27 | Henry
“SO, HOW’S THE article coming along, G?” Danny asks, flopping down into the overstuffed armchair beside her.
“It’s going okay. I still have a lot of questions for Henry.”
“Dang. Must be a pretty long article.” He glances at me, smirking, with a devilish twinkle in his eye.
Danny knows how to play an innocent, sweet boy around women. They love him to death – like he’s a teddy bear. And, don’t get me wrong, he is a great guy, and an even better friend. But if they knew about Couchgate…
“So, what’s the wheel of punishment?” Georgia asks, her tone mischievous.
I groan, letting my face fall into my open hands.
“Punishment wheel,” Danny corrects, and points to the wall beside our staircase. A small Wheel of Fortune type game board is pinned there, its bright colors mocking me from across the room.
“Do tell,” Georgia purrs as she makes her way towards it, squinting to read the small print on the device.
“If any one of us breaks the house rules,” Danny begins, “he has to spin the punishment wheel. Whatever the wheel says, goes. And it looks like Henry’s due for a turn.”
He punches my arm jokingly as I approach them, a look of regret strewn across my face.
“What rule did he break?!” Georgia asks, incredulous.
Danny clears his throat. I glare at him, my eyes screaming “do not refer to Georgia as a fucking hookup.”
He takes the hint, thank God.
“No, um, no interviews on the couch,” he stutters, side-eyeing me for approval.
“That’s a weird rule–”
“I’ll spin it now,” I stammer out, desperate to change the subject.
But at what cost?
I size up the wheel in front of me and swallow hard. Jonah’s messy handwriting conveys a series of increasingly horrendous punishments, some of which I’m not even sure are legal.
“What are you waiting for, Cap?” Danny asks. “Someone to pull the fire alarm?”
Georgia laughs at his joke, and a ping of jealousy surges through me.
Fuck.
I flick the spinner begrudgingly and watch, holding my breath, as it circles around and around over the heinous punishments. It starts to slow after a few passes, ticking over Jonah’s scrawled writing as if to taunt me.
TP Coach’s house, tramp stamp, steal Heisman, “dick pearcing.”
God, he’s a moron.
Every second is excruciating as the three of us watch the spinner dawdle to a stop.
Streak across campus.
Danny breathes in through his teeth before letting out a low whistle.
“Damn,” he mutters, his eyes still glued to the wheel.
“At least you didn’t get…” Georgia steps forward, squinting to read Jonah’s scribble, “streak across campus, no underwear.”
I groan. “Lucky me.”
It’s 70 degrees out on campus which, in the Texas humidity, might as well be negative 30. I’m already shivering my ass off and I’m still fully clothed.
“Jesus, it’s freezing,” Danny grumbles as he leans uncomfortably against the large, bronze statue of Ole Donny – the first president of Texas University. It’s filthy, covered in pennies left by students for good luck, and has been scrubbed clean of more than its fair share of spray-painted dicks.
“Donny’s about to see things he can’t unsee,” Georgia teases, her cheeks and nose reddened from the chilly air.
“You know, G… they say Coach Bryer crawls out from under his bridge each night to collect all these pennies. With this greedy ass–”
“Hey!” I interrupt Danny, laughing, “Those pennies bought us our last NCAA Championship!”
“As if the football team needs any more money,” Georgia chimes in. “There always seems to be enough to pay Coach Bryer $7 million a year. But the Tribune? We can’t even afford a mini fridge!”
“That’s fucked up,” Danny remarks, shaking his head.
“The pennies for good luck is definitely a ploy for the university to take every dime they can get out of our pockets,” I comment, picking up a dirty nickel from Donny’s oxidized feet.
“Stop! Stalling!” Danny yells, both hands cupped around his mouth as a makeshift megaphone.
“Yeah, Anderson,” Georgia coos with a smirk, “the wheel has spoken.”
I look her up and down and, despite the looming threat of my humiliation, I can’t help but feel excitement.
Georgia Campbell is here with me – and she doesn’t hate me.
She’s dressed warmly in a pink skin-tight athletic zip-up. Her legs are covered by her trademark black leggings, perfectly outlining the shape of her tight ass. Her cleavage spills out of the top of her jacket, making my head spin with lust.
You’re about to take off your pants, Anderson. Don’t get a fucking boner. Think of Grandma. Think about how your dad died. Yep, that’ll do it.
“We’re not getting any young–”
“Fuck off, Danny, I’m going.” I grunt, ripping my shirt over my head and immediately wincing from the icy air against my bare skin.
I glance at Georgia as I unbutton my jeans – just in time to catch her staring at my abdomen, a look of desire flashing across her eyes.
Georgia Campbell wants me. Damn.
I’d had plenty of girls give me that look over the years. Jersey chasers, mainly. Girls that sit at the sidelines of every game, wearing my name across their back in hopes that I’ll notice them. Girls in my classes, who’d feign forgetting a pencil or not understanding a problem until I agreed to meet them after class to “study.” Girls at the Greek Row parties, who placed bets with their sorority sisters over which one of them would hook up with me that night in the dirty frat bathroom.
For years, I loved every second of it – girls chasing after me desperately, lust in their eyes, moans escapingfrom their parted lips the second I touch them. But now it feels different. I still get stares as I walk across campus, still see the girls whispering to their friends about me, asking me for my number, begging to go back to my apartment… but now, it means nothing to me. I can’t say yes to them. The only girl I’ve thought about since the second Danny bumped into her at her old apartment complex, is Georgia Campbell. Even when she hated me, she wouldn’t leave my mind. I never felt that way about Natalia when I dated her, never felt that way when I woke up hungover next to the latest sorority president. There’s something so intoxicating about her – like a drug I can’t get enough of.
I throw my jeans and worn cowboy boots to the ground beside my t-shirt, now left with only my black boxer briefs and a pair of socks. My skin prickles as a gust of cold wind blows through the center courtyard.
“How far do I need to go?” I ask, my teeth chattering as I pretend not to notice Georgia’s flickering gaze.
“To the Quad and back,” Danny answers, gesturing to the student military housing a few hundred yards away.
I don’t waste another second, breaking into a full sprint towards the illuminated arches marking the entrance of the Quad. The wind freezes my cheeks and burns my bare chest as I run, but I push through, ignoring the searing pain that courses through my swollen shoulder. As I reach the cobblestone pavement of the Quad, I pivot my heels and propel myself back towards the center courtyard, without pausing for a breath. With only a few hundred yards to go, my breath comes in rapid, shallow gasps as I strain to increase my speed. The rhythmic pounding of my heels against the pavement echoes in my ears, my cheeks rushing with exertion as my heart rate spikes.
“Dude, watch out!”
Before I can process Danny’s words, I crash. It’s like hitting a brick wall, and whoever it is doesn’t fall to the ground – hell, they hardly even stumble.
“Oh, shit. I’m so sorry, dude, that’s my bad,”I start, cradling my injured arm with my hand. The impact caused waves of pain to radiate through my side, but I do my best to ignore it.
“Watch where the fuck you’re going, Anderson,” Watson growls, straightening himself upwards and turning towards me. It’s hard to make out his features on the darkened campus, but I can tell he’s scowling.
“It was an accident, Watson,” I reply, matching his gaze with a tightened jaw.
He quickly flickers his eyes down to my bare torso and back towards my face, a smirk curling on his lips.
“Walk of shame? I wonder what Coach would think of you walking around campus like this. You realize this is indecent exposure?” His eyes glimmer devilishly.
“Who do you think he’ll believe? The captain of the team or the receiver who fumbled eight passes this season because he can’t show up to a game sober?”
I glance in the direction of Danny and Georgia, who are waiting in the courtyard just beyond earshot.
How am I going to explain this to Georgia? She still doesn’t know Watson tried to hit her on purpose.
“You better watch yourself, Anderson,” he grunts, glancing in Georgia’s direction. “Or next time I won’t miss.”
I feel my cheeks redden, my breathing slow and controlled.
“Go anywhere near her, and I’ll fucking kill you.”
“Is that a threat? From Mr. Goody Two Shoes? Mr. ‘I Stole the Heisman’ Anderson? You should’ve let Jonah go under – hell, I would’ve. You know, it’s not too late for me to tell Coach the truth.”
“What the fuck is your problem, Watson? Natalia not enough for you? You have to ruin my life while you’re at it?”
I step closer to him, my rage palpable.
“The Mavericks already want me, Watson. Giving you brain damage won’t change a thing about my future. Remember that.”
A look of concern flashes through his eyes, before immediately dissipating. He swallows but says nothing.
“And while we’re here,” I continue, unable to stop myself, “tell Natalia to stay out of my physical therapy. It’s enough she got me there in the first place. I don’t give a shit if she needs the hours for her PT courses, or Coach himself carries her into the room to tend to me. If she steps foot in there again, you’ll be the one paying for it.”
“What the hell are you talking about? Natalia isn’t a physical therapy student. She’s a biology major, dumbass.”
God fucking damnit. She snuck into my physical therapy?
I breathe in through gritted teeth, aware that Georgia’s watching me.
Don’t do anything you’ll regret. Remember how upset she was that you hurt Patrick.
“Just stay the fuck away from me, and stay the fuck away from Georgia.”
He chuckles sarcastically as a smirk creeps across his lips – an eerie sight in the dark.
“Oh, I have no problem staying away from you, Anderson.”
What the hell does that mean?
“He’s a fucking prick, dude,” Jonah groans from his spot on the couch, an icepack over his eyes to help cure his hangover headache. “He’s hated you ever since you got captain and he didn’t. And clearly that chick Natalia can’t take rejection.”
“It’s not like I voted for myself,” I retort, my tone sharp. “Besides, who would want Watson as a captain? He told me last night that, if it were him, he would’ve ratted you out about the Heisman. He’s a dick.”
“No arguments here,” Jonah replies, waving a hand to indicate his indifference.
“I still can’t believe he tried to hit Georgia. She’s like, so small. That dude’s gonna end up in prison.” Danny doesn’t look up from the latest episode of Jujitsu Kaisha, though his face is twisted in disgust.
“Georgia can never know about that.”
“What? Dude, you haven’t told her?” Jonah sits up on the couch abruptly, the icepack falling into his lap.
“And make her think that being around me is gonna get her killed? No. Besides, I told Watson if he ever gets near her, he’s dead.”
“You shouldn’t lie to women,” Danny remarks softly, eyes still glued to the TV.
“It’s not lying, I just didn’t give her Watson’s exact motivations. She thinks it was an accident – and I want to keep it that way.”