“I don’t feel sorry for you,” Riley said matter-of-factly, one hip kicking to the side with extra sass as she crossed her arms and looked down at where I sat at our small dining table. “You’ve known about this paper the entire semester. I told you not to wait to start it. And what did you do?”
I sighed, glaring at the blank cursor as it blinked back at me on my laptop screen.
My eyes flitted back to Riley, who had absolutely zero idea how fucking sexy she looked in that moment. Her long hair was dirty and piled on top of her head in a messy ponytail, most of that grime thanks to how much I’d had my hands in that mop of hair lately. My Rebels Athletics t-shirt hung loose on her, cutting off just below the hem of her tiny boy shorts I knew she wore underneath only because I’d seen her pull them on this morning.
Suddenly, that paper was the last thing on my mind — even if my eligibility to play football hinged on it.
I kicked back in my chair, standing and sliding my arms around Riley as I pulled her close. She went stiff at first, like she was going to pull away, but a smile spread on her lips when my hands slid down to grip her ass firmly.
“This isn’t helping,” she said pointedly.
“I beg to differ.”
I husked the words under the shell of her ear, sucking her lobe between my teeth next and earning the soft little mewl I was aiming for. But as soon as my cock hardened and Riley felt it press against her stomach, she shoved her hands into my chest and put space between us.
“Sit,” she said with a snap of her fingers, and then pointed to my vacated chair. “And write.”
I stomped my feet and flopped down in the chair. “But I don’t wanna.”
She managed a laugh at my tantrum, sliding up behind me with her hands finding my shoulders. She massaged the muscles, sore from a hard week of practice, and I hummed my approval, sinking back in the chair.
“Need some motivation?”
Another hmmm was my only response.
“I have an assignment I have to work on, then I’m getting in the shower and heading out to class. I’ve got a full day after that — practice and tape and meetings.” Each word was a lullaby on her lips, slow and sexy. “Plus, I’m meeting with my group for our project after. So,” she said, leaning down to speak low in my ear. The feel of her sweet mouth sent another jolt right to my cock. “You’ve got two hours to get this paper done and join me in the shower, or it’s going to be a long…” Her hands dove down my chest and over my abdomen. “Cold…” She ran those hands along my erection as I groaned and flexed into the touch. “Hard night.”
She kissed my cheek with that, removing her hands and every other part of her warmth as she sashayed away from me and toward her bedroom.
“That’s just cruel,” I called after her.
She chuckled, pausing in her doorway. “It’s not that bad. I had Professor Marks over the summer, and as long as you show effort and a general understanding of supply and demand, inflation, and recession — he’ll pass you.”
I blinked at her like she’d just spoken in German.
With a roll of her eyes, she popped back over long enough to turn my laptop toward her and pull up a Google Drive account. A few clicks later, and she had a full economics essay on the screen.
“Here. This is mine from last semester. Read it over and see if it gets the juice flowing.”
I sighed heavy again, but before she could walk away, I caught her by the wrist and pulled her down for a long, heavy kiss.
“Thank you,” I murmured against her lips when she was thoroughly winded.
She smiled. “Get your paper done. I really don’t want to shower alone…”
She tiptoed her fingers down my chest, tugging at the band of my sweatpants with a swipe of her tongue over her lips before she was off my lap and in her bedroom, the door firmly shut behind her.
Another long huff left me as I turned my attention to the essay staring back at me on the screen. Every molecule in my body resisted reading it, resisted working on my own, resisted anything that had to do with homework. I wished so badly that I could skip this part and just be an athlete without the student part attached.
But this was part of the process, and if I wanted to play pro, I had to make a name for myself in college, first.
I wasn’t sure how long I sat there angry and annoyed before I put my headphones on and finally started reading. It took far too long, as it always did, and I had to battle my frustration every step of the way as the letters and words blurred and blended like they were dancing and I was trying to keep up.
But I read it, slowly but surely, and then, by some miracle, I managed to start writing my own paper.
I went over the notes Riley had helped me with throughout the semester to outline my main points before I started the actual essay, bullet pointing what was most important so I didn’t forget or gloss over it. The opening was the hardest part, and then I had those bullet points to guide me.
Time passed faster than I realized, because I had only two-and-a-half of the five pages done when Riley opened her bedroom door, smiling at me wickedly as she stripped my t-shirt overhead and trotted into the bathroom in just her boy shorts. She looked over her shoulder at me when she slowly stripped those off, too — closing the door behind her.
A moment later, the shower kicked on.
“Fuck me,” I groaned, cracking my neck before I turned back to my laptop.
I wrote like a man possessed after that, cross-referencing Riley’s paper and my outline as my fingers flew over the keyboard. Letters and words continued that dance as I worked, transitioning from a slow two-step to a frantic foxtrot. I felt like that GIF of Jim Carrey from Bruce Almighty, and I had no concept of how much time had passed before I wrote the last sentence and slammed my laptop shut.
“DONE!”
I yelled loud enough that I was met with a low belly laugh from the shower. In ten seconds flat, I had my own clothes littering the floor, and I peeled back the shower curtain long enough to slip inside and feel the warm water raining down on my cool skin.
“You did it,” Riley remarked with a smile, looping her arms around my neck as I pulled her tight body into mine. I was already hard and aching and desperate to be inside her.
“And now, I’m going to do you.”
She snorted a laugh. “Oh, my God, Zeke.”
But before she could make fun of me for the lame line, I whipped her around and bent her over, her hands catching the shower wall as a gasp of surprise flew from her parted lips.
I lowered to my knees, arched her back more, spread her cheeks, and ran my tongue from her swelling bud all along her slick seam.
As I reaped my reward, I smiled at how she lost the ability to make any more jokes.
“Oh, God. I can’t look.”
Riley squeezed my forearm so hard I winced before she closed her eyes, only to creak her lids open enough to peek through as our offense lined up on the twenty-two-yard line. The blistering wind whipped against our faces, skin pink and breath puffing out in clouds of white.
With only twenty-six seconds left on the clock, we were down by three, and everything hinged on the next couple of plays.
If we got a few more yards and got out of bounds, we’d likely try again. Coach would love to see a touchdown to end the game rather than a kick to take us into overtime.
But if the Eagles defense stopped us, Riley would be going in for a kick.
In thirty-degree weather with the wind gusting twenty-five miles an hour.
It wasn’t the worst wind she’d face in her time as a kicker, but I knew the pressure was mounting, knew how nervous she was even though she’d already made a field goal this game and sealed every extra point kick, too.
“Breathe,” I told her, and as soon as I said the word, the ball was snapped.
I went against my own advice, breath lodged in my chest as I watched Holden throw a pass right into Kyle’s hands. Our sideline erupted, especially when Kyle managed to get out of bounds with thirteen seconds left.
A first down sealed and only seven yards from the goal line now, Coach didn’t even hesitate, giving Holden the signal that we weren’t ready to kick yet. It was a risky call, because that meant we had thirteen seconds to either score, or get out of bounds with enough time to still kick.
Holden huddled the team together to call the play, clapped his hands, and then they were on the line again.
“Come on, come on,” I prayed.
“Get ready, Novo,” Coach Aarons said behind us, and Riley snapped into action, pulling on her helmet. She’d already been sending practice kicks into the net, staying warm just in case.
The snap came, and Holden held the ball steady in the pocket, eyes scanning the possible receiver options.
But there were none.
They were all covered, and my heart raced as I watched Holden tick through the options discovering the same.
But then…
An opening.
Just a marginal gap, but Holden saw it and acted quick. Tucking the ball into his stomach, he charged up the middle, around where two linemen were matched up and—
“TOUCHDOWN!” Clay screamed in my ear, jumping onto my shoulders as the rest of the team exploded off the sideline, too.
Holden threw his hands up in the air just in time to be swept up by the receivers, all of them clapping him on the shoulders and helmet before they were joining us on the sideline.
Riley high-fived Holden on her way out to kick the extra point, which was good, and ran down the last seconds on the clock.
I almost felt sorry for the home team, for their fanbase that stood mostly in shock as they watched those seconds tick down and saw that we’d come out with the win after that last drive. But that feeling was quickly washed away by the euphoria of securing another win.
Of most likely securing our spot in the playoffs.
We never knew in college football. It was all a gamble, a weird system of media voting that decided who were the top teams, who would have those top two bowl games that lead up to the championship.
But tonight, I didn’t give a shit what any media outlet reported.
It felt like we were on top.
And nothing could stop us now.
It took everything in me not to pull Riley into my arms when we all jogged out onto the field, when the swarm of reporters swallowed us up. I wanted to hold her. I wanted to lift her up on my shoulders. I wanted to kiss her right there for everyone to see.
My ribs cracked with the restraint, with the aching reminder that she didn’t want that, that she likely never would.
Casual.
I could still hear her saying the word, could still see how easily she said it that day we hashed it all out.
And yet casual was the last thing I felt about what we were.
“Zeke! Zeke!”
A microphone was shoved in my face, the lights from the stadium blinding as a camera lens popped up right behind it. One of my favorite female reporters from NBC Sports smiled up at me, yelling as loud as she could so I could hear her over the crowd.
“You had a monster return to kick off the game. Take us back to that moment. Do you feel like it set you up for this win?”
“Ah, definitely,” I answered, sniffing against the cold. “It gave us that starting momentum that really charged our first half. But honestly, it was our defense that stepped up the most tonight, and of course our offense with this last drive down the field for the win. All in all, it was a team effort tonight and I’m just happy to be a part of it.”
She smiled. “Absolutely. It was amazing to watch. And how about Riley Novo? The Eagles kicker really struggled against the brutal wind tonight, but she managed to stay calm and get those extra points for the team. How crucial were those?”
My eyes drifted to where Riley was surrounded by her own gaggle of reporters, her eyes bright and animated as she answered their questions. As if she felt me staring, her gaze snapped to mine, and everything around us disappeared.
It was slow motion, the breath that slipped from her red, wind-burned lips. Those lips curled into the slightest smile, her cheeks a rosy pink, hair damp and messy where it fell around her shoulder pads before the wind swept it back and behind her.
My heart lurched in my chest so fiercely I reached up to cover it with my hand before hooking my fingers on the top of my shoulder pads under my jersey, a casual stance I often took that I hoped would mask the obvious effect of that girl on me.
A blink, and Riley was looking at the camera again, and time resumed its regular pace.
“There are no words for how crucial those kicks were, and how crucial Novo is to this team,” I said, somehow managing to tear my eyes off Riley and meet the stare of the reporter. “We wouldn’t have made it this far without her.”
“And you two went to high school together, right? Childhood friends? What does it mean to play on the same team together?”
I swallowed down another lurch of my heart. “It means everything,” I answered honestly.
Something washed over the reporter’s face, and she glanced at the camera before leaning in to probe. I knew I needed to keep talking, to make a joke or call attention to another player before she and the rest of the sports world looked too much into what I’d said.
But I didn’t get the chance before I was damn near tackled from behind, Leo jumping on my back and throwing one hand up in the air like he was readying a lasso.
The reporter only laughed, gearing a few questions at Leo before she dismissed us both, and we all trotted off toward the visitors’ locker room for the game debriefing.
“What a frenzy,” Riley said to me when we were jogging down the hall, her hair blowing back behind her. “I can’t wait to see the AP rankings after this weekend.”
I wanted to chime in, wanted to have something witty or smart or even stupid to say, but I could only smile back at her as I realized in that very moment something that I could no longer deny.
I didn’t want casual.
I never did.
And I had to tell her — even if it meant losing it all.
