Stroker: A Bad Boy Sports Romance (14 page)

I roll my eyes. “Charming.”

“That’s what I do. You’ve got nothing to worry about, trust me.”

“But you’re already the ‘bad boy of swimming’. The headlines write themselves.” I kiss him and drag the covers back over myself. “Now go, before Dad comes knocking again and finds you Frenching his daughter.

Smiling like a goofy idiot, Blake leaves, closing the door silently behind him, blowing a kiss in his wake.

When he’s gone, I collapse back onto the bed still delirious from the tongue-lashing I’ve just received. If that’s what it means to be with Blake Johnson, bring it on.

*

Blake’s busy at training the following morning, so I take time out to head down to the gym and see Lacey. She sees me coming, leaping down from a stack of mats.

Something’s wrong. She’s not her usual, bubbly self. No ‘Hey, gorgeous’ or ‘How’s it hanging?’.

“Lacey?” I question. “What’s wrong?”

She scratches her arm. “I wanted you to see this in person.”

A tendril of dread works its way into my gut. “See what?”

“Look.”

She takes her phone out of her bag, fingers working before holding up the screen to my face.

It’s the Fuckbook website, back in action, and guess whose front and center. The dread suddenly becomes overwhelming.

I’m staring at the Polaroid Blake took after we first had sex. Thankfully, I have a hand over my breasts, my legs crossed, but I’m still naked, I’m still exposed—
exposed to the world.

I sit down. “No. He told me he deleted the website.”

Lacey falls beside me, arm around my shoulder. “I’m sorry, babe.”

I stare at the phone and notice I’ve been rated a one out of five.
Blake wouldn’t do that, would he?
This can’t be right.

Lacey shakes her head. “You’ve been played.”

No,
I refuse to believe it, but the evidence is right there.

I pass the phone back, standing, furious.

“Tia, where are you going?”

I start to run towards the doors. “To kick some ass.”

*

I run into him coming out of the pool. He opens his arms up. “Hey, what a surprise.”

I shove him as hard as I can in the chest, my eyes wet and my nose running freely. “You fucking asshole!”

He barely moves, raising his hands. “What’s going on?”

I take out my phone and push it into his face. “This.”

He looks at the phone, eyebrows drawing downwards. “Tia, I didn’t do this.”

“You took the photo, didn’t you?”

“Yes, but…”

“You said you deleted the website.”

“I did.”

I shove him again, the tears falling freely from my face. “I fucking trusted you, Blake. I
trusted
you.”

“Tia…” he goes to grab me, but I spin out of his grip. “No, fuck you. Delete everything, do it properly, and stay the fuck out of my life.”

I run away as fast as I can, my name fading and with it any chance I had of the happiness that only yesterday seemed so close.

BLAKE

The apartment’s empty when I wake. I check my phone, but every message has gone unanswered. My finger hovers over the screen, but it’s useless trying to call her again. What I
should
be doing is working out how the fuck that website got back up and how that Polaroid found its way onto it. Only squad members had access to the site, and there’s only one member who’s got something against me.

I’m headed to the door when there’s a loud knock.

I look through the peephole. It’s Coach. I try to gauge his mood, but he’s good at hiding his emotions.

I grab the doorknob, pause.
Can’t really get any worse, can it?

I open the door.

Bad idea.

The second the door pulls back, Coach draws that damned baseball bat from behind his back and swings. I manage to duck just in time, the side of the doorframe splintering under the impact.

I back up, hands out. “Whoa!”

He swings again, the bat catching my shirt as I jump back.

I’ve never seen him so furious, and that’s saying something.

I keep stepping back and he walks forward pointing the bat. “You know why I’m here?”

No use hiding it. “We can talk about her. Put the bat down.”

“Like hell.” He charges again with the bat high above his head, bringing it down hard like an axe. I duck sideways, the bat smashing into the coffee table, glass exploding around the room.

I might be out of range of the bat, but Coach manages to swing with his left hand, his fist connecting deep in my chest.

I gasp, bent in half, still holding up a hand in surrender. I struggle to get out words. “It’s all a misunderstanding. Listen.”

He swings with the bat again, but this time I manage to catch it in one hand and pull it from him, tossing it into the corner.

He rolls up his sleeves. “All the things I’ve done for your sorry ass—your scholarship here, putting a roof over your head, even your dipshit brother’s, and
this
is how you repay me, by betraying my trust? I’ll rip you apart with my bare fucking hands if I have to. I’ve done it before. I’ll do it again.”

“Stop,” I plead, unable to comprehend how this has all gone so wrong, but I knew this day was coming. This was always the way it was going to go down.

He jabs right and manages to collect the side of my head, quick as lightning, he follows it with a sucker punch that lands square in the middle of my face. I stagger back, blood hot and coppery in my mouth. I snap, hooking in and smacking the side of his jaw.

His head jerks sideways, but when he comes back, wiping blood from the corner of his mouth, he’s smiling. “Is that all you’ve got? I was a fucking
SEAL
, son. I used to eat little pricks like you for lunch.”

He drives again but I snap right. He might have been quick once, but his reflexes are slow. He rounds on me again. “Come on, you fuck. Show me you’ve got a pair.”

“I love her,” I offer, but it only makes him angrier. He runs forward, head smashing into my torso, driving me against the wall so hard I feel the plaster break against my back.

I shove him away. “Enough!”

He shakes his finger at me. “How dare you put her on that website? How fucking dare you.”

I spit out a wad of blood. “I didn’t. Ethan did.”

Coach laughs, puffing out his chest. “Don’t blame this on someone else.”

“You’re right. It’s my fault, but I’m telling you, Tia isn’t another girl to me. I’d never do that to her.”

Coach sits on the back of the sofa, runs a hand through his spattering of hair. “I fucked up. What the hell was I thinking letting her live here with you two? What kind of a father am I to let a fuck-up like you take advantage of her? I promised her mother. I fucking promised her on her death bed I would take care of our daughter, and look what happened?” He wipes his nose with the back of his hand.

I take a cautious step forward, glass crumpling under my heel. “Let me make it right. Please.”

He looks up, shaking his head. “I’m going to make this very simple for you, son. End it.”

“But—”

“You love her?” he laughs. “You couldn’t possibly fathom what love is.”

I’ve had enough. “And you do? Abandoning your only child? What the fuck’s up with that?”

He stands, coming forward to stand chest to chest with me. I hold my ground, ready myself for the blow, and I want it. I want the pain, the chastisement, but he backs off, and it’s worse, much worse. “You’re a fucking disappointment, Blake, a real fucking waste of space. End it,” he says, “or I end you”. And with that he walks out.

Fucking hell.

I collapse onto the floor and don’t get up until Billy gets back from his morning run and takes in the room.

He steps over part of what used to be the coffee table. “He found out, didn’t he?”

I nod. “He sure did.”

He sits beside me, stretching his legs out and kicking fragments of glass away. “I had the website taken down, for good this time.”

“Ethan?”

“I suspect as much, probably had a backup of the whole thing.”

“And the Polaroid? How did he get hold of that?”

“He’s got a key to this place too, bro. We all do, remember?”

I do. When Coach got us this place we couldn’t believe our luck, a pad where we could bring home whoever we liked, do whatever we wanted. I had a key made for each squad member, even Ethan, and why not? At the time we were brothers, all of us. How fast things can change.

“What now?” Billy asks. “We’ve got nowhere to go.”

My phone rings on the counter. I leap for it, swiping to answer expecting Tia, hoping I can somehow repair this mess, but it’s not her.

I let the voice talk into my ear, barely take in what they’re saying before hanging up.

Billy stands, brushing himself off. “Who was that?”

I place the phone down, the black, blank screen of my phone a perfect summary of where my life is headed. “The Dean’s office. He wants to see me.”

*

I know the look on Dean William’s face. I saw it so many times growing up, the ‘I should have known better’ look. I brace myself.
Here we go.

“Do you know why you’re here?” he starts.

“I don’t think it’s hand to me a Nobel Prize, is it?”

“We found your little website, Blake.”

There’s no point pretending I don’t know what he’s talking about, but I’m not about to let the other guys take the fall. If anyone should, it’s Ethan, but linking him to it is tenuous at best. The whole thing was built around anonymity. I try the legal approach. “There’s no way you can connect it to me.” I’m right. Our faces and real names never appeared.

Dean Williams looks down at his desk, nodding. “You’re right. We can’t, but this,” he slides a photo across the desk to me, “this can”.

It’s a grainy shot of the Ethan and I fighting outside the old pool the night he tried to fuck Tia. In it, I’ve got him by the neck, fist connecting with his face. His arms are by his side. He doesn’t look like he’s putting up a fight, and that’s the problem.

I push the photo back. “You don’t know the full story. He was about to rape someone. He had to be stopped.”

“So why didn’t you call campus security, the police?”

I can’t think of an excuse on the spot.

“Because this was an illegal, unsanctioned event on campus property. There was alcohol, god knows what else, and here you are punching a fellow student.”

“Ethan’s out of control. You’ve got to believe me. He’s—”

The Dean puts his hand up. “No more, Blake. I don’t want to hear it. I know the other swimming squad members were behind the party. They will be disciplined.” He picks up the photo. “But this? I cannot allow it. The person who brought it forward won’t release it as long as I…”

“As you what?” I spit, my anger growing, everything building up on my back and threatening to crush me, make me a monster.

“Expel you.”

I stand up, knocking the chair over.
No.
“You can’t be serious.”

“I am. Consider this your formal notice.”

I slam my hand down on his desk, pens in a jar spilling onto the floor. “You can’t do this. What did Coach Reed say?” But I know Coach is the last person who’d have my back right now.

“I’m the Dean, Blake.
I
make the decisions. You’re a fine swimmer, maybe you will go on to make the Olympics, but it won’t be with Carver’s backing any longer. I’m sorry.”

I don’t know who took the photo that night, but it could have been anyone there were so many people watching, so many phones. Ethan found out, paid them off to drag me down, but I won’t go down without a fight.

Not a chance in fucking hell.

I’m not one to drag a fellow man down, but this has gone too far. “It’s because of his parents, isn’t it? How much do they contribute to this place? I mean, the whole damn pool complex was funded by them, wasn’t it? Did
they
ask for this?”

The Dean stands, fingers tented on the top of his desk. “That has
no
bearing on this at all, and frankly, I don’t appreciate the accusation.”

I stab my finger at him. “You should know your boy Ethan’s using, injecting himself with some super-drug before every session. Ask him about it, go on, or maybe about how he’s running around campus dealing drugs. Surely you know about that, you’re so high and mighty.”

He shakes his head. “You’re better than this, Blake. Go quietly before I call security.”

The motherfucker isn’t even listening. I draw my hand across his desk, drag all the papers and shit on it to the floor. “He’s a fucking drug dealer! Are you just going to let that go?”

The Dean stands. “Leave, now!”

I stand back, my temples pulsing, my heart beating hot with anger and pain, pure bile at this injustice. “Fine, but you remember this when everything comes undone. You remember this conversation.”

“Leave,” he repeats.

I head for the door, but before I get there, I turn once more, just can’t let it go. “And one more thing.”

“What’s that?”

“Fuck you and fuck Carver.”