Chapter Two Cash #2
“Coach Ellis recruited me first. Then I got starry-eyed when the big boys came calling. Now they’ve changed their minds, but luckily for me, Coach Ellis was still interested.
” I filled my mouth with an unmannerly bite of kick-ass cheesesteak sub, hoping to put that part of the inquisition behind me.
When I finally swallowed, I turned the tables. “Why do you call her T?”
“Inside joke from when we met.” Danny smirked.
“Ah. So when’s the wedding?” I asked.
Taryn nearly choked on a bite of her sandwich, but Danny smiled. “Sooner rather than later if I get my way,” he said.
The look she shot him said this plan was news to her, so I ducked my head. Their relationship was none of my business.
We finished our meal, and after kissing the hell out of his girlfriend in the parking lot behind the coffee shop, Danny invited me over to his place. I asked him to drop me at my Jeep, and I followed him over to a big Victorian in the middle of the old part of town.
When we walked into the living room, the Wildcats’ starting tight end Callahan O’Reilly and two guys I recognized as defensive starters were playing some game on the forty-two-inch TV they’d hung on the one wall in the room without a window or a doorway.
“Hey, Danny. Ready to get your ass kicked in Madden?” asked the defensive player wearing a T-shirt that read, “Please tell your boobs to stop staring at my eyes.”
I snorted at his shirt, and he grinned back at me. “Hey. You’re Cash. Recognized you from the film fiasco today.” He stood and offered his hand. “Wyatt Baxter, but everyone calls me Bax. Welcome to the team.”
“Finn McCabe,” the other guy said as he extended his hand. “You fixin’ to take Patty’s place?” Though the question was posed in an even tone, the tenseness in his shoulders told me how he truly felt.
“I’m here to contribute to a winning team in whatever form that takes.
” I raised my brows. “Have you noticed how the QB for the Golden Bears always shrugs the shoulder of the direction he’s going to pass?
From what I saw in the film of your game, he’s good at looking guys off, but that shoulder shrug gives him away every time. ”
Finn and Bax exchanged a look.
“No shit?” Bax stared at me with the kind of respect I wanted from the rest of the team. “You notice the tells of the other quarterbacks in our conference?”
“I was only paying attention to the Wildcats’ biggest rivals.” I stuffed my hands in the front pockets of my jeans. “But like I said, I’m here to contribute.”
The tight end who’d impressed the hell out of me in his game film stood and extended his hand.
“Callahan O’Reilly.” He handed me a controller and nodded to an open spot on the couch between Finn and him.
“Danny’s going to ruin the game by playing the Broncos, so we’ll give him a bye, let him lose in the next round. ”
Danny responded to Callahan’s chuckle by upturning both middle fingers before disappearing through a door across the living room. I grabbed the controller from Callahan and made myself comfortable on the couch.
A minute later, Danny returned with a couple of beers, handing me one on his way over to the open chair on the other side of Finn.
“Hey! You only got one friend?” Callahan whined when Danny cracked his beer open and downed a long pull.
“Cash didn’t insult my team.”
“Yet.” Callahan smirked.
Wisely, I kept my mouth shut about the pros and played 2V2 with Callahan against Finn and Bax.
Though the game was close—as one would expect from a bunch of college football players—in the end, Callahan and I beat Bax and Finn.
Danny slid in and took Finn’s spot, but the outcome was the same, especially with the added handicap of Danny insisting they send his beloved Broncos onto the field.
As we played, I asked, “I heard something about Coach Larkin being a real hardass in the weight room. That true?”
Callahan smirked. “Fifteen minutes early is on time. Don’t be late. Ever.”
“Good to know.”
By the time we’d finished playing the second game, it was coming up on suppertime.
I’d had such a good time listening to these guys trash-talk each other—and me, as the games progressed—that I’d relaxed and was starting to feel a little less like an outsider.
Then Danny got a text that put a dreamy smile on his face.
Didn’t take Einstein’s IQ to figure out who’d sent it.
Almost simultaneously, Callahan received a text that had him smiling in a similar way to Danny, and I wondered if the entire team was mothered up, Bax’s T-shirt notwithstanding.
“No fucking way,” Finn said as he caught the grin tugging at the corner of Callahan’s mouth. “It’s your turn to cook, ‘Han. Don’t even think about ditching us before you feed us.”
“If you learned to cook you wouldn’t be so upset about it,” Callahan shot back.
“I can cook.” Finn pouted. “But not on the night it’s not my turn. Tell Jamaica she can come over here.”
Callahan lifted a sardonic brow in Finn’s direction.
Then he thumbed a quick text and shoved his phone into his pocket as he stood and stretched.
“You’re kind of a big baby—you know that, Finn?
” He roughed the back of Finn’s head as he walked past him in the direction of the kitchen and laughed as he dodged Finn’s fist aimed at his thigh.
“You inviting Jamaica to dinner?” Danny asked.
“What do you think?” Callahan called from the kitchen.
“Great. Then you won’t mind if I invite Taryn over.”
“Jesus, you two are whipped.” Bax sighed.
Callahan stuck his head back in the living room. “Like you wish you were. Maybe Jamaica’s friend Piper will tag along with her. ’Course, she prolly won’t be impressed with your shirt.”
His laughter rang through the living room after the pillow Bax chucked missed him and slammed into the wall beside the door.
All the camaraderie I’d been feeling while we played video football morphed into awkwardness as the guys discussed girls and dinner—a ritual they’d apparently worked out, and which I wasn’t a part of. I set my controller on the coffee table and stood.
“Thanks for the beer,” I said.
A weird expression passed over Danny’s face. “You leaving?”
I put my hands up. “Sounds like you guys have plans.”
“Yeah. Callahan is going to take his turn cooking dinner instead of sticking us with takeout tonight.” Finn leaned back and directed the next part over his shoulder toward the kitchen. “As he should.”
“There’s enough for you too, unless you have better plans?” Danny’s raised eyebrow emphasized the question.
I played it as cool as I could considering how excited I was at the prospect of not eating by myself again. “I don’t have one single fucking plan besides having dinner with my new teammates.”
Danny nodded, satisfied.
Stepping around Finn, I headed in the direction of the kitchen. “Danny invited me to dinner. Is there something I can do to help?” I asked Callahan.
“Nah. I got it. Bought everything precut, so all I have to do is dump bags of meat and veggies into these pans and stir them,” Callahan said, his expression speculative. “Out of curiosity, why did you choose Mountain State? You had to know our starting QB is a rock star.”
“Patterson’s a hell of a scrambler, that’s for sure.
And he finds you pretty regularly.” I grabbed a wooden spatula from the counter and stirred the meat browning in one of the pans on the stove.
“I’m more of a traditional pocket passer.
Coach gave me the idea he wants to use me on third and long when he needs the pass to be fast, accurate, and maybe something that breaks a receiver—or a tight end—for a long gainer.
” I returned my attention to Callahan and watched in fascination as the wheels turned in his head.
“Coach is thinking about a two-quarterback system?”
I shrugged. “I’m not sure that’s exactly what he has in mind, but when he offered me a scholarship, he told me to expect to play my share of downs in the fall.”
“Huh. Wonder if Patty knows.”
I went back to stirring the meat. “If morning lift is anything to go by, he has less attitude about me than LeSean. Besides, Patterson is still the starter. From what I can see, the team is one hundred percent behind him. Only a dumbass walks in and deliberately inserts himself into such a tight unit, especially one on the edge of winning a National Championship.”
“You want to play in the National Championship.” Callahan wasn’t asking a question.
“What can I say? A rising tide floats all boats.”
He tore open a couple of bags of stir-fry veggies and dumped them over the sizzling meat in the pans. For a few minutes, we stirred his dinner in silence until he broke it. “You’re not what I expected, Cash.”
“That a good thing or not?”
“I think you’re going to be an asset to the ’Cats.”