Chapter 4
ZEB
I kicked the front door shut behind me and dropped my backpack right by the door. There was another backpack and several pairs of shoes on the floor, multiple coats on the hooks on the wall and one that had dropped beneath it.
“Yo, Wilder,” Nick called from the couch. He didn’t look away from the video game he was playing. With him on the three big couches placed in an L around the huge TV were Sean and Eli. Sean had a game controller in his hand and battled against Nick. Eli had a soda and was sprawled out watching.
The four of us lived together in a house off campus. It was a big place–we were big guys–but it wasn’t fancy. In fact, the one time my sister Lainey visited, she dubbed it The Pit and said it smelled like gym socks. She hadn’t been back since.
The four of us were on the football team together and close as fuck. If we were girls, we’d be BFFs. Since it was the last night of midterms and right before a big game, all of us were home. There was no partying, no drinking. We ate a shit-ton of carbs and went to bed early.
It wasn’t wild or exciting, but we knew what was at stake if we fucked up. A win.
“I found her,” I announced.
“Dude, that was my–” Nick called out, then cut himself off, game forgotten. “What?”
I couldn’t help the slow smile that crept across my face.
“I win. Ha! You lose,” Sean crowed, eyes on the TV.
“Dude,” Nick said, as if that one word explained everything.
Sean dropped his controller and turned and faced me. Eli didn’t have to move to see me, so he just took another pull from his soda.
“I found her,” I repeated.
“Shit, dude. I thought you’d never get laid,” Sean said, grinning.
My gaze narrowed. “Don’t talk about her like that.”
He threw up his hands. “I don’t even know who she is.”
“My tutor.”
Nick frowned. “I thought your tutor was a guy.”
“That explains why he never dates,” Eli offered.
“I did, too. Turns out Cameron is a gender-neutral name.”
“Where is she then?” Sean asked, tipping his head as if she were hiding behind me.
I wished. I wanted Cammie with me right the fuck now.
I wanted to take her by the hand, lead her to my room, lock the door, and not let her out for a week until I knew everything about her and every inch of her body.
My sweats were loose fitting, but they didn’t do much to hide my dick. I adjusted it down my thigh.
“In her dorm. Van Hoff Hall.”
Eli frowned. “Why didn’t you bring her back here?”
“‘Cause she doesn’t know who I am.”
“You’re shitting me,” Nick said.
I shook my head, then grinned.
“Fuck, that’s great.”
What Nick meant was that I knew Cammie had been real with me. She wasn’t trying to get with the quarterback. Hell, she didn’t even know I was a football player. I’d seen interest in her eyes. Curiosity. Perhaps because there was something between us, a feeling that she’d picked up, too.
“How you gonna see her again?” Eli asked.
“I’ve got another tutoring session next week after break, but I told her that maybe I’d see her at the game.”
“In a stadium with thirty thousand other people?” Sean wondered.
I shrugged, then pulled my phone from my pocket. “I got her number.”
“There’s my boy,” Nick said. “You want to join us or go call your girl?”
I gave him a look that was all the answer he needed.
They waved me off as I took the stairs two at a time to my room. The house was old, solid and had seen decades of students live in the place. It had four bedrooms with a shared bath upstairs.
I’d already showered after practice, but I wanted another one. I needed to rub one out thinking about my girl.