We lost.
Mason’s going to be in a shitty mood.
8
Mason
“Give me three more.”
“Three!” I exclaim while exhaling harshly.
“You can do it.”
“I can’t!” I grunt.
“You can and you will.”
I’m in the varsity locker room, working on my upper body, and as usual, Olivia is my spotter. Sometimes I think that she loves football more than I do, and I feel badly that she can’t play, so I make sure to include her in my training as much as I can. I always have. She’s like my personal trainer, coach, and advisor rolled into one. There is no one else on this planet who wants me to succeed more than her.
“Just drop it on his chest, Olivia,” Pete says as if he’s totally amused. “That way he’ll have to lift it.”
“Shut up, Pete.”
Olivia bends over and speaks to me directly in my face.
“Stop whining and give me two more reps.”
“Your breath reeks,” I tell her as I continue to strain to lift the barbell above my head. “Stop eating corn chips before we workout.”
She purposely blows a long-winded puff of stinky corn chip breath over my face.
“You’re just angry because you lost the bet.”
“Maybe if you’d bench press heavier weight this week, you’ll be able to reach a little farther for the ball when we play Madison High next week.”
Suddenly I find a second wind, lift the barbell high, and then slam it back in its resting position.
“Are you serious right now?” I ask as I swiftly sit up and swing my legs around on the weight bench. “It’s not my fault that we lost the game. I’m killing myself out on that field every week.”
Our quarterback, Sam Smith, overhears my comment and begins mocking me by pretending as if he’s playing the violin.
“What!” I say standing to confront the entire room.
“You’re breaking our hearts,” Sam taunts.
“I did what I was supposed to do out there. The defense should have stopped the run.”
I’m not usually the type to point fingers, but sometimes I do feel like I carry the entire game on my back and it’s not fair. This is a team sport, not the Mason Bridgewater show. A statement that my father has been drilling into me ever since I made my first winning catch as a pee wee player and celebrated a little too long for his taste.
“Why don’t you go bust the defense’s balls for a little while, Olivia?” My longtime friend and teammate Simon says.
“Maybe I will have a word with Jackson and Spitz,” she fires back with her hands sitting defiantly on her hips. “Those two looked more tired out there than my grandmom after cooking Thanksgiving dinner.”
“Stay right where you are,” I tell her.
Jackson has been drooling over Olivia for weeks now, and there’s no way I’m going to permit anything to happen between one of my offensive linemen and my best friend. Football players (including myself) are all dogs, and all Jackson wants to do is to get into Olivia’s panties. That would be a disaster.
Another one of my friends and teammates in the training room, Pete, gives me a peculiar glance then asks Olivia a question in jest.
“You still making bets with Mason after all these years?” he asks her.
“I think he cheated.” She pouts.
“How could I cheat?” I say. “You’re just angry because you have to cook me a dinner fit for a king tonight.”
“I thought we bet that I‘d buy you a burger!” she challenges.
“A burger that you’re going to cook with your own two little hands.”
“Oh no I’m not!”
The room erupts in laughter.
“What kind of bet did you lose this time, Olivia?”
“It’s a long story.”
I lie back down on the bench, and quickly finish pressing my last three reps without even having her spot me. Truthfully I don’t need Olivia or anyone to spot me. I just like to have her there.
“I’m ready to go to the market and pick up the groceries we need for my winner’s dinner. Are you satisfied that I finished my set?”
“Eh, not really. Why don’t you do an extra mile when you run tomorrow morning.”
Our team’s number one defensive back, Jackson Kent, enters the training room. His eyes immediately home in on Olivia’s ass and that’s when I notice it. She’s not wearing her usual baggy sweat suit ensemble. Today she’s wearing a skin-tight pair of maroon leggings with a tank top and Charger hoodie that barely covers her butt.
Where the hell have I been?
Jersey girl’s body is fucking hot.
“Why don’t you go run with me?” I ask. Annoyed that Jackson is staring at her at all. “Those thighs of yours are looking a little chunky lately.”
Then I slap the side of one of her legs.
“Mason!”
“Damn, dude, don’t you know you’re not supposed to talk about a lady’s weight?”
“A lady?” I say incredulously.
I immediately regret the words as soon as they came out of my mouth. What I said was rude and embarrassing, especially in a room full of boys that she knows. Honestly, I don’t know what came over me.
When I see the look of mortification on Olivia’s face, I know that her wrath is soon coming. I quickly step behind her, grab her arms, and wrap them around her waist in a bear hold so that she won’t hit me.
“Get off of me!” She struggles to get out of my grasp.
“No way. I can tell that you’re fittin’ to hit me.”
“I sure as hell am. Just as soon as you get off me.”
“Then I’m not letting go.”
Jackson is standing across the room watching us. He isn’t saying a word, but he doesn’t have to. His body language is saying it all. He wants Olivia more than ever now.
“This is cheating!” she argues. “You’re ten times my size.”
“Ten times would make you super skinny and we both know that isn’t—”
Umph!
Olivia lifts her foot and kicks her heel back into my shin with as much force as she can muster.
“Ow!” I scream through pain as well as raucous laughter. I can’t help it. You have to love her spunk.
“You deserve worse.”
I still don’t let her go, because Jackson continues to watch. He may be more interested in her than ever now, but he has to know that JG (short for Jersey girl) belongs to me. Maybe not in a romantic way, but in all of the other ways that count. We’re next door neighbors and best friends, and I’m not going to allow her to get hurt by some dude who just wants to fuck her. It’s not happening. Plain and fucking simple.
“Are you guys going to just let him bully me?” she asks the room.
“We don’t see anything,” Sam says.
“Where is all this team unity when you’re all out on the field? Why don’t you throw the ball so he can catch it, Sam!”
Everyone laughs except Sam.
Even Jackson does.
“I swear that I’m going to kick your legs from under you if you don’t let me go right this minute. You may never play ball again,” she threatens me.
“Are you going to make me my dinner?”
I use one of my hands to start tickling her side, which isn’t easy because I’ve got to still hold onto her with the other.
“I’m going to kill you, Mason!” she says in between fits of laughter.
“I want a vanilla shake too,” I demand.
“I can’t stand you. Oh my God, I can’t breathe. I’m going to pass out.”
Jackson takes a few steps forward as if he’s going to do something to try and stop me. No one notices his subtle challenge but me, but I stare him right in his little beady eyes and then speak closely in Olivia’s ear for his benefit.
“You’re still talking, so you’re still breathing.”
“Okay, you win,” she finally acquiesces. “I’l
l cook.”
I stop tickling her, but I don’t let go just yet.
“And?”
“And I’ll make you a vanilla shake.”
I smile at Jackson, kiss Olivia on the cheek, and then release her.
“Awesome.”
Jackson mouths the word asshole to me, and I take some satisfaction out of the fact that I’ve made my point. Jersey girl is off limits.
“Why are you always terrorizing Olivia? I swear I don’t understand why y’all are friends,” Simon says to us shaking his head.
But our friendship is not for him or anyone else to understand.
It just is and always will be.
9
Mason
“Can I get some more fries?”
“How can you still be hungry? I made a ton of food.”
“I’m a growing boy.”
“I technically think you’re finished growing.”
“If there are no more fries, then I want my shake now. I’m still hungry and a bet is a bet.”
Olivia rolls her eyes and in dramatic fashion pulls a half gallon of vanilla ice cream out of the freezer, grabs a spoon from the drawer, and plunks them both down in front of me.
“This will have to do.”
She grabs a large orange for herself and sits across from me at the table.
“Where is your mom?” I ask.
“She went to some work thing.”
After I shovel a couple of scoops of ice cream down my throat, my thoughts wander back to the game. No one likes losing, but I probably hate it more than the average player.
“So seriously, JG, what did you see when you watched the game? What do we need to work on?”
“Honestly, you were right. It’s the defense. Jackson and Spitz probably need to lose a couple of pounds and ramp up their workouts. They get really tired fast.”
“What do you think about Jackson?”
“I told you. He needs to lose a few,” she says nonchalantly as she continues to peel her orange. I grab it and finish peeling it for her.
“Other than football I mean.”
“Like in what way?”
“Would you date him?”
“Date him?”
“Here.” I give her back the peeled orange.
Her initial reaction to my question satisfies me. It doesn’t seem as if she’s interested in Jackson at all, so I don’t think I have anything to worry about.
“Thanks.”
We stare awkwardly at each other for a moment.
“What’s up with you?” she finally asks. “It was just one game. Why are you being all sensitive about it.”
“I’m sorry about what I said in the gym today.”
“Which thing that you said?”
I look down in shame.
“All of them.”
She continues to break her orange apart and eat it.
“You were playing around, weren’t you?”
“Of course.”
“Well, then I’m fine. I’m just one of the guys, right? You should be able to joke around with me like you do with them. You’re only apologizing because I’m a girl. If I were a dude, I’d be right in that room with y’all all the time anyway—playing ball and kidding around.”
“True.”
“So, umm, since we’re asking questions. What do you think about Ginger Hampton?”
“Ginger?”
“Yeah.”
“Why are you asking me about Ginger Hampton?”
“Just wondering if she’s your type of girl.”
I cock my head to the side wondering where she is going with this line of questioning.
“Ginger is everyone’s type of girl.”
“So you’d be interested in her?”
“I’m not sure. I feel like this is a friendship test, and I’m nervous about whether I’ll pass or fail. Did she do something to you? You want me to get somebody to kick her ass?”
“No, nutball, I can fight my own battles. I’m asking because she wanted me to give you her phone number.”
I grin.
“Ohhh, she did?”
“Yeah.”
“So give it to me then.”
I wipe a little bit of juice dripping down Olivia’s chin with a clean napkin. I may be the greedy one, but she’s always been the messy one.
“So … you want it?”
“Yeah.”
“You’re going to call her?”
“That’s what you do with a phone number, Einstein.”
“Okay, umm, I’ll text it to you.”
I watch as Olivia nervously forwards me the number. I can’t exactly read her odd body language, but I’m not going to look a gift horse in the mouth. Ginger Hampton’s nickname behind closed doors is Ginger Snap. Supposedly she has so much control over her pussy that it feels like she can clamp down and snap your dick in two. Who wouldn’t be curious about that?
“About earlier—” she says.
“What about earlier?”
“The stuff about Jackson.”
My face tightens.
“Yeah, what about him?”
“I was caught off guard when you asked me earlier, but I guess you already know that he asked me to The Harvest Dance.”
That fucking dance is in six weeks! No one is asking anyone to the dance yet.
“When did he ask you?” I try plastering on a fake smile.
“I thought you knew.”
“When did he ask you?” I ask again through gritted teeth.
“The first week of school.”
I’m going to kick his ass.
“And what did you say?”
“I said I’d think about it.”
I swallow another large spoonful of ice cream. It enables me to think before I speak, because I’m really about to say something dumb right now.
“But you hate dances.”
“That’s not true. I make ’em up for you to do in the end zone all the time.”
“Okay but you hate dances that require a date.”
“Who says I do?”
“You’ve never brought a date to any of our dances.”
“Things change, and I’m a senior now. I don’t want to have any regrets. For once I want to be like every other girl.”
“But you’re not like every other girl. That’s what makes you different.”
“It’s what I want.”
“Are you going to wear a dress?” I ask incredulously. Olivia never dresses up. It’s not her style. She’s Sporty Spice, not Posh Spice.
“Yes, douchebag, I’m going to wear a dress. I’ve worn dresses before.”
“To church.”
“Why are we debating this again?”
“I’m just going to be honest here.”
“Please do.”
“I don’t want you taking anyone from the team to the dance.”
“Why? What’s wrong with me?”
“Nothing.”
She’s getting me all wrong. It’s not that she’s not good enough, it’s that none of them are.
“I don’t tell you who to date.”
“You might as well have,” I say.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Tell the truth. You didn’t want to give me Ginger’s number tonight did you?”
Olivia shifts in her seat looking uncomfortable. It’s not her personality to do things that she doesn’t want to do, not unless it’s her mom asking, so I’m curious to know how Ginger convinced her to pass along her number.
“I didn’t want you to get a venereal disease before the age of eighteen.”
“And I don’t want you dating anyone I play with.”
“That’s not even the same thing. You’re comparing apples to oranges.”
“What if Jackson does something to you?”
“Like what?” she scoffs. “I’ve known him just as long as I’ve known you. What would he do?”
I stand up and start pacing the kitchen floor.
�
�You’re so naïve sometimes, Olivia. He can do a lot of shit. I can’t believe you’re from New Jersey.”
“The last time I was in New Jersey I was eleven years old, and I lived in the suburbs, not the hood. Look, you’re being ridiculous. All the guys I know in this town play on our football team. What do you want me to do? Date someone from the next town over?”
“Let’s change the subject,” I say because I don’t know how to answer her without sounding selfish. “I’m supposed to be helping you with environmental science tonight. You need at least a B on the test if you’re going to bring your grade up.”
She stands in front of me slack-jawed.
“Oh my God. You’re not kidding. You really don’t want me dating Jackson.”
“You’d be putting me in a fucked-up position if you do, because if something happens to you and I have to make a choice, it will always be you, Olivia. Always you.”
10
Olivia
I’m five minutes early to the last student council meeting before the Harvest Festival, so I take a moment to enjoy the quiet. I’m sitting in the student lounge, sipping on a bottle of peach tea, and wondering how it is that I’d never been in this room once until this year.
Mason and I haven’t really talked about Ginger and Jackson after the spirited conversation we had in my kitchen, but I can only assume by my present circumstances that he must have called Ginger and is making her very happy. Any icky feelings I had about my part in making that happen are over. They both seem quite okay with the arrangement. She’s bouncing around the hallways happy as a clam, and I even caught the two of them whispering with each other under the stairwell toward the gym.
“Hi, girl.” Ginger takes a seat next to me at the small round table I’m sitting at.
“Hey, Ginger.”
“Where is everyone?”
“I don’t know. I’m the first one here.”
“I guess they’re running behind. I think most of them are coming from the west side of the building. I’m glad it’s just the two of us though, because I wanted to bend your ear for a minute.”
What else is new.
“So … has Mason said anything about me lately?”
Diesel: A Sports Romance Page 4
