Kicked: A Bad Boy Sports Romance

by C. M. Stunich

  “What the fuck are you doing? Since when do you beat girls up?”

  I whirled on him, standing there in a leather jacket and jeans, looking stupidly handsome. But he also looked tired and frustrated and disappointed all at the same time.

  “Since when? Since she baited me with the news of your club hookup.”

  “Hookup?” Tyce asked as I shook my head and moved over to the front door of my apartment. I wrenched it open and tried to go inside, but Tyce was right there, following after me. He slammed the door behind us while I dribbled blood across the carpet and ran into the bathroom. “I didn't hook up with anyone. I told you, it was just some fucking kissing. I was so drunk, I hardly remember it. Kai told the girl off and dragged me back to the dorms. Nothing happened.”

  I leaned over the sink and swept hair away from my face, splashing cold water against my throbbing lips. When I glanced up, I saw that both top and bottom were split. My eyes were huge, pupils dilated. I should've stayed here and finished my paper. And I would have. If it wasn't for him, for the things he did to me.

  “Kissing is something, Tyce. Hickeys are something. Picking up girls at a club is something.”

  “I'm sorry, Teagan.”

  “YOU ARE OUT OF SORRY'S!” I screamed at him, spinning and pointing a finger at his chest. “Out. Of. Them.”

  “I'm a stupid fucking idiot, Tea. I'm selfish, and I make mistakes. Mostly with you.”

  “I don't want to be your friend, Tyce.”

  “Tea—”

  “Get out,” I snapped at him, pushing him back with a hand on his chest. He could've stopped me if he wanted, but he moved back anyway. His sapphire eyes were dark, flashing with anger that curled his hands into fists. “If you don't want me, fine. But stop parading that fact in front of my face.”

  “But I do,” he said, like he was pleading with me. With himself? I wasn't sure, but I didn't care anymore, especially not at the moment. “Teagan, I fucking do, but I don't … I'm figuring this all out too late.”

  “Go home,” I whispered as blood tainted my mouth with a coppery metallic taste. “I'm not your third place prize, Tyce.”

  “I don't … I don't think you are,” he said, but he didn't sound sure of himself at all. “After you kicked me out of Melia's, I had a lot of time to think. Tea, all this time, trying to make sure you weren't holding me back, I was holding you back. I was pushing you away because I knew,” he touched a hand to his chest, “I knew that if I let you in, you would be number one. You're my number one above everything. Above me. Above fucking football.”

  I stared at him as he reached out and brushed some blood from my lip with a thumb. He was saying nice things, but he sounded like he was asking questions instead of giving statements. And he'd kissed Jia Yang at the club. And he didn't even respect me enough to stop leading me along but keep pushing me back.

  I didn't know what to do.

  “What are you saying?” I asked as I took a step away from him and put my back to the wall. Next door, the music continued to throb. Tyce stared back at me, searching my face, his eyes narrowed in thought, his hands shaking.

  “I don't know,” he said, and that was it. It wasn't good enough for me. Not after this fucking rollercoaster he'd put me on. Like I said, I was tired of maybes and dunnos and not sures. I wanted a happy ending, and I wasn't afraid to ask for it. I needed it, especially from him.

  “I know we're only kids,” I said, because that was true, whether we wanted to believe it or not. “But I can't do this with you. If you were any other guy, someone I'd met at orientation or something, I wouldn't be asking this. But you're not. And I'm not. And you know that.” I took a deep breath. “If you want to be with me, you have to say it. And mean it. And own up to it.”

  There was a long pause and then the front door opened, Kai spilling into it.

  “Hey, the cops are here,” he said with gritted teeth. “They busted somebody with meth next door. And they know about the fight. We have to go now.”

  Kai looked at me and then raised his brows at the blood on my face.

  “Sorry, Teagan,” he said. “But this is like, life or death for us right now.”

  Tyce looked back at me, and we stared at each other for a long, agonizing moment before I turned away, went into my room, and slammed the door.

  When I came out to talk to the cops thirty minutes later, he was gone.

  I shouldn't have left Teagan.

  I knew that as soon as I'd set foot in the dorm. But when I tried to go back, Kai refused to give me his keys. He even tossed them into the bushes and locked me out of my room. I had no wallet, no bus pass, no way to get to Teagan except to walk. I'd decided to search for the keys instead, but by the time I found them, she was sending me a text.

  'No assault charges. Cops didn't even ask.'

  I sat down on the grass with the keys in my lap and texted her back, my heart thudding and my mouth dry, tongue thick. I felt so fucking sick. Everything was just … I felt like I was falling apart. I'd had days to think about Teagan and me, just spin the memories and thoughts around inside my skull until I felt dizzy.

  'Thank God, Tea. I shouldn't have left. I'm coming back right now.'

  I still couldn't believe she'd beaten that girl up for me. Holy hell. The rage on her face, the blood on her lips, the wild look in those eyes … I needed Teagan. I needed her, and I had no clue what to do about it. I was fucking trying in her apartment, and it wasn't enough. I had to be stronger, better. I had to fight for her the way I fought for football all these years, claw my way to the top.

  I groaned and put my head in my hand for a minute.

  I'd gone over there to … something. Talk, I guess. And then I'd found her straddling another girl, pummeling her face into a bloody mess. I think that was when it really clicked. I was steering my life in the direction I wanted it to go, all the while pulling Teagan off course. I was wrecking her.

  But I loved her.

  I fucking loved her.

  I gritted my teeth as a new text came in.

  'Dear God, please don't.'

  Just that.

  I wanted to tell her that we could be together, that we could make this work. It scared the shit out of me. I was afraid of love, of complacency, of things falling apart and tainting the feelings between us. I was terrified of losing my chance in the NFL, of living a worthless, thankless life like my mom. I was absolutely stricken at the thought of being at someone else's mercy again, the way I'd been at the hand of my foster mother's.

  I should've trusted Teagan more than that.

  Why couldn't we date? Why not take her to the NFL with me, if she'd go? If not, then I guess we'd figure things out as they happened. All of this, this life I was conjuring up for myself, the future career and the money and the security, there was only one woman I'd ever want to gift those things to. Teagan deserved it, and I wanted to give it to her.

  Twenty-one years old, and I thought I knew shit.

  Hah.

  But we were always destined for each other, I think. I just had to figure out how to say it, to mean it. Once again, tonight, I'd had a chance to stay, to risk something happening with the cops, risking the consequences rippling out into the team. I should've stayed. I'd needed to stay to prove myself to her. And I'd left. Again.

  I couldn't seem to stop doing it.

  'Please, Teagan. What I was saying, it's important. It can't be said via text or phone. Has to be in person.'

  No response. I sat outside on that lawn for an hour and got nothing.

  When I finally gave up, climbed into Kai's car and drove over to her place, she refused to answer the door. When her roommate finally cracked it, the chain still in place, and threatened to call the cops again, I sat down and started texting Teagan.

  'If you just let me talk to you again, we can figure this out.'

  Nothing.

  'I have so many thoughts running through my head right now. I need your help. I need you.'

  Two hours lat
er, still no response.

  I fell asleep on her doorstep and woke up to the alarm on my phone.

  In the dew coated morning, I climbed to my feet and headed to practice.

  I was miserable afterwards, slamming my locker closed and putting my forehead against it as I tried to breathe. Both the quarterback coach and our head coach, Deryl, had called me Number Eight all day. Not a good sign. I was fucking up bad.

  Apparently, it wasn't Teagan being in my life that screwed up my game; it was wondering if she was going to fall out of it again.

  “Goddamn it, man. What the hell?” Kai asked as he came up behind me and put a hand on my shoulder. I shrugged him off and stood up, mussing my hair up with my left hand. I glanced over at Kai's rugged viking face, all twisted up in concern for me. It was almost touching. “What is wrong with you? Is this about Teagan again?”

  I shrugged my shoulders, unwilling to talk about this in the locker room.

  Mason was looking this way, listening. Teagan had said he'd asked her out, but I knew she hadn't gone anywhere with him. Yet. I was terrified of seeing what would happen if they actually went on a date. Maybe she would sleep with him to get back at me? Just to experiment with another guy and see what it was like? Maybe because she didn't owe me shit and she had every fucking right to do it?

  Again, maybe I should've trusted her more.

  “I don't want to talk about this right now,” I told Kai, but he wasn't done.

  “You didn't come back to the dorm last night. Where the hell were you? I had to bum a ride off Kirk.” I gritted my teeth, but I didn't retaliate. I kind of wanted to punch him, but decking my best friend in the face wasn't going to do shit for me.

  I sat on the white bench in front of the lockers again, a towel draped around my hips.

  “I'm sorry, Kai. I … had shit to do.”

  “If this is about Teagan, man, then the only person you have to blame for this crap is you. If you like the girl that goddamn much, please do us all a fucking favor and just stop fighting it. For Christ's sake, if I was as obsessed with a woman the way you are with that girl, I'd probably ask her to marry me.”

  Mason laughed. Seriously. He laughed at that.

  I looked up, stood up, the towel falling to the floor around me. I would fucking kill him naked if I had to. I swear to God. I stared across the locker room into his dark eyes and watched the smirk take over his mouth. He'd whooped my ass in practice today, and he was loving every second of it.

  “Are you laughing at my fucking friend?” I asked, gesturing with my chin at Kai.

  “No,” Mason said as he sauntered over to us. “I was laughing at you.”

  “Yeah, for real though?” I asked, getting close. Mason was only five eleven, so I had a few inches on him—in several different areas. “You want to go there?”

  Mason shook his head at me like I was an idiot. Clearly, I fucking was, but I sure as hell wasn't going to take any crap from this guy. There are cameras in here, Tyce. If you really want to work on this thing with Teagan, you need to keep things calm. Getting with her and then getting kicked off the team would be like a double slap in the face. She deserves safety and security and sneakers without holes in them.

  I stepped back and Mason grinned.

  “I didn't know you were that into Teagan. I guess it's not the same for her?”

  “The fuck are you talking about?” I asked as I forced myself to keep walking away, to head back to my locker and the pile of clothes on the bench next to it. I was going to get dressed, find Teagan, work on this thing. I'd search for her everyday if I had to. If she was going to reject me, she'd have to do it in person.

  “Well,” Mason said, picking up a football off the bench and tossing it between his palms. “We had a standing date for tonight. When I texted her this morning to confirm, she said she was still on.”

  I felt my muscles go rigid, turning my entire body to stone.

  “Tyce,” Kai cautioned, putting his hand on my arm. “Don't.”

  “You'd best cancel that date,” I told him, but I knew the person I had to talk to was Teagan, not Mason. If she wanted to go out with him, I couldn't stop her. I picked up my jeans, yanked them on. Threw my shirt over my head.

  “Yeah, I don't know,” Mason said as he turned and I gave him a look over my shoulder. He was still smiling at me. “If Teagan wants to go out, I guess I'm taking her, you know? She's seriously fucking hot.”

  “If you touch her, I'll kill you,” I told him, and I think I meant it. Kai groaned and Mason raised his eyebrows at me.

  “Is that a threat, Winship? Because if it is, I could have you arrested for that.”

  “It's a figure of speech,” Kai said, stepping between us as I turned and faced Mason. “Just relax guys, okay?”

  “I don't have time for this crap,” I said, shoving my feet into my sneakers. For the past month and a half, I'd been dicking around with my feelings, with Teagan's. I'd been running from the same thing I was chasing. And now, suddenly, it felt like there was this huge clock above my head, ticking away the seconds, like if I didn't get to her right now I would lose her forever. I knew it was bullshit, but I couldn't shake the urgency. “Can I take your car again?”

  Kai sighed, but he didn't protest when I pulled his keys from my pocket and jangled them.

  “Try to get your shit together today, Tyce. We have the Civil War game on Saturday, and you know that's a big one. You cannot blow that shit.”

  “Got it,” I said, pushing past him and heading for the door before Mason could open his mouth and start something again. If he did, I couldn't guarantee that I wouldn't knock the teeth out of his face.

  Teagan was gone when I got to her apartment, and her roommate wouldn't tell me where she was. Hell, she could've been hiding in her bedroom for all I knew, but when I went around the side of the complex and looked up at her balcony, I could see inside. Unless she was hiding in the closet, she wasn't in there.

  “Shit.”

  I texted her and asked her to call me back, but obviously something had broken in her last night, just snapped in half. I'd cracked through the careful shell she'd shaped around herself, lit the fire in the angry little girl from the trailer park, the one I'd grown up right alongside of.

  She was pissed at me.

  And not in the way she'd been during the last few weeks, but old Teagan pissed, the Teagan that'd visited me in the shed in Jackie's backyard, who'd stuffed a rag in her exhaust pipe, who'd thrown darts at a picture of her father's face. When that Teagan got mad, things happened. People paid for it.

  I waited in the parking lot at her apartment complex until evening practice, but still, nothing. No texts, no appearances, no word.

  I punched Kai's steering wheel and cursed under my breath, heading back to the field with my heart hanging out of my chest, dangling by thin strings that spurted blood and blinded me. I couldn't freaking think straight.

  So I threw myself into practice with a vengeance, working up a monsoon of sweat, forcing my coaches to call me by name. No more Number fucking Eight. Not tonight.

  Mason watched my every move, smirking at me, shadowing me.

  So afterwards, when he climbed into his red Range Rover and took off, I followed him.

  And I wasn't the least bit ashamed of that.

  If Teagan didn't want me to bother her, I wouldn't. But at least this time, I could show her that I wasn't running away. Not anymore.

  I didn't even know who I was anymore.

  I was over Tyce. I wasn't. I loved him. I hated him.

  I beat the crap out of Jia Yang—and I didn't get in trouble for it. After the cops broke up Jia's party, they knocked on my door and I thought I was done for. But they only wanted to talk to Chelease, who wasn't home yet. They thanked me and left.

  That was it.

  When I'd run into Jia before class this morning, she'd glared at me, flipped me off, and sauntered down the steps like her face wasn't busted up and bruised. I didn't know how to feel a
bout that. All I knew was that I'd lost it. Completely and utterly lost it. Because of Tyce.

  I knew that if I let you in, you would be number one. You're my number one above everything. Above me. Above football.

  What the hell was I supposed to do about that? How was I supposed to feel about Tyce flipping a switch on me? Or maybe he hasn't, I thought to myself as I sat in the library with a duffel bag next to my chair. It was stuffed with borrowed clothes from Chelease and a healthy supply of makeup for my evening out. Maybe he's just realizing how he really feels?

  Hah.

  I stared at the white screen on my laptop, my partially written paper. It was due tomorrow, but I had a feeling I wasn't going to get it done and that freaked me out. Tyce had an NFL career coming his way, but that didn't do a damn thing for me. I had to get good grades, make a life for myself that my mother would be proud of. If I let Tyce hold me back, then the only person I was screwing over was myself.

  I took a deep breath and tried to focus on my work, shutting off thoughts of Tyce as best I could. But his words last night … it was like he'd finally figured out what to say but had no idea how to say it. And then he'd bailed on me. After all of that.

  I slid my tongue across my split lower lip and closed my eyes.

  If I wanted to go out with Mason tonight, I needed to get this work done. The thing was, I didn't know if I really did want to go out with Mason. When he'd texted me this morning to confirm, I'd given him the go ahead, asking him to pick me up at the library instead of my place. I couldn't exactly go back to my apartment without risking bumping into Tyce. According to Chelease and the flurry of unread text messages I'd received from Tyce, he'd spent the entire night sleeping on my porch.

  It was almost cute.

  But then I thought of his flip-flopping bullshit, of him fucking me at the game and running away, of letting Jia kiss his neck at the club, making me come with her hickeys all over his neck.

  I wanted to talk to him—eventually—but I needed some time. I had no idea how much, but right now, with the way I was feeling, I just couldn't do it. I didn't plan on sleeping with Mason or anything tonight, but I could go out and have a good time, dance, have a few drinks.