Full Contact: A College Reverse Harem Romance

by Cassie Cole

  The doctor gave him a pitying look. “I’m sorry. Your season is over.

  *

  Coach Mueller gave all of us a ride back to campus in his SUV. Even me, which would have been humiliating after what he’d said at the hospital, but none of us cared about that anymore. Danny’s leg was the only thing on anyone’s mind.

  “I think I’ll be alright,” Danny said. He sounded far too calm for the situation. “I’ll wear a brace. I don’t think I’ll get injured.”

  “Danny…” Lance said from the front seat.

  “I can take the ball out of the shotgun formation, so I won’t have to move around. And I’ll get rid of the ball faster. Lots of quick slants and dump-screens. Right, Coach?”

  Coach stared straight ahead while he drove. “Son, you know that’s not a good idea.”

  “It’s my senior year. Appleton has a chance to win the conference! I can’t just sit on the bench and let it slip away. This is our shot!”

  “Don’t you worry about the school,” Coach said quietly. “Appleton will have other opportunities.”

  “But Coach—”

  “Danny, think about your future!” Coach snapped angrily. “Right now, if nothing changes, you’re a fifth round pick in the NFL draft. Sixth round at worst. That’s tens of millions of dollars waiting for you, so long as you don’t injure your knee. You’re sitting on a goddamn lotto ticket, son. You can’t tear it up just to try to win a few meaningless college games.”

  Danny took a deep breath, then let it out slowly. It was almost like I could see the realization falling across his face in real-time.

  Coach waited to make sure Danny understood, then went on in a softer tone. “Your backup isn’t as good as you, but he’s serviceable. We’ll be fine. All you have to do is run out the clock and you’re the starting quarterback on an NFL team next year. I’d be a damn selfish Coach if I let you set foot on that field. I’d never be able to live with myself if something happened.”

  “I’ll be right there with Coach, holding you back,” Lance said. “Be smart, bro.”

  There wasn’t anything for me to say that they hadn’t already said, so I reached out and squeezed Danny’s hand. When he met my gaze, there were tears glistening in his beautiful blue eyes.

  “Yeah,” he said softly, beginning to nod. “You’re right.”

  It was dark outside when Coach dropped us off at their house. He never even acknowledged me as he helped Danny out of the car and onto his crutches, and then drove away.

  We went inside, thinking that the day couldn’t get any worse.

  Feña was waiting for us on the couch. He looked up with confusion in his eyes, but not because of Danny’s knee. He held up a stapled sheet of paper.

  “I think I am being expelled.”

  44

  Roberta

  “What!” I exclaimed. “Expelled?”

  Then Feña saw Danny hobbling inside on the crutches. Feña dropped his stack of paper and rushed to the door. “Danny! What happened to your leg?”

  “Saved an orphan from a car accident,” he said. “No, but seriously…”

  While Danny explained to Feña what had happened, I picked up the papers Feña had discarded on the floor. It was a formal document sent from our Geopolitical Collapse of Europe From 1914-1918 professor. I skimmed the words.

  “Academic probation for violating the student integrity policy? Chance of expulsion pending academic review? What does this mean?”

  Feña helped Danny over to the couch. “I received an email from Professor Barton. I went straight to his office. I am being accused of cheating on the last test! He believes I copied off you!”

  “Why, because our answers were the same?” I scoffed. “They should be. We studied together!”

  “I told the professor this. He did not believe me. Check your email. You should have an email as well.”

  I’d been so focused on Feña that I didn’t even think about the consequences for me. I grabbed Lance’s laptop off the table and logged into my student account. Sure enough, there was an email from our professor waiting in my inbox.

  “Shit,” I said, letting out a deep breath. “Well, the good news is this is easy to fix. I’ll meet with the professor tomorrow to explain everything.”

  “I hope it is that easy,” Feña said as he leaned back on the couch. “I have never been on academic probation before…”

  Lance flinched in the kitchen. “You’re going to be on academic probation? Bro, that means you can’t play. Coach has to bench you.”

  Feña pinched the bridge of his nose and groaned.

  “Nothing is going to happen,” I said, patting Feña’s leg. “I’m going to fix everything tomorrow.”

  Everyone wanted to be alone, so I went back to my place that night. As I stared at my ceiling while trying to fall asleep, I thought about everything that had happened. Within a few days, all three of my guys were removed from the football team in different ways.

  Shit. Maybe I was bad luck.

  From there, I couldn’t help but fall into a pit of self-pity. All three of them would have been better off without me in their lives. Sure, Lance’s failed test had nothing to do with me, but I still had a vague sense of guilt about it since it happened while I was his physical trainer. Danny never would have gotten into a fight with the San Antonio players if it wasn’t for me—he was able to keep his cool until Nicky insulted me specifically.

  And then there was Feña. He never would have been accused of cheating if not for my help. Granted, he would probably be failing the class instead, but at least then he would be able to play on the team. Academic probation was worse.

  I slept like crap. Feña and I met at the gym the next morning to continue our normal workouts, but neither of us had our heart in it today, and we left without making much progress. When we got home, there was an email waiting in my box from the professor—he agreed to meet with us that afternoon, after he got back from church.

  The four hours waiting until then was torture.

  “Let me do the talking,” I told Feña as we walked across campus. “This is all just a misunderstanding. He will understand.”

  Professor Barton’s office was filled with dark wood and bookshelves crammed with thick history books. He told us to close the door, and we sat across from his massive desk. The expression on his face was dire.

  He placed on the desk two copies of our last exam—both the answer scan-tron, and the question sheet itself. I recognized my two sheets on the left.

  “It was brought to my attention that your two exams are identical in every way. You both scored every question correctly, with the exception of answers 17, 25, and 28. You both sit next to each other in my lecture hall. I have seen you whispering and passing notes during class. Mr. Martinez, your jump in score from the previous test to this one is unusual as well. I believe, based on this evidence, that you copied the exam answers from Ms. Gallo.” He turned his gaze on me. “And I suspect you were fully aware. If you have anything to say, now is the time to say it.”

  I cleared my throat and rested my hands in my lap. I hoped I looked calm and dignified. “Professor Barton. Feña and I are friends. After he failed the previous test, I offered to help him study. We have been reading the required chapters together in the athletic study hall almost every night. There are plenty of witnesses who can attest to this fact. Naturally, our answers would be roughly the same. So as you can see, this is all one big misunderstanding.”

  Professor Barton nodded as if he’d expected that answer. “Your tests are not identical only in score. There is also this.” He reached out and flipped both answer sheets to the second page. “In the margin next to question 13. You both wrote the dates March 21 and July 18.”

  I peered forward and saw that he was correct. “Well, yeah. That’s because question 13 asked how long the 1918 spring offensive lasted. The four possible answers were 100 days, 115 days, 119 days, and 130 days. While studying the spring offensive, Feña and I memo
rized the start date of March 21, and the end date of July 18. That’s why I wrote them down on the page—so I could do the math.”

  “I as well,” Feña chimed in.

  “Professor Barton,” I said warmly. “Surely you would not report us for cheating based on this speculation alone. You can ask anyone in the athletic building if we studied together. Or you can have Feña retake the exam entirely, under your supervision. He has worked his butt off to learn this material, staying up late with me for the past three weeks. Give him a chance to prove you wrong.”

  Professor Barton was quiet while I spoke, his face as implacable as a cement wall. “My evidence is not merely circumstantial. I received a tip from a student in your class claiming to have seen you two cheating during the exam. Only then did I compare your tests and notice the similarities.”

  I almost choked on my tongue. “What! Who said we cheated?”

  “The tip came from an anonymous phone call.”

  “This is insane…” I didn’t know what to say. I hadn’t prepared for this kind of accusation.

  Professor Barton stared back calmly. His mind was already made up.

  I snatched the test from the exam and flipped to a random page. “Feña. Who was the German general responsible for the spring offensive?”

  Feña looked like a deer in the headlights. “Oh. Um. The general was… Uh.”

  Come on, I thought. It’s Erich Ludendorff. You know this!

  I flipped to another question. “The Allied counterattack following the spring offensive, which resulted in the end of the war, was known by what name?”

  Once again Feña stared blankly. I nearly pulled my hair out.

  Professor Barton nodded as if that confirmed it. “I have no choice but to formally report you to the student integrity board for disciplinary action. You are welcome to continue taking my class under the hope that the board will overturn the decision, but otherwise you will have failed my class.” He grimaced. “I do hope you are telling the truth. It is always a shame to see such potential wasted.”

  I walked out of his office numbly. Only when we got outside did I get angry.

  “This is bullshit!” I shouted. “We’re being punished for studying together?”

  “I am sorry, Roberta,” Feña said. “I know the answers to the questions you asked—Ludendorff and the hundred days offensive—but I was paralyzed in the moment.”

  “It’s not your fault. You shouldn’t have to defend yourself. And besides, who the hell reported us for cheating? We’re in the back of the lecture hall, in the top row. There’s nobody behind us to even see us. It doesn’t make any sense. I’m going to give that integrity board a piece of my mind.”

  Although I was angry, Feña seemed to slump over in defeat as we walked. “They have already determined I am guilty. There is nothing we can say that will change their mind.”

  “Don’t say that! You worked hard.”

  “I did, but it does not matter. It is not worth fighting, Roberta. I must accept that I will be put on academic probation and miss the rest of the football season.”

  “You can give up, but I’m not,” I said stubbornly. “I’m going to request a meeting with the academic integrity board as soon as possible. I want to know who made that anonymous phone call.”

  But despite how determined I sounded out loud, deep down I knew that nothing I did would help.

  We were fucked.

  45

  Roberta

  For the next week, we were a pathetic bunch.

  Everyone was depressed and demotivated. Lance didn’t bother to get out of bed in the morning, even when I tried to cuddle with him and offered to make him pancakes. Feña went through the motions of getting up and going to the gym to workout with the rest of the team, but he jogged around the track on the second floor and did his resistance band workouts without any real enthusiasm. Like someone just going through the motions.

  Danny was the only one with any kind of life in him. Despite the the knee injury—which we kept wrapped in a brace—he went to all the morning workouts and became the team’s biggest cheerleader. He watched other people lift weights and shouted words of encouragement. When the running back Jamal set a new deadlift personal record, Danny was the loudest hype-man in the room. And during the afternoon practices on the field, he took the backup quarterback under his wing and gave him advice alongside Coach Mueller. Danny was a consummate leader.

  It was a shame his enthusiasm wasn’t contagious. But then again, I couldn’t blame Feña and Lance for not caring. What was the point when their seasons—and possibly their careers—were over?

  I did my best to try cheering them up all week. As a physical trainer, as a friend, and as a lover. And although grinding with Lance underneath the sheets was nice, kissing and groping and making love until the moon rose high in the window, it was always just a temporary reprieve. As soon as we were done, he went back to having that lifeless look in his eye.

  Like Danny had said, it was like having the team golden retriever taken away.

  I was so focused on encouraging my men that I didn’t even think about myself until Thursday, when I got an email notifying me that my transcript status had changed to Academic Probation.

  I hadn’t even thought about how I might get expelled for possibly helping Feña cheat. But now that was a very real possibility, unless I could convince the academic integrity board that we were telling the truth.

  And even if I somehow got out of that unscathed, what about the work credits I was trying to earn? Of the three athletes I’d been the physical trainer for, one had tested positive for a banned substance, and I was accused of helping another cheat. Would the kinesiology department even honor my work experience?

  Yeah right.

  And that was the realization that finally crushed my spirit: all of this had been for nothing.

  We played Lincoln Memorial College on the road, but I didn’t have the motivation to get up early and wait in line for a student bus ticket to the game, so I stayed home and watched it on the couch with Aly. Lincoln Memorial was not a good team. They were in last place, with only one win on the season. We should’ve beaten them 50-0.

  But our backup quarterback struggled right out of the gate, throwing an interception on the first play of the game. The difference between him and Danny was stark. He may have looked calm and collected during practice, but in an actual game he seemed scared of getting tackled. Any time a defensive lineman got close to him, he quickly hurled the ball away to avoid getting sacked. Even when he had plenty of time, he played like he was rushed. He looked every bit like a rookie who needed more experience.

  As if that wasn’t bad enough, Feña’s replacement kicker struggled too. He missed a 45-yard field goal in the second quarter—he kicked it straight, but it ended up short by five yards. He also missed a 42-yard field goal wide-right in the third quarter. After that, Coach started going for it on fourth-down instead.

  From the sideline, Feña looked like he was dying to get into the game. But Coach had officially benched him for academic probation, a fact that the television broadcasters discussed for several minutes.

  Somehow, we didn’t lose the game. Our defense stepped up and made two key turnovers, and we won 24-21. But as the team jogged off the field, it didn’t feel like a win.

  We had no chance of beating our rivals San Antonio next week.

  “Maybe Danny can play after all?” Aly asked. “Didn’t you say his knee seems to be doing well?”

  “Seems to be,” I said with a sigh. “Knee injuries are tricky. It could buckle under him unexpectedly during the game, and if he took a bad tackle… No. It’s too risky. Especially with the draft in the spring.”

  “Oh, the draft! I can’t wait to see where he goes. Maybe someplace fun, like Los Angeles. They have two teams now, you know.”

  “They do,” I said, humoring her. Aly was adorable when she tried to learn new football facts.

  “And what about you and them?”
she asked. “Have you guys talked about you?”

  “We really haven’t,” I said. I had let my relationship with the three men take a back seat to the football problems plaguing them. Yet now that I thought about it, things didn’t seem great. Lance and I had made love twice this week, but hadn’t spent much other quality time together. Feña was completely detached these days. Even Danny seemed distant when he was with me.

  Maybe our relationships weren’t as strong as I had thought. A few big setbacks and everything was falling apart. Good relationships survived stuff like this. Or maybe our relationships were just a function of how useful I was as a trainer. Now that I couldn’t be their physical trainer, I wasn’t much of a girlfriend.

  That thought was enough to make me want to stress-eat a pint of ice cream.

  Before I reached the fridge, my phone rang. It was Sophie.

  “Hey, Roberta! I hope now’s not a bad time to call. I wanted to see if you still need help for your presentation. The one on female athlete safety?”

  I groaned internally. “Actually, I’m kind of busy,” I lied. “Can we talk later?”

  “Oh, yeah, that’s fine. I just wanted to tell you that I looked through the security footage in the athletic building, and I found a clip of someone looking really suspicious! Funny enough, it was from October fifth, the random date you had me search. I think it’ll be great for your project, so when you get a chance…”

  I almost dropped the phone in my rush to respond to her.

  “Sophie, don’t go anywhere. I’ll be right there.”

  46

  Roberta

  I ran across campus to the athletic building. Literally ran, drawing looks from the other students who were wondering why this crazy girl in snowman pajamas was running like someone was chasing her. When I got to the athletic building front desk, sweat was rolling down my back.