Page 10 of Possession

THIS IS PROBABLY the longest I’ve gone without speaking to Olive in 12 years. I saw that she texted me the other night, but I don’t feel like opening it. I have to get my head on straight. A redhead on my lap at the bar didn’t help. Neither did sprinting on the track the next day or tackle practice this afternoon.

It’s Friday, and the team is quarantined to a hotel before our game. Team bonding is Coach Burns’ reasoning, but really he’s just holding us here so we don’t get our asses in trouble. He’s been around for awhile. He knows what a bunch of athletes in their 20s would rather be doing on a Friday night in a town where we’re revered as gods.

Poor guy doesn’t know that half the undergrads covet internships at this hotel so they can bag a football player during fall semester. Most guys on the team have gotten a blowie in the hot tub.

So this would probably be at least entertaining if not tolerable…except that Coach has me bunked up with Kevan Pence, the transfer QB who’s starting for us this weekend since JT has a fucked up hand.

Smarmy dude spent half the evening in the supply closet and he’s climbing out of the shower now like he wants to tell me all about what went on in there.

I don’t give a shit, though, and I’m in a pissy mood. “Will you quit making that face like you’re so damn pleased with yourself?”

He raises an eyebrow at me. “What’s your problem, Morgan?”

I snort. “You, man. I don’t know you and you don’t know me and neither of us is going to be here long enough for that to matter.”

“Dude,” he says. “We’ve got a whole season to go. You want to tell me anything specific?”

He flops onto his back on the bed and stares at me. I roll my eyes and turn off the light, punching my pillows. “Just quit staring at Olive.”

“The girl from the training room? She your girl? Is that what this is about? Look, man—”

“She’s off fucking limits,” I grunt, pissed that nobody made this clear to him. Pissed that he can’t take a hint. Just pissed. I saw him smile at her the other day, and that pissed me off more.

“You done yelling?”

“Yeah, if you’re done looking where you shouldn’t be.”

Kevan turns the light back on and I squint, rolling over halfway to look at him. “Dude, I was not staring at Olive. Morgan, don’t you know that I’m gay?”

I just blink at him a few times. What the fuck is he even talking about?

“I. Like. Cock. You don’t have to worry about me getting between you and your dream girl, Morgan. And before you tell me again that she’s your best friend, I think we both know it’s more than that for you.”

Well this is unexpected. “But I saw you staring at her…”

“Did you?” He asks, turning the light out again and punching his own pillows. “Or did you see me staring past her at the shirtless swimmer she was stretching?”

Shit.

“You’re seriously gay?” This has me all sorts of messed up. I’m a good judge of people. That’s basically all I’ve got going for me, apart from my ability to tackle the shit out of running backs. You don’t grow up in a house with a maniac and not learn how to read a room. Sometimes, that was the only way I avoided getting my ass kicked. I was a thousand per cent certain this guy had the hots for Olive.

“Super gay. Like just had a cock in my mouth gay.”

“Come on, man.”

“Hey, you asked. Now you want to tell me what’s going on with you and Olive?”

I shrug in the dark, like he can see me. “I told you. She’s my best friend. It’s not like that with her.”

I hear a bag rustle and I realize this asshole is eating chips in bed while he’s talking to me. “Could have fooled me,” he says. “I know I’m new around here, but a blind man could see that you want her.”

“Yeah, well, that’s not going to ever happen. I need her as a friend more than I need to get my rocks off.”

He keeps eating the damn potato chips while I think about all the times I thought he’d been staring at Olive’s tits in the training room. She’s always stretching someone out. We’re all wound up tighter than twine on a pork loin. “I’m not sure it’s any better that you’re checking out the other guys on our team,” I tell him.

I hear him crumple the chip bag and toss it in the trash can. “You think I’m the only gay football player at SCU? You really don’t know your team very well, Morgan.”

This guy is fucking with my head. Is Kevan right? Have I been misreading my teammates for years? This is the most unsettling conversation I’ve had in a long time. I don’t like it one bit. I don’t answer him, but I also can’t sleep, running through a list of my teammates, trying to figure out who I actually know.

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