Rough Play: A Football Romance

by Kira Ward

  He’s made large donations to programs like the Boys and Girls Club. He’s made visits to hospitals to sign autographs for young patients. Every year since he joined the NFL, he’s not missed a single one of the Autism Now balls the team throws for the charity.

  I find myself wondering what the fans would think if they knew about the generous donation he made to the arts programs of my school district. But then I realize the press would likely figure out why he made the donation and would crucify him for it.

  I don’t know what to think of Magnus. But my heart jumps into my throat each time my phone buzzes and it’s a text or a call from him. Like now.

  Sleep well, the simple text says.

  Chapter Eleven

  Magnus

  I step out onto the field to the boos of the Minnesota fans. It’s a little intimidating knowing that thousands of people dislike me simply because I’m not the quarterback of their team. But that’s part of the game.

  The offensive coordinator calls me over and shows me the same plays he’s been showing me all week, reminding me how he wants me to begin the game. Then the captains are called out onto the field. The Vikings win the coin toss and they choose to kick-off, so we’ll receive.

  Here we go.

  As I join my offensive line on the field, I find myself wondering if Cricket is watching the game. I asked last night and she said she would, but I know that she has a meeting with the drama club today. That friend of hers, Amelia, has her jumping for every little thing as one of the teacher sponsors of the club.

  I call the play and line up behind the center, counting down before the snap. I throw the first pass of the game and watch as the receiver barely picks it out of the air. Not a good pass. I need to concentrate. I call the next play and line up, forcing myself to pay attention. We got the first down, but barely. Another four downs to get some movement down the field.

  We make some progression on the field, but end up having to leave the field without putting anything on the board. I’m frustrated, aware that part of the problem is my inability to concentrate. I need to focus. I walk over to the refreshment table, grab a bottle of water, and sit down to study the plays. But even as I look at the laminated sheets, I find myself thinking about Cricket.

  How did this woman get so far under my skin already?

  I look up into the stands, approximately to the place where she’d been sitting in ATT Stadium in Dallas during that fateful opening game and picture her sitting there, cheering on the other team. It leaves me with something of a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach, but I’m not sure why.

  The Vikings fumble the ball and we get it back. Five minutes left in the first quarter.

  I run out onto the field, determined to put some points on the board. I call the first play, take the snap, and fall back into the pocket. My receivers are there, right where they’re supposed to be. I throw, the ball rockets down the field and slams smack into the receiver’s chest. But he drops it before he can get control. Second down. I throw another rocket and this one hits its mark. The receiver runs, but he’s tackled just a few yards from where he started. That’s okay. We’ve got another first down.

  I’m trying to get my head into the game. I pass the ball off on the next play, step back to watch as the running back takes it to the ten-yard line. Now we’re where we need to be, inches from getting a touchdown on the board. I pass again and watch as the running back dives over the in-zone.

  Touchdown.

  The offensive coordinator comes over and discusses the plays we should focus on for the second quarter. I listen as I watch the play on the field, discouraged when the Vikings suddenly run the ball forty yards for a touchdown.

  We go back and forth in the second quarter, coming to halftime tied 7-7. Not a good start.

  I follow the team into the locker room, ignoring the cameras and comments from the fans sitting close to the ramp. I need a few minutes, need to get my head on straight. I go to my locker, stow my helmet and grab my phone—even though it’s technically against the rules to use our personal cellphones during a game—and head out into the hallway. No one is allowed down here during games, so I’m alone except for ball boys and assistants running around, getting the coaches whatever it is they need.

  I lean against the wall, my shoulder pads pressed hard against my back. My shoulder’s sore, but bearable. I call her because I want to hear her voice. It’s stupid, but the moment her voice fills my head, the nerves that have taken root in my belly evaporate.

  “You’ve got to run the ball,” she says in lieu of a hello. “You can’t throw with this defense.”

  “Tell my coaches that.”

  “They aren’t seeing what everyone watching this game at home is seeing.”

  “Yeah. Maybe if they watched…”

  “You make progress when you run, Magnus. That’s how you’ll win this.”

  I smile. “Thanks, coach.”

  She giggles softly. “I shouldn’t be giving you advice. You go up against my Cowboys again in a couple of months.”

  “I’m sure if Tony Romo had your number, you’d give him better advice.”

  “Don’t you know it.”

  I laugh. There’s something about the conviction in her voice that makes me sure that it’s not a joke to her. She would give him some pretty serious advice if he’d just give her a chance. It makes me feel a little privileged that I’m the one she can call, that I’m the one she can give advice to.

  “When are we going to have dinner again?” I ask.

  “That’s up to you.”

  “We’re in Green Bay this weekend. Maybe after that.”

  “Okay.”

  I hang up a few minutes later and rejoin my team in the locker room in time for the coach’s pep talk. He stands in the middle of the room and yells at the top of his lungs so that the entire team can hear him.

  “We have one loss under our belts, boys. You’ve tasted the bitterness of that. Now it’s time to remember what victory feels like. Now it’s time to get out there and pulverize your opponent, time to give the fans what they want, to give the owners what they want, to give yourselves the joy of victory and the knowledge that this is just a stepping stone to the ultimate goal, to the Super Bowl!”

  A cheer goes up in the room that is almost deafening. Then we grab our helmets and run back out on to the field.

  I think about what Cricket told me and hand the ball off to our running back despite the fact that the offensive coordinator told me to throw. Voices in my head—the radio that connects to the coaches in the owner’s box—yell at me to throw. But when we get two touchdowns, one right after the other, they stop yelling at me.

  We win the game 35-7.

  Chapter Twelve

  Cricket

  I’m a little hoarse Tuesday morning because I yelled at my television the night before as Magnus led the New York Giants against the Minnesota Vikings. The first half looked really bad, but he picked things up during the second half. Four touchdowns in two quarters. Not the best I’ve ever seen, but impressive just the same.

  My dad is bummed, though. The Giants are now 3-1 and the Cowboys are 2-2. Somehow he missed the fact that I went out with Magnus last Monday. He’s just upset because he doesn’t want the Giants to go to the playoffs, especially if the Cowboys don’t make it.

  I manage to make it through the day without any major incidents. The kids in my American Lit class are struggling through The Sun Also Rises. They complain every morning, but they’re slowly beginning to see the things about the book that I love. And my kids in the advanced literature class are about to start a chapter on British lit. I can’t wait to introduce them to the Green Knight.

  I sneak out of the building as the last of the students leave. I’ve stayed late every afternoon since school began over a month ago. Today I want a few hours to myself, time to decompress before I have to attack another stack of essays my lower classes turned in today. But as I drive up to my house, I see a dark SUV
parked at the curb.

  What’s this?

  I pull into the driveway and grab my bag before climbing out of the car. As I walk around the front, the back door of the SUV opens. Magnus, looking incredibly tall and handsome in the bright sunlight, unfolds his long legs from the backseat.

  I don’t know what to say. All I can do is watch him walk toward me, a soft smile on his full lips. His eyes are hidden behind a pair of reflective sunglasses, showing me my own startled expression rather than any hint in his dark eyes as to why he might show up at my house in the middle of a Tuesday afternoon when he’d said just last night that he couldn’t come to Dallas until next week.

  “Surprise,” he says, his deep voice low and smooth.

  “What are you doing here?”

  He’s close now, close enough that I can smell the appealing scent of his expensive cologne. He slips his sunglasses off and his eyes are darkly seductive in their slightly hooded expression.

  “Can we go inside?”

  I shrug, gesturing toward the door. He waits for me to lead the way, his hand barely brushing against the small of my back as he follows. I unlock the door and slip inside, my lips parting as I prepare to ask my question again. But then he takes my hips and turns me around, pushing me against the door as his momentum forces it closed.

  “I can’t stop thinking about you,” he says, his fingertips brushing a piece of hair away from my face. “I needed to see you.”

  “Here I am.”

  My heart is pounding as he stands so close to me. I don’t know if he’s going to kiss me or just study my face, memorize it for when he leaves again. He traces the curve of my jaw with his index finger, stopping when he comes to the center of my chin. Then he touches my bottom lip, tugging at it a little, pulling it down just slightly.

  “I was thinking about you so much before the game last night that I nearly fucked it all up because I couldn’t concentrate.”

  “I don’t think—“

  “That’s exactly what happened.” He slides his finger over my bottom lip, running it up over my top lip as he continues to study me. “And then I talked to you, found out you were watching the game like you promised you would, and it all just seemed to come together. I wanted to win. For you.”

  I start to shake my head, but he grasps my jaw and forces me to look at him.

  “You make me want to win. You make me want to be…good.”

  “You barely know me, Magnus.”

  “That’s the crazy thing about it. I’ve never cared what anyone thought before. But you…you’ve gotten under my skin.”

  He slips his hand up over the side of my face, burying his fingers in my hair. And then he leans close, his lips so close to mine that I can feel his breath washing over my lips, my chin. But he doesn’t kiss me. He just stands there, his forehead resting against mine, waiting for something that I can’t even begin to imagine.

  “I want you,” he whispers. “But you scare the shit out of me.”

  This whole time my hands were pressed against the door. I didn’t touch him anywhere that he didn’t touch first. But now…there’s something about the sincerity in his voice that makes my fingers itch, that makes this need build inside of me. I don’t just want to touch him. I need to touch him.

  I hesitate just slightly as I lift my hands to him. I rest one against his hip, the other moving slowly over his belly, his chest, the soft material of his shirt barely masking the heat of his skin. I can feel his heart pounding when my hand stops to rest between his pecs. This seems so surreal to me, standing this close to him. This is Magnus Fuller. This is the man I’ve loved to hate for more than a year, the man my father and I scream at when his image fills the television screen during commercials shown between plays of Cowboy games. This is the guy that all my girlfriends think is incredibly hot, the arrogant guy who has fueled more than a few fantasies for millions of women all around the country.

  But this…he isn’t that Magnus Fuller. Not really.

  This man is gentle. He’s kind. He listens to advice. He’s intelligent. He loves stories of King Arthur’s court. And he smells like lavender and cedar.

  I tilt my head back slightly, just enough. Our lips touch, a subtle brush that could be nothing, or it could be everything. It could be a first kiss or it could be a mistake. It could be a beginning or…

  He pushes his fingers deeper into my hair and pulls my head up to him. He deepens the kiss, his lips pressed almost roughly against mine, his movement encouraging me to open to him, to welcome him. And I do. My lips part, and he comes inside, touching me in places I haven’t been touched in such a long time.

  It is the most amazing of kisses, a touch like nothing I’ve ever known before. I slide my arms around his neck, my fingers teasing the hair at the back of his head. I touch his jaw and I can feel his muscles working, can feel the heat of his skin, the vitality that exists just under the surface of his flesh. I want to press myself up against him, want to feel the length of his body against mine. I want to know what so many—too many—women have known in his arms.

  I want him, too.

  But then he pulls away, lifting my hands away from his neck.

  “I have to go,” he says near my ear, his voice deep with passion. “We’ll pick this up on Monday.”

  And then he’s gone. Like he was never there.

  I stare at the door for a long time in disbelief.

  Did that even happen?

  Chapter Thirteen

  Magnus

  She seems full of expectation as we sit across from each other at the restaurant. “I saw the game yesterday,” she says softly, as if she’s confessing something dark and dangerous.

  “Yeah?”

  “Impressive. 30-0? You played a heck of a game.”

  My eyes move slowly over her, lingering on the sweetheart curves of her bodice. I want to touch her. I want to pull her into my arms and kiss her like I did on Tuesday. But I like the way she’s watching me, like she thinks I’ve changed my mind about the things I said to her then.

  “It doesn’t offend your sense of loyalty to the Cowboys to watch me play?”

  Her eyes drop to the water glass positioned in front of her. “It never hurts to keep track of the competition.”

  “Is that what I am? Competition?”

  “You’re the quarterback of one of our biggest rivals in the NFC East.”

  “So you watch my games to make sure we don’t get the advantage on your hometown team?”

  “Something like that.”

  “I suppose since our record is so much better than the Cowboys—“

  “They’ll bring their record up.”

  She sounds so confident.

  I sit back and sip from my water glass. “How’s your class doing with Hemingway?”

  She nods, her eyes moving back up to mine. “They’re starting to get it. It just takes time.”

  I’m about to respond when some kid, about ten or twelve, comes up to the table.

  “Are you Magnus Fuller?” he asks shyly.

  “I am.”

  “Can I have an autograph?”

  The kid doesn’t have a pen or a piece of paper, but Cricket produces a marker from her purse. I sign a napkin and hand it to him. Suddenly, all these other people come to the table, some wanting pictures, some wanting autographs. None of them seem to notice that our food arrives in the middle of the melee, causing it to grow cold as I make my way through to the last person. Cricket waits patiently, shoved back against the wall by the sheer number of people who demand my attention. I expect her to be annoyed, but she’s smiling when I finally manage to regain my seat.

  “Sorry.”

  She shakes her head. “To be expected, I guess. Just like the photographers outside.”

  I reach across the table and touch her hand, touched by her understanding.

  We walk hand in hand to the car a short time later. I pull her close against my side as we navigate the paparazzi. I’m trying to be polite, ignore
their stupid questions, but all I can think about is her hand in mine, her palm against the inside of my elbow, her breast pressed to my bicep. We slide into the car and the door is slammed by the chauffeur. I immediately turn to her and draw her mouth up to mine.

  “I’ve wanted to do this all night.”

  We kiss like no time has passed since that first kiss Tuesday afternoon. She opens to me immediately, and I move hard against her, needing to touch her everywhere all at once. She tastes of her steak and the cream in her potatoes. She tastes of spice and something sweet, of everything and nothing. I want to eat her up, to possess, to make her mine. I want to leave a mark on her, to let the world know she’s mine. It’s almost primal, this need that’s driving me.

  She slides her hands under my jacket, slipping them around my ribs to the small of my back. I feel her hand hesitantly move over my hip, slide down along the curve of my ass. It’s a surprisingly bold move that catches me a little by surprise. But I like it.

  I touch her hip, too, on the way down her thigh. I want to touch skin, want to feel the silkiness of her body. I find the bottom edge of her hem and slip my hand inside her skirt. For a minute, she lets me touch her, lets me explore the back of her thigh. But then she stops the upward motion of my hand, pushes it back down toward her knee.

  Not yet. But soon.

  I’m almost disappointed when the car pulls to a stop at the curb outside her house. I untangle myself from her and walk her to the front door.

  “We’re at Baltimore next week, but the week after we head to Los Angeles. I can probably make a detour on the way.”

  “Are you asking me out again, Mr. Fuller?”

  “I am. Are you available a week from Wednesday?”

  “I might be. Let me check my calendar.”

  She pulls her phone out of her bag, but I snatch it away, sliding it into my back pocket.