Page 164 of Texting, Trouble & Touchdowns
Lucian: And a thing for women who insult me while applying ice.
Olivia: You’d say thank you with your teeth if I got you off while icing your leg.
Lucian: I’d say thank you with my tongue after.
Olivia: So cocky.
Lucian: You’ll be the one on top, sweetheart. I’m just trying to walk again.
Olivia: Let’s see if you earn it first. I charge by the hour.
Lucian: So do I. But my rate includes tongue and lots of groaning.
Olivia: Then I want references.
Lucian: Check Sarah’s Yelp. Five stars. “Very loyal. Tongue always out.”
Olivia: You’re disgusting.
Lucian: And you’re still smiling.
Chapter Forty-Seven
Lucian
When You Can’t Get It Together . . . Try Harder
The handoff’s clean.
My cut isn’t.
I feel it the moment my cleat bites into the turf—half a beat off. Just enough to throw everything out of sync, as if I’m running drills in someone else’s damn body. My shoulder dips, my legs follow, but it’s robotic. Stiff. Like muscle memory has gone on strike and the only thing left is blind effort.
Still, I break the line.
It’s not pretty.
It’s not precise.
But I make it to the second level before a rookie linebacker accidentally bumps into me and manages a fortunate tap on my hip.
“Again,” Coach hollers. “Backfield reset.”
I exhale through my nose and circle back toward the huddle, blinking against the glare spilling across the field. Everything is sunburnt and loud. My shirt clings to my spine, my helmet is hot enough to cook eggs inside, and I’m ninety percent certain my kneecaps are threatening to disown me.
Cam slaps my helmet as I jog up next to him.
“You look like you just remembered you left the stove on,” he says. “Mid-snap.”
“I did,” I mutter, crouching to retie my cleat.
“Was it, ‘Hey, I’m a professional running back and not some guy fantasizing about tits during cone drills’?”
I glance up. “Technically, I was thinking about her legs.”
Cam grins. “So, you admit it.”
I don’t answer. Just straighten and roll out my shoulders, trying to shake off the image haunting my skull since Tuesday morning. Olivia stepping out of the shower. Her hair dripping down her back, skin flushed from the steam. Wrapped in my towel like it’s her birthright. Like she lives there.
