40 - Dalton
~ 40 ~
DALTON
“And I’m telling you, their cornerback’s injured,” Emerson repeated again. “He was limping off the field last game. Hamstring, by the looks of it.”
I shook my head. “He’s listed as a starter, though.”
“Yeah,” said Emerson, “and that’s the part we can exploit. He obviously snowed his trainers into clearing him, but he won’t be anywhere near one-hundred percent. There’s no way an injury like that heals in a week.”
“So look for Sabrent?”
He nodded at the mention of our wide receiver. “Throw to Sabrent.”
“I gotta talk to him, then.”
Emerson disappeared into the bathroom, just as his boxers sailed through the air and landed squarely on my head. It was a dirty trick, and one I should’ve known was coming by now.
“I already did,” he called back, as he spun on the shower.
I slung the dirty underwear deftly onto his exposed pillow. Sharing a hotel room with Emerson felt like a regression, because this was exactly what he was like growing up. I wasn’t allowed to share with Trey anymore, though. Not after last time, when he’d snored so badly he kept me up half the night. We lost that game miserably, 41 to 10. And from that moment on, coach vowed never to put his quarterback and linesman in the same room again.
My phone buzzed with a text message, but then again it had been buzzing all night. As a team rule we weren’t allowed to leave the hotel, but a couple of defensive players were still trying to break curfew and get together downstairs to score some kind of a late night snack. They’d already raided the hotel’s little gift shop, and half the candy and soda were already gone. But I was still thirsty, and there was a good chance I could convince one of them to drop me off a—
All other thoughts went out the window as I realized the text message wasn’t from the team chat at all.
It was from Fallon.
Eagerly I punched up the text string we used for our group conversation. There weren’t any words, only a single photo, sent by her.
“Damn,” I swore aloud.
In the photo Fallon was lying on her stomach, stretched out across the bed, chewing a pencil. She was studying one of her anatomy books. Our shared girlfriend was wearing nothing but a sexy schoolgirl outfit, complete with pristine white knee-socks, black shoes, and a pleated, red plaid skirt.
Holy fuck.
The skirt was short. Very short. So short I could see the very bottom of her asscheeks; peeking out from beneath the fabric. Her long blonde hair was fixed in a ponytail down her mostly naked back, because her white blouse had been tied up at the corner, making it into a half-shirt. She was wearing glasses, and I’d never seen her in glasses. And damn, she looked hot in them.
With a growing knot in my shorts, I typed out a message.
This isn’t fair. You’re killing us.
She’d sent the photo to all three of us, of course. Trey hadn’t answered yet, though. And Emerson was still in the shower.
Hey, a girl needs to keep up with her studies.
And what’s not fair about it?
The text was followed by another photo, this time not taken with an obvious timer. It was a head-on selfie of Fallon in the same position, angled straight down her blouse. She was smiling, and blowing the camera a kiss.
Not fair to tease us when you’re not here.
We *just* missed you.
In the next photo, she was on her back. She’d hiked up her skirt, showing off several acres of her smooth, delectable thighs. Zooming in, I could just make out the smallest hint of a tiny white thong, barely covering her perfect mound.
You don’t have to miss me at all.
Just come down and take me.
The message was followed by the peach emoji, along with a pair of kissing lips. Before I could figure out what any of that meant, she sent another pic, this time of a door.
A hotel room door.
A hotel room door with a room number on it.
“Oh, FUCK!”
My heart was thundering like a bass drum as I flung open the door to our own room and leapt into the hallway. The door, the knob, the room number plaque: they were all totally identical. Even down to the pattern of the carpet, beneath.
I looked back at the phone. Trey still hadn’t answered. Emerson was finishing his shower. The hallway was empty in both directions, clear all the way to the elevators. The room number in the photo was only three floors down.
There wasn’t much time, as I typed back a single word:
Dibs.