Most Valuable Player

Chapter One Cam

Chapter One

Cam

Mason Gray, your face is mine.

I mean that fondly, of course. Now that I’ve had a few weeks to get to know Elwood High’s new varsity football team water boy, I’ve decided to offer him a taste of what it means to date a strapping young lad.

It should be the easiest “yes” in years. I’m single. He’s single, probably. I’m spectacularly attractive. He’s symmetrical from the neck up. I’m a big fan of all the genders. And he wears beanies and rainbow gloves, so I’ll eat my own ass if he’s not a little fruity.

Most importantly, I know Mason Gray has eyes for me. Whenever I glance over from the field, he’s watching me from the sidelines in his water boy jersey, tapping his clipboard. Clearly trying to be as cute and dainty as possible to fit that soft boy aesthetic that drives women feral.

“Well, Cameron,” he said politely when I called him out for his hungry gaze just last week, his smile never reaching his eyes, “I’m probably watching you because you’re the quarterback, so you’re usually holding the ball.”

His pitifully obvious desire for me is bursting at the seams, so I’ll spare him time to get to know me. Because I’m a good person.

“He’s going to say no,” Darius—our biggest linebacker and team captain—tells me as we jog a warm-up lap around the track wrapping the football field.

The Southfield Hawks aren’t here yet, so I have plenty of time to acquire Mason as my boyfriend and make out with him passionately behind the bleachers.

It’s usually the first thing my partners ask of me, anyway, so I’m fully prepared to get it out of the way if it means I can proceed to stare at him unblinkingly without being labeled a creep.

“Why would he reject me?” I ask with a cheeky smile. “I think he’d be honored. It’s the first time in years I’m asking someone out, rather than the other way around.”

Darius wipes beads of sweat from his warm brown forehead, or maybe he’s massaging away the headache he likes to pretend I give him on a weekly basis. “Sorry, why exactly do you need to pursue the guy who has a track record of rejecting everyone who wants to date him?”

“His face.”

“What about it?”

“It’s high-quality,” I say with a scoff, because shouldn’t that be obvious? “And it looks soft. And he has nice skin.”

He really does. Mason is more pleasant to look at than anyone I’ve ever met.

He’s a smooth plain of pale ivory, and his lashes are long and as deeply obsidian in color as the feather-soft hair constantly rumpled atop his head.

His eyes are big and round and perfectly spaced apart and a sweet honey brown.

My carnal desire to stare at him means I must be attracted to him.

Which means his face is mine.

“Don’t do this, Cam,” Darius pleads, slapping a beefy hand on my shoulder. “We need your ego for the game.”

As if anything could wound my rock-solid ego.

Five minutes later, I approach Mason. He’s writing on his clipboard, pretending like he can’t see my hulking figure in his peripherals, his cheeks appropriately flushed considering my proximity. “Hey, water boy,” I say.

Mason spares me a glance. “Yes, quarterback?”

His eyes are astonishingly cold in comparison to the warm color of his irises. “You and me,” I say, jabbing a confident thumb into my chest. “I’ll be the sun to your moon if you’ll be the tides to my beach.”

Fucking nailed it.

Mason scrutinizes me with measured intensity. “Are you having a stroke?” he asks.

Uh…hmm. Can’t say that’s ever been a response to my poetry. “I’m asking you out,” I explain, in case he’s not well-versed in romantic dialogue like I am.

“Why?” Mason asks.

Yet another response that catches me off guard. I’m starting to feel like a deer in headlights. But okay, fine, he’s making me work for it. I can respect the game. “Because you have bewitched me, body and soul,” I say with a gleaming grin.

Mason gives me a contemplative nod. “You like that movie?”

“What.”

“Pride and Prejudice,” he says, his arctic eyes unblinking.

Damn it. Of course I’d pursue the one person alive who’s into that romancey shit. “Just because it’s not my line doesn’t mean I can’t mean it,” I point out.

“Okay. What about me, exactly, has bewitched you, body and soul?” Mason’s maintaining his eerily pleasant, robotic expression.

It’s possible I’m starting to squirm. Some of the benchwarmers gearing up nearby are snickering as they listen.

The fluorescent stadium lights come alive, and though they illuminate the entire grassy field and gunmetal-gray bleachers, I feel like they’ve activated specifically to pin me under a spotlight. “Your face,” I squawk.

Mason blinks at me.

“I fuck with it,” I clarify. “Please go out with me.”

I’m not used to tacking on a “please” for anything, but fine, I’ll throw him a bone.

Mason Gray’s narrow shoulders deflate, like he’s just released a sigh, and then he returns his harrowing gaze to his clipboard.

His face hasn’t flinched once, despite how high his flames of flustered passion must be writhing.

He opens his mouth, and I massage my vanilla-flavored lips together, preparing.

“That’s an awful idea, but thank you.”

…Oh.

Okay, it’s okay, he’s just playing coy. Which means I need to lock into full-force seduction mode.

“How can I sweeten the offer?” I ask, leaning over him with a knowing smirk, my eyebrows waggling.

He’s at the perfect height that I could rest my chin atop his head.

“What do you desire from me, water boy?”

“Distance,” Mason says flatly. “Stop breathing on me and jog another lap.”

I think I choke on my next inhale. The heightened laughter of the huddled juniors is like acid in my ears.

Coach Barnett, who’s been yelling at people nearby but also eavesdropping, kneads his fuzzy eyebrows.

Clearly they don’t understand we’re locked in a game of cat and mouse, which Mason is dragging out to make the end result more satisfying.

“Is this environment not romantic enough?” I ask with charmed laughter. “I know a perfect restaurant down the street. Low candlelight, soft music, waiters with accents. Shall I give you a ride after the game?”

I notice a muscle work in Mason’s jawline, and he closes his eyes, folding his clipboard into his chest. “Cameron Morelli,” he says, as soft as he looks, “I would sooner star as the lone twink in a porno featuring the entire football team before ever accepting an invitation to dinner with you. Does that clarify the situation?”

…I don’t. Understand. “You don’t want to date me?” I ask, just to be certain.

“I do not,” he confirms.

“Are you, like, sure?”

The words are pathetic, and they’re also mine. To which Mason Gray continues smiling his polite smile, the kind that doesn’t show his teeth or crinkle his face, and says, “Yes, but thank you for the opportunity.”

What…do I do.

I decide to run another lap to sweat this off, my brain scrambling to extinguish the short circuit fire roaring into its fleshy folds. Why? Why? Why—

“Told you,” Darius says beside me, sweat shining on his temples, matching my pace as I sprint around the track’s inner ring to flee my demons. “He’s out of your league, anyway.”

I wheeze in protest. The sentence has never been uttered, yet there it is, another verbal backhand to my opposite cheek.

Who’s the one with the eyes often described as “sea blue” and “cerulean” and “sapphire” depending on the lighting?

Who’s the one with the golden-brown hair streaked with glittery highlights?

Who’s the one with the perfectly cut midsection that could be mistaken as a bed of skin-colored rock?

Oh ho. So Mason thinks he’s out of my league?

“No,” Darius says. “I’m telling you that as a fact.”

Well, he’s going to regret it.

“Sometimes I think you don’t know when you’re talking out loud, Morelli.”

I finish my lap, skin shimmering beneath the humble luster of sweat, and beeline for Mason, who’s peeling back the film over a case of water bottles. “Hey, water boy,” I say sharply.

His chest swells with a fatigued inhale, and he cranes his neck back. His black hair is swept over his brow like it’s been molded by a gentle, flattering breeze. “Yes?” he asks with infuriating calmness, as if he didn’t just knee me in the sack moments ago.

“You…” The words tangle in my throat.

“Me?”

“You.” I hack through the blockage and spit. “Am I not sexy enough?”

He blinks a few times. “Um.”

“Sexy,” I say impatiently.

“Yes, I heard that part.”

“Is that why you turned me down?”

“No,” he says.

“So I am sexy?” I demand.

Before Mason can confirm, Anup Kumar, wide receiver, glides into the conversation like a lubricated dildo.

He folds one massive arm around Mason’s skinny shoulders and gives him an affectionate squeeze, his shaggy black curls restrained by a bandanna.

“Is this guy bothering you, babe?” he asks sternly.

“I’m very bothered!” I snap. “Ask Mason why he hates me!”

“You’re out of your damn mind if you think I was talking to you, Cam.”

“Are you bullying our precious assistant, Morelli?” Jody Jackson, punter and pastiest blond man alive, sidles up to Mason and fondly pats his beanie. “Leave Mason alone. Can’t blame him for not wanting to date your ugly ass.”

“Ugly?” I shriek.

Mason shakes his head in earnest, though his perfect level face isn’t giving anything away. “Cameron is attractive, sure, but—”

“You’re dating a sexy college girl?” Anup asks.

Mason’s snowy-white cheeks start to redden, and he lifts his hand self-consciously over his mouth, like he’s concealing inaudible laughter. “I’m single.”

A direct punch to my throat. So being single is better than being with me. Got it.

“That’s not it,” Mason says in exasperation, and maybe Darius is right about the whole talking out loud thing. “It’s nothing to do with your looks.”

“So it’s his fuck-ass piece-of-shit personality,” Anup figures.

“The personality doesn’t help,” Mason says, kicking me directly in my esophagus.