Page 6 of Scoring the Player
I get more than a few looks from groups of girls while I load up my plate. Being the face of the team gets me attention from chicks, that’s nothing new, but there’s something in their glances today that has me on edge. I shake it off and head to my usual table.
Teddy and Lucas are already here. These guys are my closest friends. The three of us have been at Valley together since we were freshmen. If Teddy is the nice, quiet one, then Lucas is his polar opposite. Lucas Moore is loud and goofy. His mom is a stand-up comedian and his dad is a car salesman. And yes, there is a joke in there somewhere, but I’m too tired at the moment to find it.
I take a seat and twist open the top of my Gatorade. After a long gulp, I set the drink down and meet their gazes.
“What’s up?” I ask. They’re looking at me weird too. “Do I have something on my face?”
A giggle behind me makes me turn. A curvy brunette waves her fingers around a can of Diet Coke.
I nod and force a smile, then start to turn, but before I do, she mutters, “I’d like to climb you like a tree, too.”
“That was weird,” I say. I have a sudden fear that I did something stupid last night that I don’t remember. I do a quick replay of the night as I remember it, but nothing jumps to mind.
“You haven’t seen it?” Lucas asks me, then turns to Teddy. “He hasn’t seen it? How have you not seen it?”
“Seen what?” I ask.
Brogan Six, a sophomore wide receiver, drops onto the seat next to me. A deep chuckle rumbles in his chest as he gives me a side glance. “Walters, my man, you are a legend.”
His buddy, Archer Holland, sits across from him and Brogan makes sure to give him enough of his face, so he can read the words. Archer is a tight end, also a sophomore. He’s deaf, lost his hearing when he was a kid. He wears hearing aids and he can read lips really, scarily well. Thanks to him, the entire football team knows how to sign a lot of really inappropriate things. He and Brogan are always together. The latter is a cocky, troublemaking shit, but he’s good at making sure Archer doesn’t feel left out of any conversation when the rest of us forget to be as considerate as he is.
“Tell me something I don’t know,” I mumble, then I pause and say it more carefully for Archer. While I’m repeating it, I realize I can’t remember the last time Brogan gave me a compliment. “Wait. I know I’m a god among men, but why are you suddenly a prophet?”
One of his brows quirks up.
“He hasn’t seen it,” Lucas tells him.
“What the fuck is going on?” My gaze bounces around the table. Seriously, we were all just together fifteen minutes ago. What could I have possibly missed in that time that is this important?
It’s silent for far too long.
“You are all over social media this morning,” Teddy says with a smile that’s more like a grimace.
“I left my phone at the house.” Coach has a strict no-phone rule in all practices, workouts, and meetings. “What is it?” I ask, scanning the room again and noting that a lot of people are looking my way now.What the hell did I do?
Lucas unlocks his phone and then taps on the screen a couple of times before turning it toward me. I don’t know what I expected, but it wasn’t to see Dahlia on the screen.
I take the phone from him, watching as the video begins. She’s standing with her friend Jane in our house, wearing the white tank, cutoff jean shorts, and sexy heels she had on last night. She’s holding her thick blonde hair in one hand and fanning her face. Fuck she’s pretty.
“Felix is in a completely different league. He makes genuinely hot girls look meh by comparison. Those arms and that hair.”She laughs—a sound I’ve never heard out of her, but instantly want to hear again.“He just looks at me and I start sweating and my mind goes blank. He’s stupid hot. As in he makes me totally stupid. I lose brain cells every time he speaks to me. I would probably die of sensory overload if he kissed me. Or if I saw him shirtless. Forget about it. I’d like to lick every inch of his body and climb him like a freaking tree.”
At first, I’m flattered. I met Dahlia last year through a buddy, Gavin. Dahlia is his girlfriend’s roommate. She seems cool, but every time I try to talk to her, she shuts down, and barely says two words to me. She’s shy, I know that. My sister, Holly, is a lot like that.
But after she sprinted away from me last night, I was finally prepared to accept that her disinterest in me isn’t because she’s shy. So it’s a welcome surprise to hear that I was wrong and she is into me. But the longer I watch and the more she goes on and on, I realize that she has no idea she’s being recorded.
“Who posted this?” I ask. My stomach twists with anger. Not for me. I don’t give a shit what people post about me. For Dahlia.
“No clue,” Lucas says. “It’s been reshared so many times it’s hard to tell where it started.”
“Fucking Bethany.” I slam my fist on the table.
“You think?” Teddy asks. “Between fighting with you and screwing Armstrong on your bed, when would she have had the time?”
“And why?” Lucas adds. “It isn’t like you’re hooking up with this chick and she’s jealous or some shit.”
They’re good questions that I don’t have answers to, but it still reeks of something my manipulative ex would do.
“I think it’s awesome.” Archer smirks. “She’s hot. If you’re not gonna let her climb you, then mind if I text her?”
