16. Knight
Chapter Sixteen
KNIGHT
December
Ihave a new special interest. It started as a curiosity and then turned into something more along the lines of a full-blown obsession.
His name is Blake Woolsey. He’s six-five, a finance major, and always wears red shoes, whether he’s supposed to or not.
He’s the starting quarterback for Tallahassee, and I think about him constantly.
He first came to my attention during summer training.
Coach was the one who brought him up. He’s a redshirt freshman like me, beginning his first year as starting quarterback for the Tallahassee team.
And he’s good. He’s really good. He’s got a crazy amount of followers online, and I’m not sure whether it’s because the practice and game film he’s posting shows him off particularly well, or if it’s the obnoxious—and hot—selfies from either the gym or the locker room.
He’s incredibly good looking with a perfect body, and he’s aware of all his angles. I hated him at first—he’s my fiercest competition. The dude who could potentially go before me in the draft when we both inevitably wind up there at the same time.
Deandre was the one who pointed out that I could be building a following like Blake’s, too.
I just need to approach my online presence differently.
He’s a showboat. I can make myself look like more of a team player.
So, I don’t do too many selfies. I post pictures of me and my roommates mostly.
They’ve also gotten good at getting shots of me on the practice field, huddled up, or conversing on the sidelines.
Smiling as often as I look serious. That, along with my footage and captions rhapsodizing on and on about my love of the game and sharing some of the things my famous dad taught me growing up is building a following.
I played against Woolsey for the first time in early October.
We were on his turf in Florida, and we lost. Barely.
I was furious with myself and the team. Technically, I’d played a great game.
We started off strong. I was connecting with every pass, sending the right runners through, all the speed and agility I built up running sprints over the summer paying off in the way I was able to outmaneuver their defense, but I was also anxious.
Worried whenever Tallahassee scored, watching the way Woolsey laughed whenever he made a good play, too.
Why was I not laughing out there like that?
Where was my confidence? Was he actually a better player?
How? He doesn’t have a father who won Super Bowls.
Was what I was seeing the difference between someone with true talent and someone who’s trained and fought for every skill they’ve earned?
Because that made me the poser then, right?
I got in my head. I couldn’t find the joy.
The crowd noise didn’t inspire me. It crowded out clearer thoughts, made focusing almost impossible.
But I didn’t falter. My passes still got caught, my runners still broke through their line.
And yet, Tallahassee still outplayed us because at some point when we were seven points down in the third quarter, I somehow decided losing was inevitable.
That night, the team and I went out. I don’t normally drink during the season, but I was too upset to sit alone in my hotel room. I needed to find some motherfucking joy somewhere or lick my wounds. Either way, after I’d had a couple shots of tequila, guess who came in to celebrate their victory?
I’m not a fighter, but the urge to start something was there, gathering like a storm in my gut. I had my back to the room, leaning over the bar to try and get the bartender’s attention for another round when I’d felt a firm squeeze on my ass.
When I turned, startled and ready to throw fists, there he was, looking down at me with a smirk and a wink. “What’s up QB? Can I get the next round?”
None of it felt real that night.
When he suggested I meet him outside, I didn’t know what I was walking into. A beating? A prank? I ended up walking into the back of his SUV where I got another one of his ass gropes at the same time he palmed his crotch while looking at me like he was asking if we were on the same page.
I eventually asked him how he knew, and he claims he didn’t, but that no one ever says no to him.
We traded blow jobs and phone numbers that night in the back of his car, and since then we text or talk at least every other day. When his team came to play in Missouri, he fucked me in a hotel room I reserved in advance.
He calls me babe now, and we’re planning to meet up over the winter break. I’ve reclaimed my joy.
But I guess I should back up.
The last time I saw Sullivan up close was the morning after we had sex in that huge lake house.
That was mid-July. Since he and I texted as much as we did over the summer, I expected to hear something from him when he left for his uncle’s, but I never did.
I remember we didn’t kiss that morning, but he gave me a really long hug before he left.
Longer than usual, like he didn’t want to leave Sunrise Point any more than I wanted him to.
When the school year officially started, I had no clue where he lived, we certainly didn’t have any classes together, and this school is huge, so it’s not like everybody knows everybody because we’re always running into each other.
But I did see him once. We were both in one of the food courts around noon on a Tuesday.
I was on my way out with the twins, and he was in line with a pretty girl at one of the many Starbucks on campus.
He had his hair pulled back into a neat bun.
He was somehow even thinner, and though he was standing with the girl, he had one hand on his cello case and his gaze on his phone in his other hand.
I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to think of him as anything less than beautiful, but that day, I don’t think too many other people would look at him and think—whoa.
Still, I didn’t breathe after I saw him.
It was long enough to get lightheaded. I had to remind my lungs how to work.
The sight of him left me feeling punched out and hollow.
This was a few days before I left for Florida the first time, so if I want to blame someone for the situation I’m in with Blake now, I guess I can blame Sullivan and the way he ghosted me after one of the best nights of my life.
I texted him later that day. Something along the lines of I saw you in the food court.
He left me on read, which, if I hadn’t already known it was over, at least then I had my answer.
Blake isn’t anything like Sullivan, so I don’t think of Sullivan too much when I’m with him.
And honestly, even though we live in different states, I have more of a relationship with Blake than I ever had with Sullivan.
We have almost too much in common. Everything, practically, minus the football legacy I come from.
Blake’s entire life depends on football, or at least, that’s how he sees it.
Talking to him a lot of times is like talking to my dad.
Like he’s trying to get me to quit football and focus on something else.
I take it differently from Blake, though. Like he just wants me to quit so he doesn’t have so much competition—not like he doesn’t have the faith in me to succeed. He might have beat me that one time, but I beat him on my home field, and my stats are slightly—very slightly—better than his.
It’s enough “teasing” that I don’t completely trust him, and I absolutely have a picture and a short video of him with my cock in his mouth to use if he ever threatens to out me. More often than not, though, I use it to get myself off on the days when he and I don’t FaceTime.
So yeah. Sullivan’s a ghost, and Blake is my long-distance whatever.
As of now, it’s nearly winter break, my finals are done, the team has the weekend off, and my roommates have been busy looking for fun things to do this weekend.
Rod and Deandre each have another final next week, and we’ve got a game, too.
Our break is less than a week while the rest of the school gets over a month off.
Dillon mentions a party for Saturday night that isn’t at one of the usual fraternity or sorority houses where we usually go. It’s at a house a few streets over—a friend of a friend of his apparently.
“So, it’s a bunch of strangers?” I ask in the kitchen where the twins and Rod are tearing up one of those family size Stouffer’s lasagnas.
Their calorie requirements just to survive in their huge bodies are insane, so it doesn’t matter what or how much they eat as long as they can still maintain their muscle mass beneath their bulk.
I still argue that they should drink less, but I’m not their mom.
“They’re only strangers if you don’t talk to ‘em,” Rod says wisely around a mouthful of food. He swallows it all down with a swig of beer.
Deandre walks into the kitchen with a weird look on his face. “We might need to reconsider this plan.”
Dillon looks thoroughly annoyed. “Why? You shy all of a sudden?”
“This girl I talk to—she’s been to one of these parties I guess, and she’s saying some things.”
“Like what?” I ask.
“Like it’s not your typical party.”
I shrug, palms up like he’s gonna need to elaborate. Look, I need very little reason not to go. I wouldn’t hate staying home tonight, especially if I had the house to myself.
Deandre continues. “She says it’s like a—pay for play thing.”
“Like they charge a cover?” Rod asks, as clueless about what this means as I am.
D sighs like we’re all a bunch of morons. “Like if you want to hook up, you need to bring cash.”
My eyes nearly bug out of my head. “So, it’s not a party.”
“I mean—she described it like a meet and greet.”
“The hell? We’re definitely going,” Dillon says.