Virgin Playbook: Phoebe's First: College Football Sports Romance

by Crystal Chance

  “She’ll be mad. She’ll go cry to her sorority sisters, maybe she’ll do some tequila shots, and then she’ll come back, and she’ll be okay. You’re overreacting, Phoebe. Just go with the flow,” he said. “Don’t worry so much.”

  I opened my mouth to protest, but I was interrupted by a kiss. Suddenly, I forgot what I was going to say. All that mattered was Adam and me and the bond that we shared. Even the biology project had taken a backseat. I had never been completely worry-free in all my years. Adam brought out something in me that I didn’t know to be possible: freedom and confidence.

  His hand traveled up my blouse, and I giggled against his lips. He smiled and pulled me closer to him. I could feel his hot, rapid breath on my neck as his hand slid inside my pants.

  Then, at that inopportune moment, I heard a key turning the lock. My hands pushed against Adam’s chest in an attempt to put space between us, but it was too late. A bloodcurdling scream pierced my ears.

  “What are you doing?” Ariana shrieked, throwing her purse on the floor and slamming the door behind her. “We have one little fight, and you make out with my roommate? What’s wrong with you?”

  “Y-you’re early!” I stammered.

  In hindsight, it was probably one of the worst things I could have said. It didn’t help my and Adam’s case at all, and in a way made us look even shadier, but I did not know what else to say.

  Luckily, my roommate was too focused on Adam to pay attention to me.

  “Ariana, we aren’t together anymore. I can make out with whoever I want,” Adam pointed out as we both got up to our feet.

  “Get out!” she shrieked. “Get out! Get out! Get out!”

  I was mortified. Adam gave me an apologetic look as he rushed out of our dorm room. Ariana was fuming. I had never seen anyone so angry before.

  “Look, Ariana, I can explain—”

  “I don’t want you to explain anything,” she shouted, crossing her arms. “Adam is a complete asshole for rebounding like he did, but you! You’re my roommate. I have to live with you all year. How could you do this to me?”

  I frowned. I could not believe that she was calling me a rebound.

  “A rebound?” I asked. “Adam actually likes me, Ariana. We really have connected since we started working on the project together, and though I’m really sorry for hurting you, calling me a rebound is out of line.”

  “No, you’re out of line,” Ariana spat. “Adam was my boyfriend, and you were willing to give him a cheap lay? That’s low, Phoebe—and pretty trashy, to be frank. Friends do not hook up with their friends’ boyfriends.”

  Although we weren’t exactly friends, I couldn’t deny that she was partially right. Yet in the heat of the moment, I could only hear the insults.

  “He is your ex-boyfriend.”

  “A fresh one! Geez, Phoebe! Anyone I ever date is off limits. That’s number one in the girl rulebook.”

  “But he likes me, and I really liked him!” I explained. “Like a lot! I’ve never liked anyone like—”

  Her face grew a deep shade of red. She stomped to the door and held it open. “Just shut up and go be a home-wrecker somewhere else. You aren’t welcome here tonight.”

  I laughed a little. She had to be joking; this was my home as much as it was hers.

  “What’s funny?” she spat. “You really think I want to look at you right now?”

  “Ariana, I live here. I don’t have anyone to stay with. I’ll be stuck sleeping in the lobby.”

  She glared at me. “You should’ve thought of that before you started making out with my boyfriend.”

  9

  Home Sweet Home

  My back was killing me. Not only I had the worst possible sleeping position on the small lobby couch, but I also woke up several times throughout the night. Mostly it was due to the bright lobby lights that blinded me every time I rolled over, but there were also the whispering students behind the front desk and the late arrivals that banged on the doors to be let inside. Although I’ve always appreciated the safety of having the hall’s doors locked at midnight, it was quite a pain in the ass when you’re trying to sleep there.

  “Did you sleep here all night?”

  I rolled over and blinked a few times. The morning sun was even more blinding than the fluorescent lighting.

  “Yeah,” I groaned stretching my neck. “Why do you ask?”

  “Because it’s against dorm rules. Safety precaution.” The person held out their hand. “Sorry.”

  As my vision began to focus, I realized who was standing over me. It was my floor’s Resident Assistant, aka one of the five leaders of Stratfordshire Hall. I groaned when I saw the yellow slip in his hand. I knew what it was.

  “Can I please get a free pass on this one?” I begged. “My roommate kicked me out, and I literally had nowhere else to go. I promise it’ll never happen again.”

  He frowned.

  “Did you lose your key?”

  “No,” I mumbled. “It’s complicated. My roommate and I—we had an altercation.”

  “You’re supposed to come to me when there’s conflict between the two of you. That’s number one in the dormitory rulebook I gave you,” he scolded, retracting the write-up. “What exactly happened?”

  My face became red. As much as I didn’t want to talk about my private business with a stranger, for some reason, I wanted to get it off my chest.

  “She kind of caught me making out with her ex-boyfriend.”

  He raised his eyebrows as he ripped up the slip. “Well, that’ll do it,” he said with a laugh. “Look, I’ll give you a free pass today because this is the first time, but you’re going to have to figure things out with her or find a new living situation. I can’t have you sleeping in the lobby anymore.”

  I sighed.

  “Understood. Thank you.”

  He nodded.

  “No problem. Maybe find a new guy to make out with.”

  “Right,” I grumbled. “I’ll do that.”

  It wasn’t a lie. At that point, I never wanted to see Adam again. It was too embarrassing.

  I managed to avoid Ariana as I visited our room to grab my textbooks. Since I shared none of my morning classes with her, her friends, or Adam, I felt reasonably safe to go to class. It was the evening lab on Wednesday that I was dreading.

  After managing to avoid my roommate all morning, I was not looking forward to going back to our room in the afternoon. As far as I knew, she had no sorority plans, so she would be there, likely gossiping about me to her friends.

  Deep down, I knew our living situation wouldn’t do. Our already strained relationship had just become unbearable, and I knew that if I stayed there it would only grow more and more toxic. With very little choices ahead of me, I pulled my cell phone out of my pocket as I walked back to the dorm.

  There were nearly a dozen missed calls from Adam, but I ignored them all and scrolled down to a different number: my dad’s. I brought the phone to my ear and waited as it rang a few times.

  “Pick up, pick up, pick up,” I whispered to myself.

  Finally, he did.

  “Bumblebee!” he greeted, excitedly. “How are you doin’? How’s college?”

  “Not so good actually, Dad,” I murmured, kicking a rock on the sidewalk. “My roommate and I really don’t get along.”

  “Well that’s a shame,” he said. “Just don’t have much in common?”

  “It’s more than that, Dad. I-I don’t have time to go into detail but . . .” I sighed and forced the words out. “What would you think about me coming home?”

  He was silent for a moment.

  “You don’t mean you want to drop out, do you?”

  “No! I don’t want to drop out,” I explained. “I just—I just want to commute. It’s only a thirty-minute drive. I’ll make sure I get to class every day, and I won’t use it as an excuse to slack off—”

  “Slow down, slow down,” he chuckled. “Are you sure this is what you want? Isn’t this
something that’ll blow over with your roommate?”

  “No, it won’t blow over. I need to come home.”

  He sighed. He was quiet again.

  “Well, if you think it’ll help your studies, I can’t see why it’d be a problem. You’ll have to pay for your own gas, though.”

  “Of course, Dad, of course,” I said, beyond relieved to be away from Ariana and all the drama that I caused between us. “Thank you so much. You have no idea how much this means to me.”

  Dad chuckled. “Hey, no problem, kiddo. It’s your home too. When are you coming?”

  “Tonight, maybe?” I asked. “I know it’s sudden but—”

  “Tonight’s fine,” he interrupted. “I really gotta get back to this project, Bumblebee. I’ll see you at the house later tonight, okay?”

  “I’ll be there.”

  “I bet if you text your mother, she will make lasagna,” he suggested.

  “I’ll do that,” I said. “Thanks, Dad. Love you.”

  “Love you too. See you soon, kid.”

  There was nothing more delicious than my mother’s homemade lasagna. I had not even unpacked my belongings when she told me to sit down and eat. Despite the complicated history that I had with her, I did miss her cooking.

  “So what is this problem with your roommate?” she asked, picking at the salad in front of her.

  My mother refused to eat carbohydrates. One of the many ways we were different.

  “We just got into a bit of an argument,” I murmured. “Nothing to worry about, though.”

  Her brow arched and her head tilted. “Well, it was enough of a problem for you to end up back here,” she noted. “Perhaps it is worth worrying about.”

  “Jesus, Penelope, if she doesn’t wanna talk, she doesn’t have to talk,” my dad interrupted, his mouth full. “This lasagna is fantastic, by the way.”

  My mother flashed him a curt smile.

  “Thank you, Richard, but I know what you’re trying to do. We are going to talk about this, Phoebe,” she asserted. “You can’t just run away from your problems. You’re supposed to be fleeing the nest, not coming back to it.”

  I looked down at my plate and nodded. “Okay, Mom.”

  Driving to the University was more of a pain than I thought it would be. Traffic was always awful in the early morning, and it was always hard to find parking on campus. Plus, I had nowhere to go in between classes. Considering I had a late night lab and a lot of downtime between courses, that sucked.

  Part of me wanted to leave before the lab even started so I wouldn’t have to face Adam or what I had done with him. Then, I could simply go home and forget about it all. However, the biggest part of me was too worried about my grades to allow a boy to derail me like that.

  I was so engulfed in my thoughts I barely noticed when someone sat beside on the bench in front of the library.

  “You’re in my bio lab, right?”

  The voice broke through my reverie. I looked beside me and saw a girl with caramel skin and gorgeous light gray eyes staring at me with curious eyes.

  “Yeah, I think so. Why?”

  “Have you studied for the test?” she asked. “I’m so nervous.”

  My eyes widened. I was so preoccupied with my personal life that I had forgotten about my biology test. Adam and I had not even studied the experiment we were supposed to perform. We had been too focused on the project and on other, more sexual, distractions.

  “Damn it,” I cursed. “I completely forgot about it.”

  She gasped.

  “Aren’t you working with Adam McMasters?”

  I nodded.

  “And you expect him to figure this out on the spot?” she asked. “Girl, you should be more nervous than I am.”

  “Yeah. Thanks.” I groaned and started rummaging around in my backpack, in search of my notebook.

  My week had already been hard enough, there was no way I would fail this test.

  When I finally reached the laboratory, I had only fifteen minutes of studying under my belt. My stomach churned when I saw Adam twiddling his thumbs. I hoped he would be absent so I could be excused.

  “Hey, you made it!” he said with a grin. “I tried calling you but—”

  “I’ve been busy,” I interjected. “Let’s just try to do this experiment right, okay?”

  His face fell. We were silent for a few minutes as I focused on my notes and he tried not to focus on my face.

  “Ariana said that you moved out,” he hissed. “That wasn’t because of me, was it?”

  “No,” I lied. “Now can you just pay attention?”

  He looked at the clock.

  “We still have a few minutes before class starts. That’s enough time to talk about things,” he said. “Where are you living now? Did you switch dorms?”

  “I’m commuting, okay?” I snapped. “Please, just leave me alone.”

  He bit his lip. I hoped he was done talking.

  He wasn’t. “Well, I hope you’ll at least come out for a game sometime. I’d really like that.”

  I gave him a small, apologetic smile. “Yeah,” I lied. “I’ll try to make one.”

  Dr. Strickland walked in, saving me from the painfully awkward interaction. She put the experiment’s directions up on the projector screen, and I gulped. It looked even more complicated than I thought.

  “Now, if you studied, you’ll do just fine,” Dr. Strickland said. “If you didn’t study, well . . . You might be in trouble. As you see, there are blanks in every part of the experiment. It’s up to you to fill in these blanks. Once you and your partner are finished with that, if you filled them in correctly, you will have a successful experiment. Any questions?”

  Nobody raised their hand.

  We failed the experiment. Halfway through, the solution was supposed to fizzle and turn green—yet ours didn’t. It didn’t foam. It didn’t change color. It did nothing.

  Without a proper solution, there was no way to finish the experiment successfully. Instead of waiting to receive my failing grade, I rushed out of the classroom.

  Dr. Strickland seemed surprised when she saw that I did not know what I was doing. Usually, I was her best student. She gave me a disappointed glance that made me understand why Adam acted the way he did. Sometimes, it’s hard to balance college and a personal life. Lower expectations in school made the rest easier.

  For the first time in my life, I wished that I was worse at academics and better at social situations.

  10

  A Much-Needed Break

  As I walked down the hallway, my keys jingling in my hand, I heard footsteps behind me.

  “Why did you leave?”

  It was Adam. I groaned.

  “Because I’m an idiot, Adam!” I said, turning on my heel. “Because no matter what I do, I’ll never be able to balance school, a social life and all the things I’m supposed to do. Either I give up school, or I give up my social life. I can’t have both.”

  He was getting closer to me. As soon as he was close enough, he pulled me close to his chest. I didn’t reach out to hug him back.

  “Of course, you can. You can’t give up on happiness and friends, Phoebe. Nobody’s perfect. One failed test isn’t the end, okay? I promise.”

  I let my head fall to his chest and broke down.

  “You act like it meant nothing,” I sobbed into his shoulder. “How am I supposed to know I’m not just a rebound?”

  “A rebound?” he asked with a frown. “Phoebe, I liked you while I was dating Ariana. You do get that, right?”

  I looked up at him and wiped the tears from my eyes.

  “Really?” I asked. “You aren’t just saying that to get in my pants again?”

  He laughed and shook his head. “Of course, not. I care about you, Phoebe,” he said, softly. “A lot.”

  I smiled.

  “I like you a lot too.”

  “Good! Will you let me take you out, then?”

  I laughed a little. “When?�
��

  “Right now!” He grinned.

  We went to a pizzeria on the other side of town. I had never heard of the place, mostly because it was at least ten miles away from campus. The thin crust pie was even better than my mother’s home cooking, so it certainly was worth the long drive. I knew my parents were probably wondering where I was, but I was having far too much fun with Adam to care. About half a slice in, I turned my phone off so we wouldn’t be bothered.

  “See, this is why I like you,” he said, taking a large bite of his slice. “You’ll sit down and eat pizza and then go see Blood Master 6 with me. I could never get Ariana to do this. She lives on Caesar salad and Dollhouse Downtown reruns.”

  I smiled and sipped on my iced tea.

  “I loved the first five,” I admitted. “I hope the sixth one is as good.”

  “You actually watched the Blood Master series?” he asked. “Good God, you are my dream girl.”

  I laughed a little. “You almost done? We can pack away the leftovers and sneak them into the theater. My mom taught me that when I was a kid—before she got her weight loss surgery.”

  He gobbled down the rest of his slice and motioned to the waitress.

  “Box please,” he requested, mouth full of dough. “Thank you.”

  She brought us the box and set it down on the table along with the check. Adam gave her his credit card. As soon as she brought it back with a receipt, I smiled.

  “Ready to go?”

  He grinned.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Not as good as I hoped it would be,” Adam sputtered as we walked out of the movie theater. “Bad acting. I wish they would’ve kept the original cast.”

  “Me too!” I complained, following him to his car. “I can’t believe they got rid of Asia Strauss. It’s not Blood Master without her.”

  “Totally,” he agreed, opening the car door for me.

  I blushed and thanked him as I slid into the passenger’s seat. It was late and, just like the rest of the city, the parking lot behind the movie theater was void of all life—except us. Adam walked around the car and, as he got into the driver’s seat, I felt my heart start to race. He started the car, but he didn’t put it in drive. Instead, he leaned over and gave me a soft, sweet kiss.