Chapter 1 Chelsea #2
Feeling deeply flustered, I quickly click into the Cornhuskers’ roster to find him.
When I do, I discover the dimpled Roman Maguire doppelganger in the buffet line doesn’t coincidentally look like the Prince of Darkness.
He’s the devil’s kin. Roman’s younger brother, Luca Maguire.
Number Ninety-Five. A guy who plays my all-time favorite position.
Outside linebacker. Even worse, he’s an edge rusher.
Shoot.
With my heart rate increasing, I read the short bio next to Luca Maguire’s name.
He is a freshman like me, but he’s a full year older at nineteen.
Surely his parents started him in kindergarten on the later side to give him a leg up in sports throughout his school years.
I’m not surprised, given Luca’s pedigree.
My parents did the same with my two older brothers, and it worked out spectacularly well, considering they’re both linebackers in the NFL now.
“Good morning, ladies,” a smooth male voice says.
Holy shit.
I jerk my gaze up from the dimpled, smiling face of Luca Maguire on my laptop and discover the same dimpled, smiling face staring down at me from mere feet away.
“Good morning to you!” Daisy replies brightly as I try not to choke on my own tongue.
Can Luca see his grinning photo on my computer screen?
Given our positioning, that shouldn’t be possible, but based on the cocky grin he’s shooting me, one that’s making me feel like this boy knows all my secrets, I’m irrationally worried there’s some kind of reflection behind me.
A window or mirror that’s giving me away.
Barely able to breathe, I slam my laptop shut and glance behind me, and thankfully there’s nothing there but a beige wall.
As I turn back around, Luca asks, “Can I take this?” He motions to the empty chair at our small table, and embarrassment washes over me to find out he didn’t come over here to flirt with Daisy and me, like I thought, but only to drag an empty chair to a table with his friends.
“It’s all yours,” Daisy chirps, batting her eyelashes.
“Thanks. I’m so hungry, I could eat a Hoosier.” With that, Roman freaking Maguire’s smoking-hot younger brother plops his piled-high plate of food onto our small table and slides his muscular ass into the chair next to mine. “Thanks for letting me crash your party, ladies. I’m Luca, by the way.”
I exchange a flabbergasted look with Daisy. Plainly, she didn’t expect this incredible specimen of a man to sit down at our table any more than I did.
“Hi, Luca. I’m Daisy and this is Chelsea.”
“Hey, Daisy.” Luca’s dark eyes shift to me.
“Chelsea. It’s great to meet you both.” To my shock, he continues staring only at me when he speaks again, even though it’s Daisy who’s brazenly flirting with him.
“So, what brings you to the world-renowned resort town of Bloomington, Indiana?” An embarrassing snort escapes me at Luca’s silly joke, and he snickers at the comical sound.
With twinkling brown eyes, he sets his forearm onto the small bit of space between us at the table and leans toward me.
“I hope you don’t mind me saying this, Chelsea, but you have really pretty eyes. The bluest I’ve ever seen. Wow.”
I blush crimson. “No, I-I don’t mind you saying that.
At all. Thank you.” I realize after a beat, I should probably compliment his dark eyes in return, since they’re warm and soulful in a way that’s extremely alluring.
But I just can’t bring myself to compliment a Maguire, even after he’s complimented me.
As a general matter, Ohio State’s heated, to-the-death rivalry with Michigan has always been legendary—like a religion.
In fact, most people agree it’s the biggest and most contentious rivalry in all of college football.
But thanks to Roman Maguire’s recent one-two punch in back-to-back seasons, my entire hometown of die-hard Buckeyes despises not only Michigan these days, but Roman “Satan” Maguire, too.
And, of course, my family is particularly committed to the hatred, given that my father is Ohio State’s head coach and my oldest brother played linebacker during both embarrassing losses to Satan and his minions.
In the thick silence, Luca bites his lower lip and flashes me a flirtatious look that makes the small channel of air between our bodies feel supercharged all of a sudden, causing me to blush.
“And that’s my cue to leave,” Daisy says with a laugh. Plainly, she’s clocked the sudden shift in energy between Luca and me.
“No, it’s okay,” I blurt.
“I want to do some prep before the competition, anyway.” She closes her laptop and pops out of her seat with a wicked smirk.
“Take your time, Chelsea. We’ve got plenty of time before we need to go.
I’ll be in the room.” She says her goodbyes to our guest, shoots me a wink that says, “Go for it, tiger,” and off she goes with a swish of her hips and her computer bag on her shoulder.
As Daisy leaves, Luca asks, “What’s the competition she mentioned? Cheerleading? Dance? You look like a dancer.”
Man, I’d love to jump right in and trash-talk his big brother. And then, if he’s still standing and willing to talk to me, find out as much as possible about the Cornhuskers’ defensive scheme, since Ohio State will be playing them later in the season.
I think the Cornhuskers use a 3-3-5 stack defense, but I can’t remember without looking it up.
The last time the Buckeyes played them, they used elements of a 3-3-5 with varied fronts, I believe.
Maybe even elements of a 4-2-5. But since talking about any of that stuff is totally out of the question, I simply answer his question.
“A regional math tournament. Daisy and I are on our school’s math team with four other teammates.”
A grin hitches up the left side of Luca’s beautiful lips. “You’re a mathlete?”
It’s not a first. Nobody ever pegs me as a math nerd at first sight. In fact, throughout all of high school, whenever I went on the field to help my father or his linebacker coach, I was often mistaken for a cheerleader.
I open my mouth to say something snarky like “What, girls can’t be good at math?” But before I get a single word out, Luca adds, “What a crazy coincidence. So am I!”
My anticipatory hackles simmer down as a chuckle escapes me. “A mathlete?”
“Yep. The same as you.”
I can’t help but giggle. Non-math people always use that word in relation to math nerds like me, thanks to Mean Girls popularizing it.
And while it’s theoretically possible this towering D1 athlete in a high-intensity football program is telling the truth and he’s somehow found the time to pursue his side passion for math along with football, it’s highly unlikely.
“Wow, that is a crazy coincidence,” I agree.
“I love math so much, in fact, I signed up for today’s math competition, too.”
“You did? No way.”
“But then, dang it, I found out today’s football game conflicted, and my coach wouldn’t let me skip the game to pursue my true passion.”
“Of math?”
“Absolutely. I live for math, Chelsea. It’s my drug. My reason for being.”
I can’t help but snort again. “Well, Luca, you’re probably not going to believe this, but the team you’re playing today asked me to come to Bloomington to play for them, but my math coach wouldn’t let me skip today’s competition to pursue my true passion.”
“Football is your true passion?”
“I live for it.” I snicker to myself at the veiled truth of the statement.
I don’t think it’s likely Luca would put two and two together about my identity if I were to admit my genuine passion for football to him.
But then again, women with a detailed and in-depth knowledge about the sport are pretty rare, especially when it comes to women my age, so the conversation would likely spark Luca’s curiosity and lead to nothing good for me.
College football is a small world, and I’m extremely findable online, since I’ve stood next to my father on the sidelines and during postgame interviews too many times to count.
“What are the chances?” Luca says.
“Worse than getting kicked by a snake, I’d say.” When Luca chuckles at my word choice, I add, “I can’t take credit for that. My mom always says funny stuff like that.”
“You had to get your funny from somewhere.”
My heart rate quickens. I think I’m hilarious, actually, but mostly with my math friends.
My math puns are seriously elite. But in other contexts, and especially with cute boys, I’ve never been particularly lauded for my sense of humor.
And yet now, out of nowhere, this unbelievably gorgeous football player—a guy who’s an edge rusher, to boot!
—is specifically calling me funny? It’s a huge rush for me, even if a part of my brain knows Luca’s almost certainly a flirt who’s merely telling me what I want to hear.
“So, what position do you play?” Luca asks, jerking me from my thoughts.
“We don’t really have official positions on the math team, but I think I’ve become our unofficial team captain and strategist.”
Luca cracks up. “No, on the football field. What’s your position?”
“Ooh.”
“You must be damned good for the Hoosiers to beg you to come play for them today.”
I laugh with him. “I’m a quarterback, of course.
It’s the only position I know, so it was my only option.
” Even Daisy knows quarterbacks exist, thanks to movies and pop culture references, so it’s my safest answer.
The last thing I need is for Luca to figure me out and then brag to a teammate he flirted with Coach Parker’s daughter and she never once chewed his brother or Michigan out.
If that were to happen, it’d only be a matter of time before my father and brothers would find out I engaged in a flirtatious conversation with a Maguire without defending my people.