking so
hot you might burn them and they won’t have any blood flowing to their brains
to think of lying to you.” I tried to come up with an argument against that,
but I couldn’t.

So Jess picked out a skintight pencil
skirt for me to wear, and as soon as it was on, she inched up the hem a little
bit to show more of my legs. “It’s cold outside!” I protested, trying to tug
the fabric back down. Jess swatted my hand away.