Fourth Down and Dirty: A Bad Boy Sports Romance

by Kristen Flowers

  “Uh-um,” I stammered as I shakily shuffled through the papers in the folder I had put together for him. “I can’t find the notes I wanted to use today,” I mumbled. My face and ears burned, my breathing was shallow and rapid, and I was doing everything possible not to make eye contact with him. It was obvious that he had gotten a reaction out of me, but indulging in his behavior was too dangerous. Losing my job just so I could be another notch on his bedpost wasn’t worth it—at all.

  Besides, Stella was nearby without a student to tutor and it wouldn’t be all that difficult for her to overhear anything either of us said. Stella would never put my job at risk, but she would definitely ask questions that I had absolutely no interest answering. Hopefully Landon would keep his sexual innuendos quiet today.

  He leaned back and watched me with an amused expression on his face as I continued to mumble under my breath, looking completely out of sorts. He leaned back and closed his eyes as a satisfied smirk spread across his face. I could only imagine how much he enjoyed watching the very obvious effect he had on me.

  "Does the big, bad football player need a nap?" Stella teased from her desk.

  Landon opened his eyes and looked over at her with a laugh. Leaning forward, he shook his head, "Actually, I need to do something else in my bed." He winked.

  "Oh yeah? What's that?" Stella asked, feigning innocence.

  Landon gestured toward me with a nod of his head, "Her."

  I stopped cold, willing myself not to look up at him and much less to look over at Stella. My skin felt ice cold as I held my breath. Did he really just say that out loud? I prayed Stella would take it as Landon just being, well, Landon. She didn’t need to read into it any more than a crass off the cuff statement by Mr. Jock himself.

  "Really?” Stella asked, “So you do like a challenge, huh?"

  "I'm an athlete,” he winked, “I like to challenge myself every day." Stella let out a loud laugh and Landon followed suit. My face was probably as red as a lobster as I gripped the papers I was holding so tight I nearly punched a hole through them.

  I heard Stella’s chair scrape against the hardwood floor and let out a sigh of relief. Maybe she was heading off to the break room, but at least that conversation was over and I could be spared further panic and embarrassment. I couldn’t help the tinge of jealousy I felt at their easy banter. I was flustered about being the subject of it thought. I found myself wishing, for once, I had Stella's bubbly wit and easy way of chatting with others.

  Then I paused for a second.

  It was crazy to be having those thoughts—I couldn’t want Landon. Finally, I found the notes I was looking for. It was time to try and get down to business.

  “Here they are,” I announced, waving the papers in celebration. I opened my mouth to get started, but felt Stella’s hand on my shoulder. I froze. When I had heard her chair scrape it had only been for her to come stand at our table. Was this really about to get worse?

  “Physical challenges and academic challenges are different,” Stella teased.

  “Well, wouldn’t this,” Landon nodded toward me, “Be highly physical?” He stared me dead center in the eyes, making my skin erupt in shivers. They were just going to continue their humorous little conversation, with me being the subject of it. I wanted to put a stop to it but, like always, words failed me. Somehow, I always managed to clam up during social situations; especially when I was the topic of conversation.

  Landon smirked, obviously amused at my anxiety. His eyes flew up to Stella and he looked at her expectantly. Stella giggled, “Well, yes, but you have to pass the academic challenge first.” She patted me on the shoulder and added, “Maybe this one is a bit too much for you to crack.”

  “You think so?” he asked, only he was looking straight at me yet again. My face burned a bright red, something that neither Landon nor Stella failed to notice. They both laughed. Stella nudging my arm. Landon continued to stare at me before finally asking me point blank, “Is there something bothering you?”

  I opened my mouth and closed it several times before letting out a breath. I had to say something.

  “Nothing,” I mumbled weakly, averting my eyes from his green gaze, but being careful not to look at Stella. I was extremely aware of the sudden silence between the three of us. I had a paralyzing fear of what Landon could say next.

  He leaned in even more to ask in a very quiet voice, “Oh. Are you thinking about how much you liked kissing me, then?” There was a brief moment of dense quiet before Stella smacked my arm.

  “What the hell!” I demanded, looking up at her for the first time and immediately regretting it. I quickly looked away.

  “Oh no you didn’t!” Stella cried out. She crouched down and looked at me until I finally turned to reluctantly meet her gaze. “Why didn't you tell me you guys kissed?”

  She smacked my arm again and shook her head. Her eyes were wide with surprise. She was outraged I never filled her in with this juicy tidbit of gossip. But then again, why the hell would I? I was embarrassed and nearly wanted to rid it from my own memory.

  Of course it was exactly the sort of thing Stella would want to know about. It was completely out of character for me. I could understand how it was inconceivable to her that it had actually happened. I gulped and turned to look at Landon, who was watching us with intense interest. He had a permanent smirk curling up the side of his face. I could tell he was enjoying my discomfort.

  This had quickly turned into a nightmare situation I couldn’t wake up from. I looked around to make sure nobody else overheard our conversation and felt a small sense of relief when I saw only two other tutors in the center, both of which were seated far away and busy working.

  “I– I…” I stammered, meeting Stella’s gaze again, but worlds failed me. I didn’t have the heart to honestly answer my best friend’s question, much less with Landon sitting right in front of us.

  Stella rolled her eyes and grabbed my wrist, shaking it. She looked over her shoulder at Landon, “Is Landon as good of a kisser as I’ve heard he is?”

  I grinned widely, not taking my eyes off him for the first time. He was looking directly at me. He cocked his eyebrow and crossed his arms, waiting for me to respond. The cocky smirk turning up the corners of his lips made it clear he was not very concerned about my rating. Naturally, his unwavering confidence extended to his kissing abilities as well.

  I wanted to respond with a long, drawn out “yes”. No matter how sure I was nothing else could happen with Landon again, the fact remained, I had never been kissed that way before. But it would have been inappropriate for me to say that to Stella. More importantly, I couldn’t risk clueing in Landon on how I really felt about our little encounter. Then I thought about exactly what she had asked and paused.

  "Heard from whom?" I asked as I turned toward her.

  Stella smirked, looking over at Landon meaningfully before turning her attention back to me.

  “Well, from…Everyone.”

  There was so much weight to her words and it all landed on me like a ton of bricks. All the animosity I originally had toward him came screeching into my mind and the loudest part was him being a highly arrogant, hugely popular football player.

  Of course he was extremely experienced.

  What I didn’t bargain for was actually feeling jealous about it. I was jealous he had been with so many other girls. I had a sick feeling at the pit of my stomach. If for even a second I thought I wasn’t just another conquest for him in the bedroom I must have been crazy. I didn’t even know I was capable of feeling jealously toward a guy like Landon Bryce.

  It felt awful—like a ball of rotten ugliness in the pit of my stomach.

  “You’re an asshole.” I said, unable to hold back the feelings bubbling over inside of me.

  Stella gasped and jerked her head back. She stared at me in disbelief. I was acting like he had betrayed my trust in some sort of way. Now It was impossible for me to pretend the kiss was meaningless. Now Stella
felt like she was in the middle of something, so she quietly got up and walked back to her own desk.

  My eyes were still trained on Landon, who was looking at me in shock. If Stella was surprised by my sudden outburst, it was no match to how Landon must have felt. He opened his mouth just a sliver as if he had something to say, but remained quiet. I, still seething, decided to go on.

  “You’re a dog. A man-whore.” At any other moment, I would have realized I was irrationally angry, but that was far from the case now. The grip of jealously was too strong for me to have any kind of rational thought. It wasn’t until there was a loud slamming noise from the other side of the Tutoring Center that I snapped out of it. Immediately, I turned to look. A student on the other end of the room had dropped her heavy textbook on the linoleum floor.

  I took a deep breath and curled my fists. I was still at work and that was far more important than letting Landon know how much of an asshole he was for the way he toyed with women—me being one of them. Even so, the heat wouldn’t leave my cheeks. I may have snapped out of it and realized this was definitely not the time or place to make a scene, but that didn’t mean I had calmed down.

  “The session is over,” I told him curtly. My tone of voice and the look in my eyes made it very clear I wasn’t to be argued with.

  “You’re right,” Landon said.

  It took me a moment to register the disappointment in his voice, as if my words had cut him deep.

  He stood up and gathered his things, but before he walked away he leaned in close enough to whisper, “I may be an asshole, but you like me that way.”

  The following day at practice, Ivy was still a heavy weight on my mind. As much as I tried to force the last tutoring session out of my head, I wasn’t able to. We didn’t get anything done and she also made it quite clear what she thought about me.

  My performance during practice suffered with slow runs and a lot of fumbles. I was aware of the questioning looks from my teammates and the frustration from the Coach, but I couldn’t help it. For once, my mind just wasn’t on football. I was thankful it was practice and not an actual game, otherwise I would have really get an ass-chewing. That would have been disastrous.

  As I stood under the bright sun and ignored whatever one of my teammates was saying to the Coach, I couldn’t stop thinking about her. More specifically, I couldn’t stop thinking of her calling me an asshole. I played it over and over again in my mind. She had said it with such force and conviction.

  Never before had I cared about the insults flung at me from a girl, much less from a woman pissed off that I wasn’t able to commit to a relationship. Even though I always made it clear what my intentions were, some of the girls I got involved with still got upset at the end of the day. But none of them were like Ivy. We hadn’t even slept together and she acted like she had a right to be pissed off at me.

  I tried to be angry instead of being so upset. All we did was kiss. It was a really hot one, but it was only a kiss nonetheless. It was impossible for me to be mad when I thought about it some more. The way her lips felt against mine and how she sunk into me completely made me feel something I had never felt before. I didn’t even know what that feeling was. I couldn’t put it into words. One thing was true however, no matter how I tried to frame it in my mind, I hated her thinking that I was some jock-asshole.

  I was lost in my thoughts of Ivy as I sprinted towards the thirty-yard line and stretched out my hands. I managed to reach just far enough for the ball to scrape my fingertips before landing on the ground with a thud.

  “Fuck.” I panted as I came to a stop.

  “Shit! Bryce! Get your head in the fucking game!” Coach Kingsley barked with a red face.

  I looked around to see if my teammates were as pissed off as Coach. I was caught off guard when I saw the concerned look on Noah’s face. The two of us looked at each other for a moment before I looked down at the ground. I had to brush it off. I didn’t want anyone to know what was running through my mind, much less why. There wasn’t a single fiber in my body that wanted to invite any questions, but from the looks of it Noah had already come up with a few.

  “Guess I was just thinking about the Homecoming Game,” I mumbled. I didn’t want to apologize or admit I fucked up; even if everyone knew I did. The Coach blew the whistle effectively ending practice for the day and I knew a lot of it had to do with me.

  I took off at a sprint and grabbed my bag before heading off to the car. I hated going home in my dirty uniform, but I much preferred it to sticking around for the third degree from the guys. I zoomed to the house, parked it in the garage, and darted straight to my bedroom. I threw my dirty uniform in a bag and walked into the shower, letting out a long breath when the warm water landed against my back.

  I stood in the shower for a while thinking about the way Ivy’s face looked when she insulted me. She was so angry. I started to wonder if I should send her a message with an apology. Did I need to apologize to her? Did I actually do anything wrong? Did she even have a reason to feel the way she did? The more I questioned myself, the more I actually started to get angry. At first I was trying to force some kind of anger, but now that I was actually thinking of apologizing for doing nothing wrong, it was too much.

  It was already a problem that she had managed to screw me up at practice, especially so close to the big homecoming game. But now she had me thinking of doing something totally out of character. I hopped out of the shower, toweled off, and changed into the first pair of jeans and a t-shirt before getting into my car and quickly making my way to the Tutoring Center.

  After parking in a conveniently free spot, I jumped out of my car just in time to see Ivy walking out of the building. She didn’t see me as she turned to walk in the opposite direction. I jogged to catch up to her. As soon as I could reach her I pulled her into an alcove for a stairwell that lead down into the building’s basement.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” she demanded as soon as her eyes locked onto mine. I had never seen such anger in her eyes, not even when she called me an asshole. Her scathing look probably had a lot to do with me scaring her when I tugged her toward the stairs.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” I spat back. “You think you can just insult me the way you did and I won’t have a damn thing to say about it?”

  She took a step back, but not before jabbing her finger in to my chest, “You think you can stop me?”

  “Yes,” I shot back. She took another step back and I quickly realized I needed to explain further. “Every assumption you’ve made about me is wrong. You think I’m dumb, don’t you? But look,” I said, lowering my gaze and taking a step forward to close the distance she created between us. Her breath hitched in her throat and she stared at me. “One thing’s for sure–I’m smart enough to see you want me.” I paused, waiting for her to object, but she said nothing. I took another step forward. She didn’t move an inch. I stared into her eyes until I saw her gaze soften for a brief moment, even though it was clear she was trying to hold strong. “Badly,” I muttered, gaze lowering to her lips.

  That was all it took for me to close the space between us. I pressed her back up against the bricks as my lips landed against hers. She gave in immediately, placing her hands on my chest and leaning in. There was no way she could ever deny being attracted to me now. My hands wandered up and down her sides until I slipped them under her shirt, sliding them up her smooth stomach and dangerously close to her breasts.

  In a flash, she pulled herself away and tugged her shirt back down with a pouty oomph before looking up at me. “You are an asshole,” she hissed, a stark difference from the person she was a second ago when I was kissing her.

  “You may be a hot asshole and a really great kisser but,” she pressed her hand flat on my stomach to push me away, “I won’t be just another story of yours in the locker room.”

  I was studying on the back porch under the shade of my favorite tree. It was the afternoon and my mother was s
leeping soundly. Out of nowhere, my phone buzzed and I quickly picked it up off the table to check who it was. The Tutoring Center was calling me. I was instantly thrown into a panic.

  The Tutoring Center rarely called, especially on my day off. I couldn’t think of any loose ends I left for them to call and ask about. There was only one thing I could think of and it made my stomach drop. I knew Stella would never tell anyone about Landon and I, but maybe there was security camera footage from the stairwell or something.

  I answered before the call was sent to voicemail. “Ivy,” my supervisor’s voice came in from the other end, “I know it’s your day off but we wanted to know if you could go meet with Landon Bryce’s coach in an hour.” My insides started to turn to ice, “He needs a progress report and the sooner the better.” I breathed and audible sigh of relief over the phone.

  I felt instantly relieved. That didn’t last long, however. Maybe the coach knew about us and he was taking it upon himself to confront me about it. I agreed and ended the call, going to get ready before checking on my mom. As I put on my outfit I laid out the night before, I realized I was terrified of what the coach would say. I took a quick glance in the mirror. My navy blue skirt reached just above my knees. I let out a long sigh. This was supposed to be a good day with a cute outfit. I wasn’t supposed to get fired. I gulped, smoothed out the skirt, and walked out of the bedroom.