Captain donut
I love getting laid. Correction. I love getting laid with Maddy.
Those are not remotely the same thing.
Getting laid used to involve hot girls, poorly considered decisions and a morning in which I attempted to remember whether I had promised to text.
Sleeping with Maddy involves hidden doors, stolen clothes, occasional arguments conducted while naked and an extensive knowledge of the exact plank that creaks outside my door.
Neither of us has said anything about what the fuck we’re doing. But the first time Maddy pushed me off her so fast when Nate walked past, then pretended she was looking for her toothbrush, I understood.
And frankly, I’ve been too much of a coward to bring it up. I like sleeping with her. A lot. If one badly timed conversation makes Maddy pull away, I’m not interested in testing it.
I can’t fuck this up.
By fuck this up, I mean I cannot, under any circumstances, stop having sex with Maddy.
We have done it in her bed, my bed, the upstairs shower, the downstairs shower and once in the laundry room after she sat on the washing machine and announced that the spin cycle presented an opportunity too scientifically interesting to ignore.
It did.
We have made out inside the pantry while DJ stood six feet away asking where someone had put the protein bars. My tongue on hers as her hands pulled me closer by the hair. Then she bolted to the kitchen so fast, I was still catching my breath after DJ located the protein bars.
She looks at me from beside Jenny at a party, lifts her drink to her mouth and lets her eyes travel slowly down my body while pretending to listen to something about media strategy.
My phone vibrates ten seconds later.
Maddy: upstairs in 5
Apparently, I am expected to identify the correct bedroom through intuition and sexual desperation.
I always do.
I always find Maddy sitting on an unfamiliar bed or bathroom bench, already stripped down to her sexy bralettes.
Sometimes she arrives after seven minutes, deliberately.
Once, she claimed it was good for my character development. Then she locked the bathroom door, pushed me against it and removed every thought I had ever developed as a character.
So yeah. I haven’t really asked why the fuck are we sneaking around instead of just— I don’t know, be together-together.
Shocking, I know.
Obviously, I remember she said she doesn’t do relationship.
Fucking hell.
Me from last year would have loved this arrangement. Great sex. Casual. Exclusive— I think.
I don’t think Maddy is seeing anybody else. Considering how much sex we’ve been having, I don’t think that’s physically possible. Jesus. Right?
The fucking point is— Hell. I don’t exactly remember what the fucking point is anymore.
Nate is also being unbearable these days and that’s probably because he could smell something going on between Maddy and me.
He could be goofy and friendly, but Nate’s perceptive as fuck.
Two weeks ago, he began asking whether I am still in monk mode at least twice a week, usually loudly and entirely for his own entertainment.
He asks again one Saturday morning while Maddy sits directly opposite me at the kitchen island wearing my T-shirt beneath her open hoodie.
She climbed out of my bed twenty minutes earlier.
“Still committed to the celibacy thing?” Nate asks around a mouthful of eggs.
Maddy does not even look up from her phone. Doesn’t even flinch.
I take a drink of coffee. “I never said celibacy.”
“You said no hookups.” The little shit.
She scrolls with great concentration, but the corner of her mouth moves.
“Nothing meaningless,” I correct.
Nate studies me. “So this allegedly meaningful sex—is it an official relationship?”
Oh, fucker.
I pinch the bridge of my nose, briefly considering whether more eggs might be used to silence him.
Maddy finally looks up. “Leave him alone, Nate. Some boys have private relationships with their hands.”
I nearly choke on my coffee and Maddy, she simply returns to her phone with complete composure.
Nate gives me a solemn nod. “Stay strong, brother.” Then he laughs loud enough to make my head hurt.
I don’t know what to stay strong about anymore.
Unfortunately, I cannot exactly announce that the girl currently discussing my relationship with my hand had been beneath me before breakfast, one palm pressed over her own mouth because her sister was moving around in the bedroom next door.
I hate lying to my friends. Withholding information? I could. Outright lying? I am terrible at it.
So I take another drink and let my closest friend continue enjoying himself at my expense. Fucker.
This whole secret sex thing is so addictive.
Apparently, sleeping with Maddy this much has completely fucked my tolerance for being away from her.
————
Which is why Thanksgiving is low-key torture.
I clock that fifteen minutes in, sitting on a plane with twenty other guys because we are playing Kansas at Allen Fieldhouse on Thanksgiving weekend, while Maddy is in New York for a Fairfax family dinner.
Collins missed one Thanksgiving dinner too because of a game and he was thrilled. That tells me everything I need to know about the level of chaos in the Fairfax family affairs.
Maddy would not have been able to come to the game anyway. It’s twelve hundred miles away.
Usually, even on training days, I come home late enough to see her for a few minutes before we both drift off.
For the next three days, I have to survive on five-minute FaceTime calls conducted from the hotel bathroom because Nate and I are sharing a room.
“How was the flight?” she asks in a cheerful, high-pitched voice as soon as her face appears on my screen.
Phenomenal. Soft and warm. Full. Delicious and smells like vanilla. The absolute fucking best.
Because for approximately two seconds, all I can see is her blonde hair falling over her bare chest. She is getting changed for dinner, sticking what I think is flower patches over her nipples, which is an excellent time to call me.
She smiles. By second eight, five minutes is already looking unrealistic.
“You look hot.” I whisper. The words come out rougher than I thought.
Whatever else I am thinking must be written plainly all over my face because Maddy’s expression softens. She leans closer to the screen and gives me a smile so radiant that I temporarily forget I am sitting on the floor beside a hotel toilet.
“You look hot too, Willy.”
Her bedroom behind her is warm and softly lit, decorated in approximately fifty variations of beige. She turns the camera around to show me the room, and I realise her ensuite bathroom is probably larger than the hotel room I am sharing with Nate.
It has a bathtub.
How nice would that be to be naked in that bathtub with Maddy right now?
“What time were you born” She asks me suddenly, pulling me out of my thoughts.
I stare at her. “What?”
“Birth time,” she repeats excitedly.
I’m tempted to say I don’t know because, for some reason, it feels incredibly intimate. Then again, I’m not giving her my social security number or the address of my father’s house. So whatever.
I still have no idea why she wants it.
“Six forty-two in the morning.”
Her voice pitches higher into my earbuds. “You know the exact minute?” She finally finishes with the nipple patches, her long golden hair falls on her full breasts.
“My dad knows the exact minute.” I swallow, hard.
“I barely remember what day it is.” Maddy grins over the screen, pulling on a white dress with thin straps over her shoulders. Goddess. Not normal goddess. Full mythical, out-of-this-world Greek-goddess shit.
I don’t know how the five-minute call becomes twenty. All the while Maddy is doing her makeup, cheerfully explaining Collins’s Thanksgiving tradition to me.
This is the third version of the same exact story. It’s also the funniest.
A notification banner slides down over Maddy’s face.
Nate: r u constipated?
Nate texts me from six feet away on the other side of the door.
Nate: Do u need me to buy laxatives before tomorrow’s game?
I groan from the bathroom floor. Apparently disappearing into the bathroom for twenty minutes and laughing by myself has convinced Nate I’m fighting for my life in here.
I sigh reluctantly and tell Maddy I have to go.
“Good luck tomorrow, Willy.” She blows me a kiss. “I’ll be watching on the TV. And cheering. Very loudly.”
The screen goes dark.
Damn it.
When I emerge from the bathroom, Nate is sitting against the headboard with his arms crossed. “I know who you were talking to.”
I glare at him. “Shut up. I can’t talk about it.”
“Can’t talk about it?” His eyebrows rise. “You’re keeping secrets from me now?”
“I don’t want to.” I drag both hands down my face. “I just don’t know whether I’m allowed to tell you. The whole thing is vague.”
“Vague how? Vague as in you don’t know where you stand, or vague as in you don’t know how you feel?”
“Neither.” I answer him, deadpan.
This fling, or whatever this thing is between Maddy and me, she wants it kept quiet. And if secrecy is what she needs, then apparently secrecy is my command.
Nate studies me for several seconds.
“Just nod once if I’m right,” he orders. “Blink twice if it’s her.”
“Who are you thinking?”
“There is only one person you kissed and then refused to mention ever again.”
Fuck. I forgot I talked to him about that. Guess my brain releases classified information whenever Nate applies enough pressure.
I blink twice. Then, because I am no longer certain which signal means what, I nod once too.
“Holy shit.” Nate launches himself off the bed so abruptly that I take a step backwards. “MERCER GOT LAID.”
“Keep your voice down.”
“You got laid.” He claps his hands loudly enough to wake the room next door. “That’s why you’ve been moving like the fastest man alive. All that trapped sexual energy finally released.” He grabs both my shoulders. “I missed your sexual energy.”
“Fuck yes, baby. Do not screw this up before the end of the season. I want that championship too.”
I bark out a laugh.
The championship is not some ridiculous fantasy we have invented in the hotel room. Truth is, we’re already ranked, and already good enough that Coach has been talking about winning the title since the first week of practice without anybody laughing.
But tomorrow we play Kansas, and they are ranked second in the country.
Half their starting lineup is expected to end up in the NBA. The other half look personally offended nobody has promised it to them yet.
Leon appears in our room carrying two restaurant bags and a white bakery box. “Delivery for Mercer.”
I look at the food. “I didn’t order anything.”
“Saw the receptionist downstairs. Thought I’ll bring it up for you.” Leon grins. “There’s a note too.”
Before I can reach him, Leon reads it aloud. “My sweet little donut, you’re stronger than the doubts in your head. Good luck tomorrow.”
The room goes silent.
“Give me that.” I snatch the note our of Leon’s hand.
Too late. Nate already folds over laughing. And I want to die.
“SWEET LITTLE DONUT?” Leon howls in triumph. “Our Mercer is someone’s sweet little donut!”
My head goes completely blank. “It’s not—.” I mutter, pressing the note flat against my thigh.
“DONUT,” Nate cuts in, clinging to my shoulders to stay upright. “Someone thinks you’re sweeeeeeeet.”
“No.” I snap at him, trying desperately to suppress a grin.
Leon nods thoughtfully. “Captain Donut.”
That kills the grin.
“Absolutely not.” That command does nothing.
I walk into breakfast the next morning.
“CAPTAIN DONUT” hits my ear, loud and clear from across the hotel buffet. Mason and Rory.
Maddy or my teammates. I haven’t decided who dies first.
Then the game starts, and all of it disappears. The Kansas team is as good as everybody said they were.
Fast. Huge. Irritatingly calm. Every time we pull ahead, somebody who will probably be earning several million dollars next year erases it.
The lead changes at the final minute.
The arena is so loud. There is a sign in the tunnel at Allen Fieldhouse that says Pay heed, all who enter: beware of "The Phog.”
Sixteen thousand three hundred people. Our gym holds nearly seven and I have never once heard it do this. I cannot hear Nate and Nate is standing beside me with his hand on my shoulder.
With four seconds remaining, we are ahead by one and their best guard comes directly at me. I stay with the guy before he gets half a step. The shot leaves his hand as the buzzer sounds.
The ball hits the back of the rim.
Then the horn goes.
Sixteen thousand people stay standing for about four seconds, and then they sit down, and nobody waves anything.
In that one suspended second, nobody moves.
Then Leon crashes into me hard enough to nearly take us both to the floor.
The bench empties. DJ is screaming directly into my ear. Someone catches me around the neck. Someone else keeps shouting, “Donut did it,” which is not remotely what happened but becomes impossible to correct while twenty men are attempting to crush one another in celebration.
Once I finally get to my phone, thirty-seven notifications greet me.
I open hers first.
Maddy: HOLY FUCKING SHIT
Maddy: YOU BEAT THEM
Maddy: MY SWEET LITTLE DONUT IS A NATIONAL TREASURE
Maddy: CONGRATSSSSSSSSSSSS WILLLLYYYYYY
Maddy: call me immediately
Maddy: before my dad makes another speech
My phone buzzes again as two messages arrive at once.
Mom: Just watched the highlights!!! No. 2!!! ?? So proud of you Will. Your brother says that final possession nearly killed him. Call when you get a second xx
Dad: Good finish. You gave up the baseline twice in the second half. Call tomorrow.
My thumb hovers over the screen and presses call on Maddy’s name.