by Shandi Boyes
I slap her upside the head with my pillow. “That never happened. It was the yoga mat’s lining sticking to the floor.”
“Oh… so what caused the smell?” I’m about to give her the what for, but she continues talking, stealing my chance. “And if you say it was your breath, you’ll need to explain why all your orifices smell like a vagina, Queen LaQueefer.”
Cake forgotten, energy high, I pin her to the bed with my hips before attacking her ribs with my hands. My tickling onslaught doesn’t keep her down for long. “What’s the matter, Queefmaster, did your cookie fart? Is your snatch whistling? Are your pink bits thundering for a rumbling? It’s okay, jeezy-sneezes are perfectly normal. You can’t do as many pelvic floor exercises as you do and not expect a backup of beaver barks.”
“I’d rather do a pink cupcake in a yoga class than fart in front of God’s gift to women.”
Willow laughs, her night of raunchy sex enough to ensure her she has nothing to worry about. She gassed a football great the night they met and lived to tell the tale. She can be confident she’s got all her bases covered.
Me, on the other hand, hid in my room like a coward instead of meeting Lorenzo and Danny at the assigned time this morning. If it wasn’t bad enough Lorenzo learned my name and address last night, Danny upped the ante by inviting him to the boxing class I had only invited him to minutes earlier.
I should have sucked it up and went. I’m a twenty-two-year-old college student, nothing fears me, but no matter how many times I built the courage to leave my dorm, I couldn’t. It isn’t that I’m scared I can’t control myself around Shortie J—he’s short, so what’s there to be panicked about—but it was worrying that I’d walk out of my dorm to discover yesterday was a dream.
Presley Carlton kissed my cheek, the 69ers won their playoff, and I made out with an outrageously handsome stranger all within thirty minutes. With how short Lorenzo is, I should be grateful I woke minus the sweats of a nightmare, but for some reason unbeknownst to me, I don’t want to discover any parts of yesterday were a figment of my imagination. Short-asses included.
“All right, scoot. It’s confession time.” Willow grimaces when she bucks her hips like a stallion. “Remind me hip thrusting is off the cards for at least the next six hours.”
“Only six hours? You look like you need six days.”
She waits for me to roll off her, being extra careful not to damage the cake any more than we already have, before saying, “E is taking me out tonight… on an official date.” She air quotes the word ‘official.’
I smile, genuinely happy for her. Also jealous, but mainly happy.
Once she has the cake on our desk and her clothes back front and center, she locks her eyes with mine. “Who’s Lorenzo?” Her reply is very Willow. She doesn’t sugarcoat anything.
“He’s a deliriously good-looking man I met yesterday while escaping the guard I flashed my ta-tas at.”
Gratitude floods her adorable face. “Thank you for that, by the way. I never had the chance yesterday to tell you how appreciative I was for your help.”
“It was my pleasure… truly.”
I’m not lying. My kiss with Lorenzo was the most fire-sparking I’ve ever had. It had all the elements I seek when searching for an ideal kissing partner. The perfect combination of speed and control, he wasn’t overloaded with spit like many college boys are, and I didn’t feel seconds from a lobotomy via an overeager tongue. It was pure bliss—although it can never happen again.
After tucking my feet under my bottom, I give Willow a recount of everything that occurred between me telling her to run and her arriving home. It’s a long, drawn-out story that ends in a massive cliffhanger romance readers would stab an author for.
“The thing is, he’s short.”
Willow makes a face, aware of my appreciation of altitude-breathing mates. “How short are we talking?”
I sigh. It’s equally painful and pitiful. “Five-seven, five-eight… on a good day. He swears he’s five-nine, but I was wearing my Donna Karan’s, and we met eye to eye.”
“Eek.”
My lips purse. “Exactly. He’s in denial.”
Silence teems between us while Willow absorbs all the facts I’ve given her. Once she has them sorted as only her little Aussie head can, she asks, “If you took his height out of the equation, would your opinion of him change?”
“Is Presley ‘Elvis’ Carlton going to father my children?” It takes my sugar-sluggish head a good twelve seconds to realize my analogy is no longer suitable. “Sorry. Old habits die hard.” I exhale a big breath before confessing something I’d never say if it weren’t my best friend sitting across from me. “I’m reasonably sure you wouldn’t be the only one walking around with a broken vagina if he wasn’t. I don’t let any random stranger pin me to a door to ravish my mouth. I’m not a complete hussy. I need some sort of spark.”
Willow’s excited squeal almost bursts my eardrums.
“But…” I wait, building the suspense. “It can’t go any further than it has. For one, Danny likes him.”
“Because he thinks he’s gay,” Willow interjects, her tone argumentative.
“For a good reason. His manicurist is more skilled than mine.” She laughs, assuming I’m joking. I’m not. Lorenzo’s fingernails were minus the gross dirt most guys have beneath them. “Two, I’m four years into my five-year plan. I can’t veer off course.”
“Sky—”
My rueful glare cuts her off before she can go on a belligerent rant on how football isn’t the reason God created humans. She’s wrong, even if God didn’t invent football, he’s blessing whoever did. It’s the sport of gods, so how could he not love it? That would be like single women ragging on the inventor of the vibrator… crazy.
“I’ve had my plan for years, Will. I’m not willing to change it for a guy with an Adonis voice that matches his even more ridiculously handsome face.”
“He has a hot voice, too?” Willow’s squeaked question is as high as her brows.
I nod. “Yep. Accented, thick, and drool-worthy. He’s near perfect.” I flop back onto my bed, ruffling up the quilt cover. “If only he weren’t short.” I sigh again, hating how shallow I sound. If I weren’t a goal-orientated person, I’d call myself a bitch. “Anyway, enough about me. How did you break your vagina? If you mentioned a god-like man with a penis as long as his impressive football stats, I might murder you. Just sayin’.”
Willow twists her lips. “If I happened to mention a penis that requires its own zip code while holding tickets to the final this Sunday, would a slipup be excused?”
“You have tickets to the final!” When she nods, I scoot even closer to her. “Tickets to the final? Not some random college game poor students like us still can’t afford?”
I’m on the verge of fainting when she pulls out two gold embossed tickets from her backpack which was dumped on the floor. She doesn’t just have tickets to the event of the year, she has two passes for the sky suites at 69ers’ home stadium.
“Those aren’t tickets, Willow. They’re dream chasers.”
When she hands the embossed tickets to me, a fat, salty blob rolls down my cheek. It’s been a dream of mine since I was eight to attend a final my beloved team is hosting. This goes above and beyond that—if I’m not getting ahead of myself.
Just because Willow has two tickets, doesn’t mean one of them is for me.
Willow backhands my chest when I peer up at her with my big blue eyes out in full force. “Do you really need to ask, Sky? Of course, one of the tickets is yours. You’re my best friend. Who else would I take?”
I hug the tickets close to my chest, so I can squeeze them to death. I can’t do that to Willow. Her name is on both tickets, so I need her to gain entry to what I’m certain is Heaven’s Gate.
“I thought it was best to check. These babies start at over seven thousand dollars apiece, so I wanted to make sure.”
Willow jackknifes back. “How much?”
“Uh-huh. It ain’t happenin’. You’re not selling these tickets! The experience alone is worth more than any amount of money.” I leap up from my bed, shove the tickets down my shirt, then spin around to face an O-mouthed Willow. “Besides, he broke your vagina. As far as I’m concerned, he got off his charges cheaply. I would have made him fork over lifetime tickets for a clicking hoo-ha.”
My jaw falls open when she murmurs, “Oh, don’t worry, he offered.” Loving my shocked expression, she laughs. “You haven’t seen this in action.”
With her broken vagina a thing of the past, she breaks out some of the moves she used on the stage last night. Her hip thrusts are kept to a bare minimum, but she doesn’t need them to be sexy and sensual.
I love seeing her like this. I’ve never seen her so carefree and happy.
Feeding off her playfulness, I join her for an impromptu bump and grind in the middle of our room. We bob and weave around without a care in the world, smiling and giggling like we’ve turned down hundreds of requests to dance.
Within minutes, our fighting the past two weeks is forgotten, I’m no longer jealous, and we’ve forged a bond strong enough no man will ever come close to breaking.
Regrettably, no amount of dancing can swipe height-restrictive men from my mind. Lorenzo is still there as hot and notable as our kiss.
That kiss—our kiss. It can’t happen again, but that doesn’t mean I’ll forget it anytime soon.
Yesterday, I fell off the wagon.
It won’t happen again tomorrow.
I make no guarantees for championship weekend—except that the 69ers will walk away with the coveted win.
Chapter Seven
Lorenzo
Quirky yet stylish tie. Button-up shirt. Black pinstriped pants, and a smile that discloses I have money but you won’t need it to spend time with me, reflects from the vanity mirror in the sky booth of the 69ers’ home stadium. Add that to a cut jawline, tanned skin, and eyes as sharp as diamonds, and you’ve got one remarkably put-together package in an astonishingly quick timeframe.
Football isn’t my thing. Well, what American’s class as football isn’t my thing, but an unexpected call from a man I’m certain is confused had me altering my plans for today. A seat in the sky suites didn’t come cheap, but neither does a loss.
I’m not a man who believes losing a battle will teach you how to win the next war. The person who said winning isn’t everything must not have won anything. Being victorious is everything, both on and off the field, and this is one game I refuse to lose.
In reality, this isn’t a match I should be fielding, even more so after discovering Skylar is in her final year of college, but I can’t sideline myself. I’ve looked at many women, and one glance at Skylar told me she’d come with a heap of trouble, but if that trouble comes with a reason to breathe, I owe it to myself not to shy away.
I’ve played it safe my entire life. I slept, ate, and trained for the life I’m living now, yet, nothing changed. I became who he wanted me to be. I am a great, but it will take more than that for him to ever change. He will forever want more.
Loathing the moody beast staring back at me, I wash my hands, run a damp one over my almost black locks to keep them in place, then exit the washroom. For a suite costing upward of half a million dollars to hire, the space is cramped. It screams of luxury with varnished granite, high-end appliances, and food that looks like a cat regurgitated its lunch in shiny bowls, but the floor space was optimized to ensure only one winner comes out of this day.
It doesn’t involve the teams currently battling for supremacy. It’s all about the corporation, not the men who make them uber-rich.
“Grazie,” I murmur upon snagging a wine flute off the waiter tray halfway to the leather-lined suites facing the field. That’s where Skylar is located. She’s dressed similar to the night we met. Her hair is frizzed out, her makeup has been replaced with paint, and she’s wearing a jersey that would only look better if it were on my bedroom floor. Considering she’s surrounded by millionaires, she should look awkwardly out of place.
She doesn’t.
Awkward isn’t a word I’d ever use for someone as ravishing as Skylar. Bellissime is a tame way to describe her beauty. She has pouty, kissable lips, smooth, almost translucent skin, a petite nose that screws up any time she accuses the referees of being biased, and a body capable of making a man six years her senior obsessed in under a second.
My mamma often says I have a knack for seeing people’s beauty from the inside out. If she’s right, Skylar’s insides are as gorgeous as her outside shell portrays. She intrigues me—so much so, I’ve barely slept a wink the past week.
My new coach has me on a strict sleeping schedule. I’m to get no less than eight hours every night. He even requires me to wear a sleep recording instrument to track the deep, light, and REM sleep I get each night. I’d pass with flying colors if I didn’t get up at four every morning to attend the boxing classes Skylar’s friend, Danny, invited me to. Their early start to the day has me crawling toward my bed not long after the sun has gone down, but even with Skylar being a no-show, I’ve continued turning up each day.
Danny is hilarious. He has a flair many Italian men can appreciate but in a non-ego dampening way. He’s what I believe Americans call a great wingman. During our many daily chats, he bombards me with intel on Skylar without making it obvious he’s feeding my obsession. No one wants to be an accessory to stalking, much less when it’s occurring in a country with an extradition treaty.
When Danny gets up to make his way to the bar, he spots me standing awkwardly at the side. “Enzo, over here.” He waves for me to join him near the glass fogged up from the hot breath Skylar released when she realized who Danny is accosting. “I’m about to get another round of champagne to celebrate. What are you drinking?”
They have reason to celebrate. The 69ers’ tally is nearly double its competitors. This game is very different from the one I play. If any of our games had triple digits on the scorebox, both sides would be in the penalty box.
“Champagne sounds good, but hold the olives.”
Danny freezes, his brow pulling together. He’s utterly confused until he spots my grin. “Oh, Enzo, you little devil. You got me again.” He gestures his free hand to the people filling the front row of seats. “Introduce yourself to my friends. None of them bite. I’m the only one with a gnawing fetish.” He speaks his last sentence so soft, I’m certain I was its sole vendor.
After a playful roar, he tootles off to the manned bar while I slot into the seat he vacated. It’s right next to Skylar. As I watch her sip on an almost empty champagne flute, she acts unaffected by my presence. It’s all a ploy. A faint vein in her neck fluttered faster when I took my seat, much less the slightest part of her lips. If she were facing me head-on, I’m certain her eyes will be holding the same glossed-over look they held when she glanced at me the first time over a week ago.
“We meet again, amore mio. Are you surprised a bidello can afford suite tickets?”
She twists her head to the side, her bello eyes blinking with silent interrogations. “You arrived in the fourth-quarter smelling of the aftershave they have in the stalls. I’m not surprised, Shortie J.” She mimics my accent while saying my nickname. “I’m more frustrated they sent in the cleaning crew before the final whistle. Not even the food van outside selling stale hotdogs for four dollars a pop is that rude.”
“The game is done, the winner announced.” I tilt closer to her by propping my elbows onto my knees before dragging my eyes to the scoreboard showing there are only seconds remaining in the match. “What else is there to see?”
“The numbers on a scoreboard don’t decide the winner, Lorenzo. It’s the men who gave everything they have for a chance of glory instead of turning up to get everything they could have. They’re the true winners today, even when the scoreboard states otherwise.” She returns her eyes to the field. “Look at Micha. He clearly has a broken nose an
d a possible tear to his posterior talofibular ligament, yet he’s not glanced at the scoreboard once because a winner is a dreamer—”
“Who never gives up,” I interrupt, quoting the last half of my favorite Nelson Mandela quote.
“Yes.” Her smile is way too enthusiastic for a woman about to leave me hanging. As the final whistle sounds, she stands from her seat. “Good chat, Shortie J. Hopefully, we can do it again soon.”
“We can when you have dinner with me.”
She tosses her head back my way, her smile picking up. “I’m sorry, I can’t.”
“Why?” The shortness of my question can’t conceal the thumping of my heart. “You said if I found you in a sea of millions, you’d reconsider your objectives. Ti ho trovato, amore mio.”
The scent I’ve imagined in vivid detail the past week surrounds me when Skylar leans in close to whisper sardonically, “If winning were easy, Lorenzo, losers would do it.”
When she pivots back around, preparing to flee, I seize her wrist, stopping her. The thud of her pulse under my thumb stirs something deep inside of me. It has me remembering the boy I once was, the one who was constantly told he’d never achieve his dreams but did.
“Courage is discovering you most likely won’t win, but you still try anyway. Inoltre, non conta la taglia del cane, ma la cattiveria della sua corteccia.” The thump of her pulse doubles when I stand from my chair to press my lips to the shell of her ear as she almost did mine mere seconds ago. “I’ll win this battle, amore mio, because not only is my bite as vicious as my bark, but I’m also aware there’s only one difference between a winner and loser. One gives up.” A quiver juts up her breath when I graze my teeth over the fleshly skin of her ear before sucking it into my mouth. When I release it with a pop, the faintest scent of her arousal lingers in the air. “I don’t give up, Skylar. I’ve never given up, so the quicker you realize I will win this, the easier it’ll be for all involved.”
