Kicked: A Bad Boy Sports Romance (17 page)

That's why we understood each other so well; I was exactly the same way.

“These are for me?” I asked as I took the shoes in my hands and checked the size. They were a size six. “And now I know why you asked me my shoe size.” I tried not to smile, but it happened anyway. I looked him in the eyes. “Thank you.”

“It's the least I can do,” he said, but then quickly brushed off the sticky feeling in the air by waving his tattooed hand at me. “They might take a while to break in, but you want to try a practice run around the park?” Tyce paused to pull out a black wifebeater that was hanging from the edge of his sweatpants. When he slipped it over his sweaty chest, I suddenly found it a lot easier to think.

“Why not?” I said, sitting down on the nearest bench and pulling off my dirty, old sneakers. I tied the laces in a knot and set them aside. I didn't have a lot, so I wasn't really into purging. If I could stick my feet in the shoe and walk around in them, I was keeping them. “This is really nice of you, Tyce. You didn't have to buy me anything.”

“I know,” he said, but he didn't elaborate, watching me as I laced up my new shoes and stood up, hopping from foot to foot to test them out. They were perfect, a tiny slice of heaven on my heels and toes. I stared down at the metallic silver stitching and green and black stripes while Tyce continued to study me. “Are we okay? I didn't feel good after our coffee thing.”

I bent down and touched my toes, pressing on the material to see how much room I had. Just enough to keep my feet from hitting the end, not enough that the heel would slip. I concentrated on that because I didn't want to put too much thought into this conversation.

“I was surprised to see your text yesterday, but I like the idea.” I stood up, stretched my obliques with a lean to the right, then the left. I wanted to tell him that we could've started as friends all along, that if he'd just said,
'Hey Teagan! What a coincidence, bumping into you here,'
that our relationship would be a hell of a lot less complicated. But I'd already told him how pissed I was. More than once. It was time to move on. “I could always use another friend. It feels good to have people, you know?”

Tyce went really still, like he was considering saying something important. The wind grabbed his clove brown hair and tossed it around his face before he raked it back with his fingers.

“It really does.” Tyce stood up and put his hands on his hips, making my heart do this fucked up little flip-flop thing. Crap. Maybe that was just a side effect of losing my virginity to him? If I found another guy I liked, started sleeping with him, wouldn't that just go away or something? Ugh. “Ready to run?”

“I'll race you to the stadium?” I asked and Tyce smiled back at me.

We both knew he would win.

“You're going to a Halloween party with
Tyce Winship
?” Melia asked me when I finally called her back and apologized for skipping game day. “Which one? Because I need to come and see this for myself. I know about maybe ten or eleven parties happening tonight. Narrow this down for me.”

“One of the guys on the team is local, and his parents own some huge mansion in Southwest Eugene. I don't know the exact address.”

“Don't need it. I know
exactly
where you're going. Mason Fenna's place.”

“Mason Fenna?” I wracked my brain trying to match the player with his position, but I wasn't nearly as good at all this sports stuff as Melia was. She sighed at me and turned on some loud reggae music in the background; it was her going out playlist. I'd already heard it several times since we'd met. Melia liked to go out
a lot.
At least she was a happy drunk.

“He's in the twos,” she told me, meaning he was a second string player. “Sophomore QB, all geared up to take Tyce's place when he goes into the NFL next season.”

“Oh.” Talking about Tyce leaving after I'd just found him again made me feel weird. I already knew he was pushing it by adding a third year to his college career. Most guys as good as him skipped out and into the NFL as soon as they could. After all, you never knew when an injury might happen so it was best to go pro and snatch those fat paychecks ASAP. I knew all of this, not from Tyce himself, but from Melia and her football obsessed posse. They practically worshipped at the Ducks altar.

“I'm dressing up as a cheerleader, not entirely original I know, but I want to get laid by a football player and live out a fantasy here.” I listened to her describe her green and yellow costume, but I had a difficult time imagining her actually wearing it. Melia was … I didn't want to put her in a box, but she had hairy armpits, a mandala tattooed on the back of her neck and a pet tarantula. Cheerleader was definitely an 'out there' costume for her. “What about you?”

“I'm not sure yet,” I lied, because all I was sure about was that I didn't have money for a costume. I had a fallback plan though—makeup. I had plenty of it, most of it stolen from the drug store back home. Not something I was proud of, but it was over and done with and I had it here with me now, so I was going to use it. “I'll send a pic when I figure it out.”

“Don't worry about it. I'll be at the party, and we'll dance—and then you'll hand me your cherry popping friend for a sexy number, preferably one that involves twerking.”

“Tyce is kind of a dick. If you want to dance with him, ask him. I'll see you in a few hours.”

I hung up on Melia and ignored the frantic pumping of my heart. Cherry popping. Jesus. How gross. It made me think of scrubbing blood off my thighs, alone. I didn't want to think about that right now. Tyce was actually as cool as I remembered him when we weren't fighting or fucking. I needed to hold onto that.

'Can I come over early for pre-drinking?'
Tyce texted as I opened the top drawer of my dresser and tried to figure out how I was going to come up with a costume idea that made sense.
'I'll bring the booze if you tell me what you're wearing tonight.'

I frowned and grabbed an old white dress of my mother's from the pile of rumpled clothes. I didn't fold anything—ever. I just didn't have time for it with school and … Tyce drama. I laid it out on the bed and then snatched the blue corset I'd bought at the thrift store last week. It was in the dollar bin, okay? I didn't know how I felt about wearing somebody else's used lingerie, but it seemed to be in pretty good shape. Royal blue, lined with satin, with a set of ties in the back and hook and eyes in the front. I had no clue what to do with it, but it'd seemed like a costume-y thing at the time, so I bought it.

'You can come over, but I don't know what I'm wearing. You?'

A picture buzzed into my phone.

It was Tyce, dressed in very, very little. He was sporting tight jeans, black boots, and absolutely no shirt. Um. The long, lean shot of his midsection was emphasized by the height of the camera as he'd lifted it above his head. The shape of his mouth said he knew how delicious he looked right now.

'That is not a costume,'
I told him as I glanced down at the white shift, the blue corset. My mind was starting to flick ideas around, coming up with a creative mishmash of a plan.
Galaxy.
I wanted to go as a galaxy tonight. Why not? The world was a big place, but it was a speck when compared to the entirety of the galaxy. Besides, a killer makeup idea had just popped into my head.

'Is too. I'm going as a rock star. They never wear any fucking clothes.'

'I don't know what kind of rock shows you've been going to, but they usually wear more than that.'

'I'm gonna sound like a douche, but I've been too busy with games and practice to figure anything else out. You're not too embarrassed to go with someone in such a lame fucking costume?'

Embarrassed to attend the party with a guy who was on his way into the NFL, who had six pack abs, who pretty much everyone at the university lusted after. Hmm. Tough choice.

'Better than that time you dressed up as your foster mom for Halloween.'

I remembered that like it was yesterday, Tyce dolled up in bright pink lipstick, a blonde wig and a navy blue suit he'd stolen from Jackie's closet. He'd even stuffed his shirt with water balloons. One of them broke during trick or treating. It was
amazing.

He sent me back an
LOL
and then,
'Yeah, those were the days. Can't wait to see what you decide to wear. See you in twenty, Tea?'

'I'll be waiting.'

I sent off that last text, my heart bouncing up into my throat like it was on a trampoline. I hated getting nervous about Tyce, but I couldn't make it stop. I didn't know how. Instead, I made a plan to grab some of Chelease's fabric paints and splatter the dress in artful blues and purples and golds, like a swirl of nebulous gas or something. It was quick dry, so it'd be ready to wear in a jiff. I'd be able to check off the
sexy
Halloween angle with the corset and the lacy shortness of the shift dress, but it'd be the makeup that would pull it all together.

Now, I just needed to make sure my roommate would let me borrow her precious craft supplies. She got mad at me once for using her glue gun without asking to fix the heel of my old tennis shoe.

“Hey Chelease,” I asked as I moved into the living room and found her digging costume pieces out of an orange bag from the Halloween store. She'd bought everything for her sexy witch costume two weeks ago. On top of everything as usual. It wasn't very inventive, but considering what I knew of Chelease, that was as out there as Melia's cheerleading outfit. Polar opposite girls, polar opposite costume choices. “Can I borrow your paints for a quick costume fix? I promise I won't mess anything up.”

“Sure,” she said, nodding her head at the small hallway linen closet, the one that didn't actually have any linens in it. It was filled with Chelease's arts and crafts supplies. “Fifth shelf down on the right.”

“Perfect, thank you,” I chirped, in way too good of a mood. But I was going out, and I was having fun with Tyce, and … I just didn't feel like being in a bad mood anymore. “Oh, and my friend Tyce will be here in a little bit. Just wanted to give you a heads up.”

The sound of crinkling plastic in the dining area stopped and this deadly sort of silence settled in the air around us. I grabbed the plastic bin, stuffed to the brim with neatly organized fabric paints, and then stood up, closing the hallway door with my foot.

Chelease was glaring at me, her brown eyes almost black with dilated pupils.

“Is everything okay?” I asked her as she reached up and tore the pale blue scarf off her head. “Chelease?”

“No,” she snapped at me, throwing things around as she searched for something in her costume pile. “It's not. Why do you keep hanging out with that guy? I saw him hit you, Teagan. I saw you stumble home from the park looking like you'd had your heart broken in half. And after coffee, your eyes were empty and blank. You don't have to give into him just because he plays for the Ducks.”

“I'm not,” I snapped back, suddenly defensive. Had I looked
that
terrible after my outings with Tyce? “And he didn't hit me. I fell.”

“Sure, whatever,” Chelease growled as she tore open a plastic bag and shook out a glittery purple witch hat. It snapped into its triangle shape with a
pop.
“Lie to yourself if you want, but don't lie to me, okay?”

I moved into the living room, my bare feet whispering across the beige carpet as I came to stand next to her. The thing that was driving her, that I'd wondered about, it was starting to peek out the edges of her carefully groomed facade. And it was bad. That much was obvious based on her reaction.

When I reached out to put a hand on her shoulder, she jerked violently away from me.

“Chelease, what's wrong?” Without warning, her eyes filled with tears and she started ripping her own dress off, slipping the witch outfit over her head with violent, jerking motions. I watched as she pulled a petticoat up her legs and fluffed out the skirt. “Did Tyce do something to you?” I started to freak inside, worrying about a past hookup gone wrong or something, but that was just me being a selfish, stupid a-hole. It was so much worse than that.

“Not Tyce,” she snapped, kicking off her sandals and grabbing a pair of pantyhose from the table. “Not exactly.” Chelease sniffed as tears rolled down her cheeks in fat, wet drops, splattering her bare toes and bouncing off her carefully applied purple polish. “I just don't trust guys like him, Teagan, and I don't want to see you get hurt.”

“Guys like what?” I asked carefully, aware that we were stepping into dangerous territory here. I set the paints on the table, my hands resting on either side of the bin as I watched Chelease lift the top off a box of black heels and toss them on the floor. She flopped into a chair and started yanking the pantyhose up her right leg.

“Entitled dicks.” A grunt as the nylons caught on the edge of her heel. I'd hardly call Tyce
entitled
even now, but he was an asshole. And he did have a bit of a god complex going on. Still, I wanted to defend him. Despite everything, I still wanted to stand up and be on his side. “Football players. Whatever. Same difference. They treat these athletes like they're literal gods and some of them really start believing it.”