Page 8 of Playmaker

Cameron

After my fifth shot, I’m beginning to feel good.Reallygood.

It’s hard to believe I woke up so hungover this morning. I guess it’s true that to cure a hangover, all you need is to drink more, because I feel fucking fantastic.

Mark’s party is vastly different from the one Ethan and I threw last night. Where ours was low-key with fewer than twenty people, the large house Mark lives in is packed. I stopped counting after the last shot, but I didn’t think we evenhadmore than fifty people in this town.

I feel like I’m in a can of sardines with the number of people brushing against my shoulder as they pass. The bass is thumping loudly from a nearby speaker, drowning out the conversations around me, and it’s so damn hot that my leather jacket is sticking to my skin. I would take it off if Ethan and I weren’t seconds away from winning our fourth round of beer pong in a row.

“Oh shit. Here.” Ethan passes me the blunt he’s been harboring. “Sorry. I didn’t even realize I was holding it.”

I shake my head as I take my aim for the center cup. “You know I can’t smoke. Not with football.”

“It’s spring break,” Ethan says. “It’ll be out of your system before then.”

“Not risking it.” I let the ball fly, earning a round of cheers when it makes a wetplopin my target. “My dad went to college with the Arizona coach. Thinks he can get him to come watch one of my games this season.” Although I could have been selected for the NFL after my first year of school, I opted to get my degree first before entering myself for the draft. It’s what my mom would have wanted, but it doesn’t hurt to have NFL teams keeping track of my stats or flying out to my games to watch me play in the meantime.

Ethan blows out a whistle when he takes his turn. “Shit. Really?”

“Yeah, which means stayingawayfrom drugs and training as hard as I fucking can. This weekend has been fun, but come tomorrow, it’s grind time. No more bullshit. My dad would murder me if he found out I’d been drinking.”

Ethan fakes a gasp. “A twenty-one-year-old consumingalcohol? The horror.”

Before I can reply, Sadie saunters up next to me at the table with a red Solo cup clenched in her manicured nails. She flicks her eyes up to mine flirtatiously and says, “I didn’t know you were coming tonight.”

My next ball hits its target again, making Ethan and me the champions of the night. He claps me on the back before I bend down to Sadie’s ear and shout over the music, “I’m surprised you’re even talking to me!”

After all, I left her naked and alone last night, but if there’s anything I’ve learned the past few years, it’s that the better looking a person is, the more they can get away with. I’m not proud of it, but it’s the truth.

It’s why I’m unsurprised when Sadie drags a hand down my chest and smiles, a set of dimples coming alive on her cheeks. “I guess you’re going to have to beg for my forgiveness then, hm?”

Like I did with Maddie last night?

Maddie is the only girl I’ve chased out of fear that she was mad at me. Hell, she wrote me off six years ago, so I don’t know what made me follow her down that hallway, but I can’t shake the interaction between us no matter how hard I try. Maybe that’s why I agreed to come tonight.

To forget.

And Sadie is offering me the chance to do just that.

“I’m glad you came,” she adds.

My grin kicks up a notch. “How glad?”

Her hand passes over the crotch of my jeans, but my cock doesn’t react at all. Not even a twitch. I’ve never had a problem getting hard for a girl. Normally the slightest brush of someone’s fingers will set it off, which is why I should already be half-hard right now.

What the fuck?

“Meet me in one of the bedrooms upstairs in five and find out,” Sadie says. “Third door on the left.”

I watch her weave through the crowd of people, but even the view of her ass doesn’t get me going. Maybe I need her lips around my cock to start things up, or maybe I need to find someone new. Maybe Sadie isn’t doing it for me.

I scan the swarms of options for anyone who might give me a reaction. There are two girls making out by the kitchen island, but again, nothing. A half-naked girl smoking in the corner, a set of twins grinding in the middle of the living room to a seductive song. Nothing works, and I’m starting to believe something isseriouslywrong with me until—

There.

My gaze homes in on a perfectly round ass hugged tightly by a black leather miniskirt hardly covering the girl’s underwear. A blond ponytail hangs down to the middle of her spine, and fantasies of me wrapping that hair around my fist while I—

“I can’t believe she came,” Ethan scoffs, taking another drag of the blunt. “I’ve truly seeneverythingnow.”

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