HOTSHOT

by Bishop, K. M.

  And it killed him to know that I was beating him at so many things.

  I lowered the bar back down and slid out from under the bench press. I felt good, pumped. It had been a great workout. The entire day had been fairly productive, even though it was the day after we had such a big win. This team did not do the well-deserved day off. No. While our opponents were resting after their victories yesterday, we were pushing even harder, determined to be the best and to win.

  Despite being so sleepy today, I had crushed it. I had not slept much. After that beautiful, bizarre dream about Jamie, I hadn’t been able to sleep a wink. Hell, it was all I could do to not go out for a jog and track down her dorm so that I could talk to her.

  But I stayed put pacing back and forth and occasionally trying my bed again to see if I could get back to sleep. It was like I was on some kind of a high just thinking about her. I could smell her, feel her, hear her sweet moans—all of those amazing things I’d gleaned from my dream were still with me. I had to find out more about her. I wanted to ask her out and show her that I was not this jock moron that she probably thought I was.

  I was very aware that I had a reputation. This reputation had garnered me a lot of attention and fun, but it was the same type of reputation that would keep a really great woman away from me. A woman like Jamie. She didn’t want to date a guy who she thought for sure would dog her out and get rid of her the minute some other cute skirt walked by.

  I’d changed and I wanted her to know that. But at the same time, was it worth risking all I had worked for to even give the chance of falling in love an actual go?

  I didn’t think so. But my thoughts would not let me rest. If I didn’t at least satisfy my brain to try, then I wouldn’t be able to think of anything else and it would derail my progress anyway.

  That morning I headed out before dawn. I got a quick two mile jog in and then I came back, showered, ate a high protein breakfast, and then hopped on the laptop to see if I could track her down. I felt a bit like a creeper and I might have been officially stalking this girl, but I was on a mission and it didn’t take me too long to gather some information about Jamie. She was a journalist for the school paper. There wasn’t any information about what dorm she lived in, but I was able to find her on social media and I sent her a message.

  “Hey, I’m sorry to message you here, but I didn’t know how else to contact you. I was hoping we could talk some more. Would you be free to have dinner tonight?”

  The message I sent was short and straight to the point. And it did not at first make out what my real intentions were. But that was all by design. I wanted to proceed carefully here.

  A couple hours later she actually responded. “Hey, I totally forgot to give you my card so you could email me if you had anything else to add. My bad. But I would love to meet for dinner tonight. I’m free.”

  Yes! She was interested. “Great. Let’s meet at the Weston at seven. I’ll do my best to look nice for our first official date. I might even wear a sports coat lol”.

  “Oh? A date? Wow… that sounds great. I would love to see you in a sport coat. I’ll let your imagination run a bit wild about what I’ll be wearing… (wink)”.

  I stared at my phone and then burst out laughing. Yes, this girl was flirting and driving me totally wild. She’d accepted the date and had given me the feedback that she was excited about it as well. Fantastic.

  I still didn’t trust that this was a good idea, but I knew I had to find out if there was any hope for anything with us before I would be able to move on. And it was quite possible that this was the path I was supposed to take. I’m a firm believer in following steps to achieve a goal, but I also believe that you have to stay flexible. The path to a goal is never linear. It is usually filled with peaks and valleys. You can’t ignore those or you will fall flat on your face.

  After this exchange I did some work for classes, and then later in the afternoon I met up with the team to have a weight training workout in the gym. It was always a good time to work out with my friends and teammates because we all motivated and inspired each other. Well, most of us did. I wasn’t sure what was wrong with Kevin. The guy had it in for me and I just didn’t care anymore. We’d barely spoken since our little brawl on the field the other day, and the coach hadn’t really addressed it much.

  “Hey, Chance. Do you want to come to the party at Oster’s place later? It is supposed to get really crazy. Those Sunday parties are always the best,” Bobby Tyler said.

  I shook my head. A Sunday party? What was wrong with these kids?

  “No, I got to get home and get ready for a date.”

  “Whoa! A date? With who?”

  Crap. I had let it out of the bag. “Yes, I have a date and it’s no one’s business.”

  The team cheered and began whooping and hollering at me. “Nobody’s business! Ah, this we got to see. You have to tell us, Chance!” Bobby yelled.

  Three guys surrounded me now as if it was supposed to intimidate me into giving it up. They faked the tough guy bully roles as if they were big, burly cave men. It was hilarious.

  “We want truth! Ugh!” They cheered. Then the whole team started in.

  “You guys need help,” I laughed. I high fived Jacob and a few of my friends before I left the gym.

  I hurried home. I had a few hours left, but I wanted to get cleaned up and get dressed with plenty of time to spare. I wanted tonight to be very special.

  The moment I entered my room, my heart sank. It was the most devastating, fearful moment of my life. The entire room was in shambles. My television had been ripped off the wall. My cabinets were knocked over. All of my stuff was all over the floor. It looked like a disaster area.

  I waded through piles of DVD’s, books, magazines, boxes of food, and clothes to get through to the hallway where I went to check out the bedrooms. My bedroom was a total mess and so was my roommate Jacob’s. It looked like a tornado had touched down only in our room.

  I quickly left the room and went door to door to ask anyone if they saw anybody else leaving my room, or if they heard anything. Some of the others walking by saw what I was talking about. “Wow!” “That is messed up!” “Who did you piss off?”

  I wanted to call the authorities immediately, but I knew they would come and investigate and it would hold me up since I was so short on time. So, I just went back into the room locking the door behind me. I had to get ready for the date. I would not let some mentally damaged person cause me to be late.

  And that was when it hit me. Lucinda. She’d done this. She was the only one I knew who fit the bill of being that mentally unstable and vindictive enough to pull this off. Well, Kevin could have, but nah… he would have considered that to be a wussy move and it was that far beneath him. He was far too macho acting to try something this lame.

  It had to be Lucinda. I knew that I never should have let that woman in my life. And now I had a bona fide stalker on my hands. What next? I didn’t need this in my life. I had too much else riding on things going well.

  I was so angry. The rage was welling up inside of me and I felt like a pressure cooker that was about to explode. How dare this woman break into my home and destroy my things. Jacob’s things. I was going to find her and we were going to have a chat.

  Of course I couldn’t do it now. I had only two hours until my date and there was nothing that would ruin that. It was going to be a perfect evening. I would do everything in my power to make sure of that.

  Later I would go to the police. I would tell them all about Lucinda and they could deal with her at their leisure. But there was no evidence I could immediately see that tied her to this. I wasn’t sure if they would have anything to go on other than my word. Surely there had to be cameras or something around that would catch her. This was the twenty first century. I heard on a news report that if you are outside of your actual home, you are on camera somewhere. That was the digital media driven world we now lived in.

  I jumped in the shower and t
hen shaved, brushed my teeth, flossed, and combed my hair before getting dressed. Luckily, Lucinda did not take the time to individually destroy every single article of clothing I owned. This allowed me to find a nice shirt, slacks, belt, and my sport coat. Checking myself out in the mirror I had to agree that I looked pretty stylish overall.

  I shot Jacob a text message about what happened and told him I would contact the cops, but I had a pretty good idea who was involved. He had yet to respond, but I imagined he would be terrified and he might even go to the police himself. He would probably be super pissed at me for not calling him right away and definitely for not calling the date off, hence the reason that I kept him in the dark about it until I was leaving. It was kind of a dick move, but what was I going to do? Jacob would get over it.

  I left my room and walked towards Mckenzy Hall, where Jamie said she lived. I had been there a time or two for parties and study groups. It was a bit of a fun place at times. As I walked through the cooling night air I thought about my living situation. If Lucinda could break in there and disrupt my life that way, then who was to say she couldn’t do it again? Or who knew what other acts of evil the psycho might be capable of?

  I decided right then and there that I would go stay at my Uncle’s house. My Uncle Vincent was a fairly wealthy businessman who travelled a lot for work. He had a big house located just outside of the city, not too far from campus. I went there sometimes on weekends just to get away and clear my head and to keep an eye on the place. Vincent and his new wife Maria were vacationing in France for a few months as kind of an extended honeymoon. So, I was more or less housesitting. The only reason I didn’t stay there full time was that I enjoyed hanging with my friends, and I loved being close to football practice and everything else that went along with my college experience. Living off campus did tend to alienate you somewhat.

  But if some psychotic woman was out to get me, then I figured a place that she knew nothing about would be my best bet to stay safe. I just had to be on the lookout that she did not discover my secret.

  When I arrived at Jamie’s dorm room, her roommate Sara answered the door. She looked giddy and super excited to see me. I felt a bit awkward. You would have thought I was picking up Sara for a junior high school dance where everyone is terrified and the boys and girls both stay on opposite sides of the dance floor too afraid to interact with each other. Ah yeah… those were good times. Except I was the guy who broke the ice every time and asked all the cute girls to dance. Shyness had never been a problem for me. I just didn’t care to cloud my head with negative energy from other people. I was happy to be me. Everyone else should have felt the same.

  “She’s almost ready,” Sara said. “Please come in.”

  I could practically hear Sara’s knees knocking together. It was a little weird. Sara was a pretty girl. I wasn’t sure why she was nervous. I shuddered to think it was because of the little bit of fame I had received lately. That was so annoying. I was the same guy I had always been and would always be. There was nothing about fame that would ever go to my head.

  I waited with Sara a few moments until Jamie came out of her room and walked down the small hallway (if you could call it that. The rooms in this dorm were barely more than small bedrooms).

  I gasped when I saw her.

  She was the most beautiful woman I’d ever laid eyes on.

  Chapter Eleven

  Jamie

  The restaurant was beautiful. I’d only ever heard of the place, but I had never stepped foot inside. Of course poor journalism students didn’t usually have the money to afford popular five star restaurants. I just hoped that I was dressed right. But judging by Chance’s face when he saw me in my dorm room, I guessed that he approved.

  I was glad, too. Sara and I had gone through about ten different outfit combinations until we came up with the perfect one. And then I had to decide the best way to wear my hair. Eventually, I just decided to leave it down to add a bit of playful, relaxation to it.

  “How can you afford this?” I asked after we were seated. “I’m sorry, but I’m dying to know. This place is intense.”

  Chance smiled calmly. “I hate to say this, but my family is very well off. My father and uncle both own big stock in real estate, and my father is the CEO of a large cosmetics company that my grandmother started. I won’t bore you with the name now, but yeah. I feel like a jerk because none of this money is really my money. I was just born to the right woman, or the wrong woman depending how you look at it.”

  I was a bit taken aback by his answer, but he didn’t really seem that offended by it. And I was really curious now.

  “So, you aren’t close with your mother?”

  Chance laughed. “No, I’m actually fairly close with her. My father is a little bit unreasonable. He isn’t too keen on my football aspirations. He always thought that I would go into the family business and then use that leverage to branch out like he and my uncle did, but business has always bored me. I love to do physical things and the game of football has always just captured my heart and imagination, I guess. So, I could never really foresee myself doing anything else.”

  I leaned forward with a smile. “Interesting. And I don’t think anything of the fact that your family is treating us to a beautiful evening. We are students after all.”

  Chance nodded and winked at me. Wow, he was so cool and charming.

  “So, did you grow up around here?” I asked.

  “No, I’m from Pennsylvania and I grew up mostly in West Virginia. But when I was fourteen, we moved back to just outside of Pittsburgh. That is a big reason why I was discovered and given the offer to play ball here,” he replied back.

  “You don’t think you would have had the same opportunities in a smaller place like West Virginia?”

  “Not really, unless your team does something great like winning the state championship or something. Sometimes people get lucky, but if you are playing for a much more visible team then you will get seen.”

  The waiter came and took our order. I decided on a salmon dish with salad and soup. Chance ordered a steak. I loved the way this fancy restaurant was set, but at the same time it was very distinctly a high end steak house, which sounded to me like a misnomer. But the steaks being brought to the other tables all looked phenomenal.

  “I was surprised that you contacted me,” I said. I immediately wished I hadn’t let that out. But I almost fell to the floor in a dead faint when I got that message from him. I had been thinking about him all day, especially after that vivid dream I’d had and trying to make sense of what it all meant and if there was any hope or chance we’d get together, and I’d driven Sara, Rosie, and Collette all crazy with it.

  And when the message came through, I had to double check it and show it to Sara to make sure I was not hallucinating. She started jumping up and down on the ground screaming “It’s real! It’s real!”

  I loved Sara to death, but she acted as if she had the social skills of a preschooler sometimes. Still, she was one of the sweetest people that I had ever met.

  “Yeah, well, you definitely left an impression on me.”

  I blushed. “I was so scared because of the way we met. All through our initial interview it was freaking me out.”

  Chance smiled. “Yeah, well it’s ok. That sort of thing happens and now we have a fun memory for all time, right?”

  I laughed. “I like the way you look at things. Tell me, do you ever get nervous?”

  Chance paused a moment. “No, but sometimes I do get excited. Like right before a big game.”

  “That’s not the same thing though,” I said.

  He smiled and almost blushed slightly. “True.”

  “So, you never really ever get nervous.”

  He was patient with is answer, thinking carefully. “Not really. I just don’t. I’ve always been blessed with a positive thinking mentality.”

  “That’s got to be a huge asset in the game, and in life.”

  “It has been a t
ime or two, but sometimes it gets me in hot water because I often fail to see dangers I should have seen.”

  The food came shortly and it was divine. It was by far the best food I’d ever put into my mouth and the wine to go with it was astounding. It was like I was witnessing the birth of the grape itself into some form of divinity as I bit into it. My mouth was having mini food orgasms repeatedly. And I was getting only slightly tipsy. I was not about to let myself get drunk here.

  “So, have you ever been with a football player before?” Chance asked me.

  I was taking a sip of wine and I held it in my mouth a moment before I swallowed. What was he getting at here?

  “Describe what you mean?”

  Chance laughed. “Well, have you ever had sex with a football player? Or any jock? Or are you not attracted to jocks?”

  I was taken by surprise by this line of questioning, but I did not let it rattle me. Something told me that Chance was trying to test me for some reason, or he was just trying to segue into something else…?

  “Ok,” I said. “I’ll play along. I’ve never been with an athlete of your caliber. My high school boyfriend played football, but he was average at best. That wasn’t why I was with him. We shared a love for journalism, which is what he went to Ohio University to study.”

  “Interesting story,” Chance said. I took it from his tone that he was telling me he found the story quite boring. I would have been offended under normal circumstances but the wine had loosened me up a little bit and I wasn’t about to get bent out of shape about some good-natured teasing. Besides, this was fun and I really wanted to see where this was going to go. “So, what is the craziest, sexiest thing you’ve ever done?”