Kicked: A Bad Boy Sports Romance

by C. M. Stunich

  Teagan didn't need an angry loser from the wrong side of the tracks, a guy with no family, no money, and bad grades. In the back of my mind, I thought that maybe one day, I'd find her again, once I was successful. I'd find her and we'd have coffee and talk shit out.

  Instead, I fucked her against a tree. I made her bleed.

  “Shit,” I growled out, the sound tearing from my throat in a ragged gasp as I pushed myself harder, too hard, bouncing between pools of darkness and light as I skipped under streetlights. Moths fluttered above my head while the trees whispered with autumn leaves, littered the earth in front of my feet.

  I had no idea where I was going, but I didn't stop running until the sun peeked up at the edge of the sky.

  When I'd first started classes at the U of O, I'd bounced between majors before finally settling on journalism. My plan was—and still is—to play for the NFL, make my fortune, and retire. The only shitty thing about football for me though was the unknown. I was planning on making a living with my body in a high impact sport. One wrong move, one bad day, and I could be out for good, everything I'd worked for lit up and tossed in the trash.

  My backup plan was sports journalism or maybe becoming a sports anchor. Either way, these were fallback plans I didn't pay a lot of attention to. If it weren't for the tutors and the academic center at our school, I might not even have made it this far. To me, classes were simply roadblocks between me and football. My only goal was to get through them at an acceptable enough level that it didn't affect my future career in sports.

  I sat inside the student athlete center, staring at the wall of bookshelves in front of me, and tapping a pen against the side of my head. Below me, I could hear the students laughing and talking, exchanging stories and sharing food. The second and third floors of the building were reserved exclusively for student athletes so for the moment, I was up here by myself. My phone was in one hand, my thumb trailing through endless Tumblr posts about a bunch of bullshit that didn't matter.

  “This isn't fucking working,” I snapped at nobody and nothing, shoving my laptop back in my bag and sitting up. I was lounging on the ugly squat yellow couches that were supposed to look hip and modern but that I hated with a freaking vengeance.

  I stood up, dragging my bag along with me, my phone still clutched in my tattooed hand. The center was hard to describe, some crazy architectural wonder or something with these glass walls that let light in but kept prying eyes out. There was a lot of wood and mirrors and black tiles in the bathrooms, but I grew up straddling a strange place in the world, so I didn't care about any of it. I grew up poor as dirt, half-lived with Teagan and Venus in their shitty trailer, and yet I had a foster mom who lived in a fancy McMansion. She had these same tastes, this expensive modern block of glass and obscure art. I wasn't trying to complain about being surrounded in luxury, but it really wasn't me.

  In my heart, I'd always be that guy, that kid with the dead dad and the dead mom and the holes in his sneakers.

  On my way out the door, I got a text from Kai telling me about yet another fucking party. I had them coming out my ears, spilling out my mouth like blood. For a while, I liked them. A lot. I liked getting drunk and high, and I liked sleeping with beautiful girls. After a while, I didn't stop liking them exactly, but I got used to them. Booze, weeds, women, those were things I deserved, things that were just mine. It was a bunch of bullshit, sure, but the fantasy was mine for the taking.

  It could all be that way again, I reminded myself as I paused at the edge of a busy street and watched the traffic flow by me. Teagan doesn't change things. I knew I could quite literally forget all about her, pretend I'd never seen her, that I'd really left her behind in the desert. But I couldn't do that.

  All of the things I thought, that I felt, the reasons for doing what I did, I knew that she at least deserved to hear them. I could talk to her, clear things up, and then, maybe I really would be free.

  Free of the memories and the guilt.

  It sounded like heaven.

  I texted Kai back and asked him to pick me up outside the student center. I'd have him drop me off at the park and then walk over to Teagan's place. I didn't want any of the guys to know about her, not really. Even the little bit they did know was bugging the hell out of me.

  “Yo Winship,” Kai said when he pulled up to the curb and I climbed in. He was already dressed for the party in his best douchebag uniform, a pair of khaki shorts and a Ducks tee. I thought it was lame as hell to wear team colors around like that, just to pick up chicks but whatever.

  “Where are you headed?” I joked as he turned down the radio on whatever satellite rap station it was he was listening to. “A golf tournament?”

  “Hilarious,” Kai said as I rested my head against the black leather seats. I'd often wondered what it was like to have a dad at all, let alone one that could afford a swanky ride like this. No wonder Teagan was drawn to him at the club. I couldn't blame her. Kai had about a million times more resources than I did.

  My hands curled into fists, and I had to suck in a deep breath.

  But Kai can't play like I can. Kai wasn't voted All-American. He doesn't have the NFL slobbering after him.

  He didn't sleep with Teagan Fletcher.

  “What are you up to right now? You want to come with me to this party? It's gonna be killer. Mila's bringing some friends of hers from out of town. One of them's a cheerleader for the Seahawks.”

  “Don't you get enough cheerleaders in your daily life, man?” I asked him as I shoved my phone back in my pocket and raised an eyebrow. One more season and I'm out of here. Just this one last season, and I'm in. “What do you need to chase after another one for?”

  “NFL cheerleaders are a big step up from college girls, Tyce.”

  “Like you'd know,” I smirked, waiting until the light turned green to give him directions. “Drop me off at Alton Baker, by the stadium.”

  Kai wasn't buying my shit. He raised his blond brows at me and glanced across the car to give me a look. His ice blue eyes were like chips of ice, pale and narrowed on my face.

  “You're not going over to Teagan's place, are you?”

  “Maybe it's none of your goddamn business what I'm doing,” I told him in as calm a voice I could manage. “What do you care anyway?”

  “What is wrong with you, Tyce? What is it about this girl? You've been acting weird since last week.” I ignored him, focusing my gaze out the window, on the buildings flickering past, the trees dancing in the wind and the drizzle of rain that splattered the glass in front of my face. I could try explaining my relationship with Teagan to Kai, but he wouldn't understand. Nobody would. This was something between us, something we had to deal with on our own. “Fine. Don't tell me. I don't care anyway.”

  Kai drove me straight up to the apartment complex, parking the car and waiting in silence as I climbed out, leaving my book bag behind. I felt too old to be dragging it around, like at age twenty-one I should be doing something else. At twenty-one, my mom was lugging around a six year old kid and drowning beneath the shit storm of life.

  How depressing.

  I moved up the cement steps and knocked carefully. I wasn't going to get angry today. I wasn't going to yell. I was going to be a goddamn gentleman and look the girl I'd just devirginized right in the face. I made her bleed. I hurt her. I used her.

  I gritted my teeth and waited patiently, forcing my expression back into something a little more pleasant. The last thing Teagan needed was to open her door and find me scowling on her welcome rug.

  “Oh.” The door split open a crack, revealing Teagan's roommate. She definitely wasn't happy to see me. “It's you.” She waited, her lips pursing into a thin line. A few loose braids fell into her face as we waited there in a standoff, the wind picking up and slicing right through the white t-shirt and jeans I was wearing. I crossed my arms over my chest and watched as the girl—Chelease, I guess was her name—looked them over, raising a brow at the water dragon hiding half und
er my sleeve. “What do you want, Mr. Winship?” She snapped my last name off her tongue like it was painful to even speak it.

  “Is Teagan here?” I asked, knowing that I wasn't leaving this spot until I saw her face. Just thinking about her got my heart pumping. It sped my pulse and filled my cock, drawing Chelease's eyes in a different direction. But the look she gave me was anything but the lusty, flirty lip biting flicker of emotion I usually got from girls. She looked disgusted with me.

  Chelease continued to stare at me, getting off on some sort of power play bullshit. Clearly, she hated me. Since I didn't know her, I had to figure it had either something to do with my reputation or with football. Maybe she was a Beavers fan?

  “Let me check,” she said, closing the door and locking it behind her. I really tried not to scowl in that moment, but it was hard to keep my feelings contained. Like she didn't know if Teagan was home. What a load of crap.

  As I waited, I started to get nervous. It was a feeling I hadn't felt in a long, long time, and it was creeping me out. What am I freaking out over? I wondered. Well, at least my brain wondered. My heart, it knew. I made her bleed. I pretended not to know her, treated her with a sickening amount of disrespect. The whole bad boy thing was fine and dandy with other girls, girls who were playing around with me as much as I was playing with them. But Teagan was different.

  She was fucking different.

  I was starting to get angry again—mostly at myself—so I took a deep breath and held it for ten.

  My phone buzzed in my pocket, so I slid it out as a distraction, catching a text from an unknown number.

  'What do you want, Tyce?'

  It was Teagan. It had to be Teagan.

  'Can we talk?' I texted back.

  'I'm in the middle of studying, sorry.'

  I had to take another deep breath, count to ten again.

  'We REALLY need to talk, Tea.' My thumbs flew across the letters with frantic speed. When I looked up, I caught a hint of Teagan's roommate smirking at me from behind the curtains. I ignored her, focusing on the screen and the yellow and blue bubbles that contained such an important conversation. I couldn't concentrate with Teagan around. I couldn't think straight. If I blew everything I'd been working towards, it'd all be for shit. The long hours, the endless practices, the sacrifices, the good-byes I never got to say. 'About the park,' I added with a quick send.

  'Like I said, busy. Unless it's an emergency, I can't talk right now.'

  'Bullshit. If you really didn't want to talk to me, you'd tell me to eat a dick and turn off your phone.'

  There was a long pause as I stared at the yellow paint on the door. The building itself was done up in a dull beige, nothing remarkable, with stucco sides and white shutters. It was unimportant, like a canvas for the life that was contained inside, but I had nothing else to do so I studied it while I waited. Teagan would text me back, I knew she would.

  I was right.

  'What about the park? There's nothing to talk about.'

  'I'm calling your bluff,' I sent back, turning around and sliding down the front door to sit on the scratchy welcome mat. I had a decent view from up here. The common areas around the apartment were well manicured, covered in perfect green grass and evergreen trees, dots of orange and yellow leaves splattering the ground like paint. I could wait. Believe me, when I wanted to, I could make up for my lack of patience with sheer stubborn bullheadedness.

  'I'm sitting outside on your porch until you let me in,' I continued.

  'Really? Because the other day, you couldn't run away fast enough. What's different now?'

  Ouch. I deserved that, but it still stung like hell. I was a fucktard, wasn't I? I might not want a relationship, might not be able to handle one with Teagan, but that didn't mean I had to treat her like shit. I still couldn't believe I'd fucked her. Why would I do that? Because she was fucking gorgeous? Because her skin made me want to tear her clothes off just so I could get more of it?

  'Oh, and thanks for not asking me how I was doing, how I felt, if I was okay.'

  That one stung. Bad. I screwed up, and I knew it. I was her first, and I'd ruined the experience for her. That was a fact.

  'You could've stopped by sooner.'

  'I had a game.'

  'And thanks for NOT inviting me.'

  'Is that what you're upset about? The game? If you wanted to go, you should've asked.'

  'This isn't about the game, Tyce Winship. If you think it is, you should really go now.'

  'Is it about the sex?'

  I fired off that last text and waited with a thumping pulse in my neck. It felt like I was eating my heart. Sex didn't mean shit to me. I didn't care who I did it with, how I did it. I wasn't a sex freak like Mason or Kai or Kirk, but I treated it like eating or breathing or sleeping. I just did it.

  Until now. Even more reason to get up and run like hell, my brain quipped at me. Before things get so sticky, you find yourself stuck.

  I kept staring at the screen, refusing to pull my gaze away until the next text came in.

  'You made me feel like a whore.'

  'You're not a whore,' I shot back, wanting her to know that with every fiber of my being. 'You're anything but a whore, Tea. I don't know why we did what we did back there, but it happened, and it's okay. We'll always have a history together. Emotions, memories, they get messy sometimes. This doesn't have to be the end of the world.'

  I licked my lips and pulled a knee up, leaning my tattooed right elbow against it as I put my forehead in my hand.

  'It may not mean the end of the world, but it does mean SOMETHING. At least to me.'

  Pound, pound, pound. My heart jumped up in my throat. I was practically feasting on it.

  'I'm not saying it meant nothing, Tea. I didn't know you were a virgin. I'm sorry.'

  Crap. As soon as I sent that last one, I knew I'd made a mistake.

  'Please go away, Tyce. Like, seriously. Go. And don't come back. I mean it this time.'

  My forehead crinkled and my jaw tightened.

  'Leave me the park at least,' Teagan added after a few seconds. 'You can find somewhere else to run.'

  “No, seriously, I can read auras,” Melia said, clapping her hands together and scooting closer to her on-again, off-again best friend, Risika. They fought like cats and dogs and had more 'breakups' than any romantic couple I'd ever seen. Their last fight got hot and heated, with me caught right in the middle. Something about Melia sucking Risika's boyfriend's dick at a party last year.

  I couldn't keep up with any of it.

  “I don't believe in auras,” Risika said, letting her brown velvet eyes drift over to me. She reached up and pushed some blonde dreads over her shoulder while raising a pierced brow in question. “Do you?”

  “You can't not believe in auras,” Melia continued, grabbing her best friend's hands and dragging them onto the folded legs of her lap. “That's like saying you don't believe in oceans or the moon or white bread. They just exist and there's nothing you can do about that.”

  “For the record, I don't actually believe in white bread. It's all sugar.” Risika pinched her mouth and waggled her brows. I laughed and shook my head, leaning back into the lumpy beanbag behind me. At first, I wasn't sure about Melia's apartment. It was messy and weird and definitely a bit of a culture shock for me, but maybe I just couldn't appreciate it because I was so wrapped up in Tyce that day. I wouldn't say that I was completely over the shock of losing my virginity to that asshole, but it was starting to meld into the rest of me, become a part I just lived with and didn't think too much about. Anyway, Melia's apartment was becoming like a second home to me, a place I could really be myself and not give a crap about anything else. I loved it here.

  “Just because you don't eat it doesn't mean it's not real,” Melia shot back, rubbing her thumbs over the tattooed clouds on either of Risika's wrists. One was gray with a lightning bolt crashing through it while the other was white and fluffy and basked with sunshine. “Now hold still
and let me get a read.”

  “You're on my side, aren't you, Teagan?” Risika continued as I turned my phone over and showed her a picture of the Swiss flag.

  “I'm a neutral country here,” I told them as I watched Melia close her almond brown eyes and hum under her breath. The piercings on either side of her lip spun as she played with them with her tongue. “No votes from this peanut gallery, babe. Sorry.”

  “Distract me with more stories from your anarchy days back in the desert. I want to hear everything. What did you burn down? Where exactly did you hide a dead squirrel? Who did you first fuck?”

  I felt my face blanch, but I thought I'd recovered quickly, sweeping my hair back and pushing the mental calendar in my head as far away as I could get it. Two weeks, four days. That's how long I'd been a regular, sex card carrying adult human. I felt like Risika could see it on my face.

  “I see indigo,” Melia continued, sitting there in her bright blue and white sundress. It was totally inappropriate for the weather, but I had little faith she'd be venturing outside the rest of the weekend. “Indigo indicates intuitiveness.”

  “What are you, an alliteration expert? Let go of my hands. You're so full of shit.” Risika pulled her arms from Melia's grip and turned to look at me with a cocked brow. “Girl, you better not be holding back on something. Melia says you've been regaling her with stories.”

  “I fucked up a lot,” I admitted as Melia pulled out a glass bong from beneath her couch. She lit up and took a hit, offering it to me. I didn't smoke, so I turned her down with a raised hand and tried to figure out how to salvage this situation. Risika was looking at me like I was a nut to be cracked. “I was a really angry kid. I tagged the school with graffiti that I called street art at the time.” I smiled a little at that. Tyce had been right there beside me, holding the spray cans while I painted the cement walls the way I wanted to paint my face. I'll admit, I wasn't a very good free form urban artist. It took me a while to channel that urge to be creative into makeup. “And yes, I found a squirrel on the side of the road and left its body in the AC vent in the principal's office at the junior high. It took them a week to figure out where the smell was coming from.”