Sacked (Gridiron #1)

by Jen Frederick

Now? Now I want one prickly Eliot Campbell and not even her barricades will keep me out.

  “Actually, I am sure about her.” I hear a pounding on the door. Clearly my teammates are tired of waiting for me. “Hammer and Matty are back. I’ll call you later.”

  “Okay, bro.”

  Downstairs, Jack Campbell shows up along with Ace and a couple of the other offensive players.

  “Good game.” We exchange chin nods. The offense and the defense have different mindsets. They want to score. We want to destroy them. It makes for uneasy times even when we’re on the same team.

  “Thanks. Felt good to play again.”

  That’s a sentiment I can get behind. About twenty of us head out. The rest of the guys are underage or calling their girlfriends.

  The bar down the street has plenty of action. Half dance club, half sports bar, we settle in to watch the night games. I find myself a table in front of the Wisconsin/Alabama game. Right off the bat someone’s BCS hopes will get bruised. Hammer and Matty join me. We order a round of beers and a couple of appetizers and settle in.

  The Crimson Tide’s defense is a ball-busting, soul-crushing machine. I simultaneously admire the hell out of them while wanting to beat them into the turf. They’re one of the teams I wouldn’t be surprised to play in the playoffs.

  During halftime, the score is tied at ten all, and Matty and Hammer leave to meet up with the local talent.

  “Hey,” a soft voice greets me.

  My head swivels to find a sweet thing standing at my side, one hip jutting out and long red fingernails tapping away at that round shape. If she meant to draw my attention there, it’s a success. I flick my eyes upward. She’s pretty. Real pretty. Dark tight curls, skin that reminds me of the fall leaves, and a top so low that I wonder if I’m seeing nips or that’s a shadow from the big screen. “You Knox Masters?”

  I nod.

  “You play for the Warriors, right?”

  “Right.” I scratch the side of my neck as I search for a nice way to tell her to get lost.

  “I saw you on the field today. You looked amazing.” Her lips look red and very shiny, and she deserves some kind of response. I’m not sure what it is.

  She leans forward and presses a kiss against my cheek. “That guy gave me $100 to deliver this to you.”

  Two tables down, I see Jack’s eyes narrow. I shift backward.

  “Okay, thanks.” I take the card. She doesn’t leave. I look up and see an older guy tip his head toward me. He must think I’m stupid. Agent contact at any time before the season ends could ruin my eligibility. I pick up the card, rip it into tiny pieces, and dump it into the ashtray in the middle. Nothing will affect our chances of winning title this year.

  “The card was his idea. The kiss was mine.”

  “Need something, sweetheart?” Hammer comes to my rescue.

  “Oh no, I was telling Knox here how much I like his game.”

  Hammer puts an arm around her shoulder and gently turns her away from the table. “I play for the Warriors, too. You know much about football?” She shakes her head as Hammer leads her toward the dance floor. “I play on the quarterback’s blind side. That’s his weak side. Only the best defensive players get that position.” He looks back over his shoulder and winks.

  I give him a salute and slide off the chair. Time to go home. When I arrive, Matty’s got the Do Not Disturb on the door. I ignore it and walk in. A woman is bouncing, reverse cowgirl style, her brown curls springing in rhythm.

  “Don’t mind me,” I say easily. “Just getting my book.”

  “You can join us,” Matty offers. “Lucy won’t mind.”

  “It’s Laura.” She scowls. But then turns to me. “You’re Knox Masters, right? I saw you on the cover of Sports Illustrated.”

  “Yeah? Which one was I?”

  She looks confused. “The one in the Warriors uniform.”

  That’s another reason I’m sure about Ellie. She can tell me and Ty apart. All the fucking time.

  Matty sits up and rubs his hands along the side of the lady’s thin frame, and then up to cup a very large, very perky pair of tits. Not gonna lie. My body reacts. I’m twenty-one. There’s a hot naked chick offering herself to me.

  “Thanks for the offer. I’ll read my book.”

  “Your loss.” She shrugs.

  I grab my phone and book, and head up to the tenth floor’s concierge lounge. Coach gets us access so we don’t have to sit downstairs and answer questions from the press.

  I open the book and…it smells. Not bad but girlish. I lift it to my nose and inhale. It smells like her. And I can’t let another minute go by without contacting her.

  I power up the phone, and as soon as it comes online, the message I’ve waited for appears. Got you. I grin to myself.

  I shoot her a reply. Phone was dead. You up?

  When the text message alert dings, all the tension of the day drains out of me. I slump down lower in the chair to get comfortable.

  Ellie: Yes. Sorry about the other day. The thing with Jack caught me off guard. He doesn’t want people he respects to think he’s dumb.

  I don’t want to text her. I press dial and wait for her to answer.

  “Masters?”

  I close my eyes in irritation at hearing my last name.

  “You there?”

  “Yeah. I’m here.”

  “I’m sorry,” she repeats.

  “We’re on the same team, you know. We all want the same thing—for Jack to play.”

  She sighs. “I know. But Jack is…sensitive about his grades. He doesn’t want people he admires to think he’s dumb or slow.”

  “I don’t.”

  “Then how about I check up on him?”

  “That works for me.” I don’t care about Jack. I mean, I do in the sense that I want him to succeed, because that means our offense succeeds. But in a contest between caring about his classes and wanting Ellie, she wins.

  The next sigh she lets out sounds like relief. “When will you be back?”

  I smile at the slightly anxious note in her voice. She wants to see me. My whole body perks up at this.

  “We’ll be back at nine. I plan to crash for a few hours. I’ll call you when I get up.”

  I hang up, because I’m not giving her an opportunity say no.

  19

  Ellie

  Week 2: Warriors 1-0

  “Fuck,” Jack says, throwing himself down on the sofa.

  “What’s wrong?”

  The team got home this morning, and Jack had a meeting with his tutor over lunch. Apparently it didn’t go well.

  “My tutor sucks. She spends more time trying to climb into my jock. I tell her I need her help and she hands me this paper.” He thrusts it at me. “What is this?”

  I scan the paper. It’s a list of different models and a brief description of each. “An outline of sorts.”

  “I signed up for this specific course because I thought game theory would be something I’d understand, but I don’t get even one of the concepts.” Jack looks anguished. “All these fucking models. I’m supposed to regurgitate this in a mid-term and final?” His bleak eyes meet mine. “Ellie, if I fail the class, my eligibility will disappear. I need to at least pass the midterm. I should have dropped the fucking class.”

  The time for that has passed, unfortunately. “What about the playoffs?”

  “Not to go all Denny Green on you, Ellie, but what playoffs? I won’t even be around for those games if I can’t pass this class. What was I thinking?” He drops his head into his hands and groans.

  “It’s Jim Mora.”

  “What?”

  “Jim Mora had the postgame rant about the playoffs. Denny Green did the ‘They are who we thought they were’ bit.”

  Jack stares at me as if I’ve lost my mind. Jim Mora was a coach for the Indianapolis Colts whose postgame rant in response to a reporter’s question about making the playoffs went viral. Playoffs? What playoffs? he’s seen spitt
ing out from the podium. Green, the coach of the Cardinals, played an undefeated Bears and almost beat them, until the fourth quarter where the wheels came off and they lost the game. Green lost his shit during the post-game press conference. The reporter had to feel grateful for that barrier, because Green looked one step away from introducing his fist to the reporter’s face. Kind of how Jack looks right now. He’d like to take physical action against something—the class, the course syllabus, his tutor.

  I need to watch my words carefully so that it doesn’t look like I’ve been sitting in the same class for the last two weeks. I put the tutor’s worksheet aside.

  “Okay. Let’s look at game theory from a football standpoint. Take Seattle’s last play in the Super Bowl. Both run plays and pass plays from the one yard line had a close to 60% chance of success. But any play can be defended if the defense knows what to expect. If the run game is more powerful, then the rational decision is to run the ball because their physical resources are geared toward running. But the Patriots knew that Seattle had a more powerful run team, so their expectations play a role. Seattle decides that the expectation has a higher value than the powerful running game and calls a pass play.

  “You have the statistical average of success of any given play impacted by the physical resources—your players—measured against the opponents players and the players expectations.”

  “The political parties are opponents and the election is their Super Bowl, with the primaries and all of the stuff that comes before it acting as the season.” He’s starting to get it. Maybe I won’t have to do anything for him. He makes a few notes. “How do I find out the statistical chance of success?”

  “Demographics. I guess that’s why polling is so popular. The parties try to analyze the likelihood of success of a position before moving to the bargaining table. Individual actors, such as the president, can increase or decrease bargaining power based on the position of power.”

  “Size up the strengths and weaknesses of a certain political structure, the general mood of the electorate, and then predict?”

  “I think that’s a fair analysis.”

  “But there are like a dozen different models.” The space between his eyes gets tight.

  “It looks by the syllabus, you’re only studying four of them.”

  That cheers him up considerably. “Thanks, Ellie. That helps a lot. I don’t feel as helpless as I did before.”

  “So your grade is a midterm?” I ask, pretending I don’t know.

  “An ungraded one, a few assignments we can do outside of class by logging into our student account, and then a final paper. Five thousand words on one of these models applied to the passage of a National Marriage Act.”

  “I’ll proof whatever you need me to proof.” I’m dreading the paper myself. I don’t fully grasp game theory and I foresee a lot outside-of-class reading in order to manage two extra papers—one for Jack and one for me.

  “Thanks.” He leans back and looks at the ceiling. “Maybe Dad is right, and I am a dumb fuck.”

  “You’re not.” I squeeze his arm. “This sort of thing is tough for everyone. You should see these kids at my grant center—”

  “Oh fuck, what time is it?” He glances at his phone. “Sorry. I have to go. I’m going to miss a team meeting.” Jack jumps to his feet and throws his book into his gym bag. He refuses to meet my eyes. I hate that he’s down on himself because of this class. Jack has always hated dumb jock jokes because they hit too close to home. But he’s not dumb. On the field and with his team he doesn’t feel that way. It’s only in the classroom.

  “Dinner later?” I ask hesitantly.

  “Maybe.” But by the despondent tones in his voice, I’m guessing that’s a no.

  20

  Ellie

  “You were right. The book was good.” Masters’ eyes are heavy lidded, but it probably has more to do with tiredness than any sexiness on my part. We’re eating ribs, for crying out loud. When I okayed this place, I forget that ribs is the messiest meal around. Right up there with slurping spaghetti noodles.

  Like everything Masters does, he manages to consume a full rack with ease and physical grace. One rib goes in his mouth and the bone comes out clean.

  I struggle for about five minutes to cut the meat off, and then think fuck it, because I’m hungry, and start gnawing on it like the rest of the patrons. Masters smiles at me so I guess I don’t look too disgusting.

  “Did you stay up all night reading it?” I shove the basket of mostly eaten ribs aside and start wiping up. It takes three paper towels and a wet wipe before I feel human again. I pop two peppermints in my mouth and watch as Masters does the same.

  “Most of it. I read a lot on the plane to the game. Fell asleep on the way home.” He stretches, and I try not to pant too much as the worn blue of his T-shirt stretches across his defined pectorals.

  “Your roommate didn’t mind, or do you, Knox Masters, get your own room?” I tease.

  “I don’t think Johnny Football got his own room on the road.” He grins and I swear I hear panties drop three tables over. “Matty was, ah, occupied and I sat in the executive lounge. They have food up there. Free.” The smile on his face turns conspiratorial. “I ate a shit ton of olives.”

  His confessional tone makes me laugh. A silence settles between us—the kind that happens right before someone ends a call—but I don’t want to hang up. So I ask him something that’s bothered me since we met in the stadium. “Why didn’t you ever tell me to keep your draft plans a secret?”

  “I knew you wouldn’t tell,” he replies. The surety in his voice sounds obvious.

  “How?” I shake my head.

  “I just knew and you haven’t, so I’m right.” He leans forward and pins me with those turf green eyes of his. “Sometimes I know things in my gut immediately. Like in the game against Wisconsin my freshman year. I knew that they would run a trick play when I saw the tight end drop back off the line of scrimmage. I watched the tight end the whole time, and when he got the ball and flicked it back to the quarterback—

  “You were there. You intercepted the ball and ran it in for a touchdown. Your first one as defensive end for the Warriors.”

  “That’s right.” This time his voice is a tiny bit smug. He has every right to be. I’m here, rattling off his game plays like he’s a rock star, and I’m a groupie who knows every lyric to every song, even the ones on the B-side of the album.

  “Anyone else up there?” I ask, changing the subject.

  “Ace. He looked over at me a lot, hoping I’d leave.”

  “Why?” I know the defense and offense like to hang separately, but that seems extreme.

  “He’s banging the coach’s daughter, but thinks we don’t know. Everyone but Coach knows.”

  I blanch. “I’m guessing that this is a problem for Coach?”

  “Yeah.” Masters shrugs as if this is no big deal.

  “He could cause problems for Ace.”

  “No.”

  “He could,” I insist. Why can’t he see this? It’s like Jack and high school all over again. “Ace could get benched or worse.”

  Masters is so smart about the game. I can tell the way he acts on the sidelines, constantly in communication, that he’s clued into his teammates. There’s not a moment I’ve been with him in public that someone hasn’t stopped to say hi to him, and he’s always greeted those people with an easy smile and a word of gratitude. Thanks for watching the game. Thanks for cheering for us. We need your support. Sixth man! High five.

  But about a potentially season wrecking affair between his starting quarterback and the coach’s daughter, he’s blind. Can I chalk this up to his sexual inexperience?

  A big warm hand reaches across the table and tugs. “You done?”

  I look down and see I’ve shredded a paper towel. “Yeah.”

  With a concerted effort, I loosen my grip and let Masters pull the towel out of my hands. He stands up, throws a few bills on the tabl
e, and hustles me out of the restaurant.

  The September night is warm, but I feel chilled inside. Jack’s poli sci class and the trouble with the team quarterback make me uneasy.

  “I wondered why Jack went to juco. He’s too good of a player not to get a D1 scholarship.”

  I lick my very dry lips. Maybe if I tell Masters it will put him on notice—at least alert him to potential trouble.

  “I once dated the quarterback for Ward High School—the punk ass bitch as Jack likes to refer to him. Travis was pressuring me into having sex and I refused. He told me it was fine and that he wanted to wait too, but went off and slept with as many girls as possible behind my back. Someone finally told me and I dumped him. I was humiliated and angry that he’d cheated so obviously on me but I wasn’t sorry to see the ass end of him.” As I tell him the rest of it, Masters face grows dark. “Jack found him the next day and roughed him up.”

  “Good for Jack.” Masters nods with approval.

  I sigh. That was Jack’s response too. I didn’t agree. “Jack got a one game suspension. Next year rolls around and Travis decides that Jack doesn’t need to be thrown the ball. Ever. Maybe in another school Travis would be yelled at or even benched, but Travis’ father was the coach. So Jack got about ten passes his junior year and less than that his senior year. Jack didn’t have the game film to convince a quality school to give him a scholarship,” I finish.

  “I’m sorry that happened,” he says gruffly.

  I peek at him under my lashes and his jaw looks tight.

  “Jack says it worked out for the best because he’s with the Warriors now.”

  “He’s right. Still doesn’t mean it didn’t suck.” We exchange grim smiles. “What happened to the QB?”

  “He flunked out of his first semester at USC because he drank too much.”

  “Sounds like it couldn’t have happened to a better person.” Masters stops outside my apartment building and pulls me around to face him. “Jack’ll be fine here. The team will be fine. Coach wants to win more than anything, and he won’t crater his own chances because one of his players is sleeping with his daughter. Trust me on this.” He strokes a bit of my hair behind my face and tips my head up. “Everything is will be fine here. For both of you.”