Prime: A Bad Boy Romance

by Stephanie Brother

  “Anyway”, Marcy says, “They read it, they probably got off on it, but they didn’t do anything but give you the book back. They could have taken advantage, you know, if they wanted to, but they didn’t. I’m sorry, Jenny, but the sooner you realize that you’ve got to move on, the better, you know, this is kind of unhealthy now.”

  “They might have been embarrassed to admit it”, I say. “Or maybe it wasn’t the right moment.”

  “Or maybe they’re just not that into you.”

  “That’s cold”, I say.

  “Alright, maybe they didn’t read it, and they secretly love you and don’t know what to do about it because Zach thinks you like Jack and Jack is so crippled by worry that it’s Zach you like and not him that neither of them want to hurt each other or themselves.”

  “I can see how complicated it could be”, I say.

  “Then what are you going to do about it?” Marcy asks.

  “Nothing”, I say. “What can I do? Nothing.”

  “Well you better either figure out a plan to find out once and for all or get over it and focus on other things because if you don’t you might find something else getting in your way.”

  “Something else like how”, I ask.

  “Ever wondered what might happen if Janice and your dad decide to tie the knot?” Marcy says.

  She knows I’ve already been through every single possible permutations without even needing to answer her. “Well then”, she continues. “I’ve seen you go through a whole gamut of emotions with these boys without doing anything other than write about it in your journal to masturbate to later.”

  “Hey”, I say, pretending to be hurt.

  “For you to move on”, she says, “you need to take control of your own destiny. Find out if your feelings are reciprocated, because if they're not, you need a whole new plan to begin to follow.”

  “I don’t know, Marcy”, I say, certain she’s right but unhappy to admit it. “If I have an answer once and for all it might not be the one I want to hear.”

  “Yeah, but until you do, you’re going to be unable to move on. You want to be a virgin for the rest of your life, or do you want to find out if Donkey want to do to you what you wrote in that book?”

  “I obviously want Donkey to do what I wrote”, I say, “but I’m not sure if I’m ready to ask them yet.”

  “Then get ready”, Marcy warns, “because you may not get another opportunity.”

  “The game”, I say.

  “Can you think of a better idea?”

  “And what exactly am I supposed to say? Hey guys, long time no see. Did you read my notebook because if not, you should.”

  “Just leave the details to me”, Marcy says, confidently. “You just need to create the right atmosphere.”

  “Oh, right, gee, why didn’t I think of that”, I say. “Get them up to my room, put on some sexy music and dim the lights.”

  “Men need a bit of convincing”, Marcy says. “Even a twin set of alphas. They probably just need to know you want them both and not just one of them.”

  “I thought you said they clearly weren’t interested”, I ask.

  “If I’m absolutely honest with you, I don’t think they are, but I’m not the one who needs convincing, and as your best friend, I’m going to help you find out what you need to know.”

  The thought of throwing myself at Donkey makes my head spin and my gut turn circles all at the same time. I’m not confident enough to seduce them, not strong enough to cope with the rejection, but what else have I got? Marcy’s right. I can’t spend my whole life waiting, especially not if there’s a chance that they might one day be my stepbrothers. I can’t cope with finding out one day, either, that we really did like each other but never had the confidence to act on it.

  It really is now or never, because the last thing I want in my life is to end up like my mother, chain smoking cigarettes and looking into the middle distance from a rocking chair on the porch of a house I might have to sell, because I didn’t have the confidence to tell the two people I truly love that I want them and no-one else.

  I can’t have that, not any more.

  Marcy may not believe in real love, but I do, and this time I’m going to prove it to her once and for all. Even if the idea scares me so much, just thinking about it makes my nerves jangle.

  Part Five.

  Making the play

  Chapter Eighteen

  D-Day. Donkey day. I have been increasingly distant in class leading up to this moment, increasingly terrified everywhere else because of it. When Marcy and I enter the stadium, I’m literally shaking. Any faster my heart would beat right out of my chest. Just coming here has taken guts, what I want to do afterwards will take the steely nerve of a cold blooded and ruthless go-getter. Basically someone completely different to me.

  Marcy offers me a selection of legal and not quite so legal remedies for my condition, all of which I politely decline, and while we fight our way through the crowd to sit amongst what can only be described as loosely organized mayhem, I feel like this could be the turning point of my largely uneventful life so far.

  My dad is here with Janice somewhere, which is kind of weird. I try and look for him in the crowd unsure of what I’ll do if I spot him. They’ve both moved out, which is to say that Janice has finally sold her house and Dad hasn’t returned home. They’re living together in a small one-bedroom apartment in the city while they work out what to do. Needless to say, Mom’s condition still hasn’t improved and for the last few weeks she’s been swapping out the cigarettes for something a little stronger.

  This is my first live football game and I had to borrow the money from Dad to be able to afford the tickets. I could have just surprised the boys after the game, but I kind of wanted to see them in action - who wouldn’t right? - plus Marcy had already decided we were coming and at least it gives us something to talk about when I throw myself at them afterwards, nerves jangling like hanging pots in a hurricane.

  I feel a little ridiculous. I’m not entirely new to football - Dad made me watch enough games growing up and even tried to enrol me in a team, such was his overwhelming desire to have a boy - but I’m not really here to offer my support to the team either, just a small percentage of it.

  The players come out to the field, their names called out over the PA system and when the announcer gets to Jack and Zach Montgomery, I feel shivers run down my spine.

  I can’t see much from up here, but when the twins come out on the field I feel my heart leap about sixty metres into the air. Jack takes off his helmet and salutes the crowd at one end, while Zach does the same at the other. I haven’t seen these boys for months, and here they are just as sexy as ever. Not only that, they are clearly the focus of this team. The way they were introduced, the reception from the crowd and the treatment from the other players, makes it seem like they are head and shoulders above everyone else in terms of potential and importance. I can’t think of many people who could come back to their home town and not get booed by the crowd for moving away. Like I said before, hating these twins is absolutely impossible. By the noise the crowd are making - and these are Badgers fans that surround us - I’m not the only one in love.

  Up here, wedged into the crowd, I feel like I’m a million times less important. I feel so unimportant I worry that when I go and find them after the game, they won’t even know who I am. Maybe they won’t even want to see me.

  After all of the players have been introduced from both teams, they bring on a special guest star. He’s a famous quarterback called Landon Maddox, who gets a standing ovation when he jogs out onto the field and the name rings a bell as someone the twins always used to go on about as someone they wanted to emulate. He tells us he’s been working with LSU recently as part of a nationwide program to encourage sporting talent, and today he’s decided to come and watch the game and keep an eye on the progress of his most talented players.

  “That’s the original Donkey”, Marcy whispers as
she nudges me in the ribs. “He’s got a cock this big.”

  She holds out her hands to measure it in the air like someone might if describing the biggest fish they ever caught.

  “How on earth do you know that?” I say.

  Marcy smiles. “Common knowledge, modelling adverts, huge rumors.”

  I heard the word Donkey and my attention is taken back to the field.

  “Well, Jack and Zach, or collectively, Donkey, which, by the way, I think we should change to Donkey Doubled or something like that to make a clear distinction, are some of the hottest talent anywhere in the country right now. We’ve got Jack starting as our quarterback, and Zach as wide receiver, but these two are so talented they could play anywhere in the field. Watch these guys, because they are going to be big.”

  “Well, it sounds like you might have to let that nickname go”, the announcer says, “especially if there are two of them.”

  Landon smiles. “We’ll see.”

  “Ready?” Marcy asks, taking hold of my arm.

  “No”, I say, shaking my head.

  Marcy begins, “Jack smiles down at me each time he lifts his mouth away from my nipples to let me breathe. I’m breathing heavily, squirming like a fish out of water and groaning loud enough I could pass for a professional porn actress.”

  I look at her in horror, my lower jaw scraping the ground. “How the fuck do you remember that?”

  She shrugs. “Good memory I guess.”

  “I’ll say.”

  “Just remember what it is we are doing here”, Marcy says tapping me on the head with her index finger. “Keep your head in the game.”

  “I’m trying”, I whimper. “It’s not easy.”

  “I’ve got rum if you want it”, she says, opening her bag slightly to show me. “Just give me the word.”

  “Do you just carry that around with you wherever you go?” I ask.

  “You never know when you are going to need it”, she says. “Plus, it makes the day go way quicker. Work can be a drag sometimes.”

  “You are wasted in waitressing”, I say.

  “I know, right? I was thinking about moving into porn. Maybe you could write the storylines for me and we could get a couple of twins to act it out.”

  “Hey, hands off my Donkey”, I say, as though they were already mine.

  “If you’re not going to claim them-”, Marcy jokes.

  “I’m going to try my best, believe me”, I say.

  The plan is, wait until the game is over, make our way to the locker room, surprise Donkey with our appearance, and come clean about my kinky desire. Plan B, if plan A doesn’t work, is do all of that at their hotel room.

  I haven’t called them, left a message on facebook, sent a telegram, uploaded an image on instagram of me holding a banner that says Donkey, I love you, and I haven’t told them I’m going to be here. As far as I know, according to information passed on to me from Dad via Janice, Donkey aren’t planning to stay much longer than they need to, which means my time with them might be limited. If that limitation is reduced solely to the view I get from here, I wouldn’t have forgiven myself for missing it.

  Marcy and I spent a whole year perving over Donkey from far enough away we had to use binoculars, so we are both dedicated professionals and compared to that, this is luxury.

  Their plan to be in and out of the city they called home for the best part of their adolescence is a little concerning but if they have bad memories here, I completely understand it. I’m not sure how much they blame their mother for her part in their parents divorce, but I’m sure that whatever reason they have for not wanting to stick around is likely to be perfectly reasonable.

  They are here with their dad too, which might make seeing their mom all that more difficult. I don’t blame Dad for what happened between Mom and him, not anywhere near as much as Mom does, but I’ve probably seen him just as few times as Donkey have their mother over the last few months, and we all still live in the same city. I can’t imagine they’ll come here and ignore her completely, but maybe they just want to separate their old life from their new one, and anything that drags them back into what they used to have here is something they are actively trying to avoid.

  Which would explain perfectly why they haven’t contacted me. Not because they don’t want to, but because they see me as part of an old life they are trying to move away from, at least until they’ve processed all of the individual different emotions.

  I suppose, if that is the case, maybe I should abandon my plan altogether and give them their space. The last thing I want to do is suffocate them, and if I didn’t feel like it was some kind of duty on my part to come clean about how I feel, especially before Dad and Janice make it morally unacceptable, I wouldn’t have to worry. I could watch this game without sitting on my hands, enjoy the incredible spectacle of Donkey without breaking down that invisible barrier, and then each one of us could go home none the wiser and live a life of misery rocking away on the porch, drinking rum and smoking cigarettes.

  Marcy leaps from her seat and almost knocks me out of mine. Typically, I haven’t been concentrating and I’ve missed something important. Up on the big screen I watch the replay. Jack in close up twisting away from a tackle, running into open space and launching the ball to his brother. While they continue to celebrate the touchdown on the field below, I watch Zach leap a full metre into the air and pluck the ball out of nothing, like he’s just leaped to the top branch of an apple tree to pull down the juiciest fruit that resides there. I’m not a football aficionado, but even I can recognize the beautiful perfection of the maneuver.

  Jack and Zach salute the crowd, while the teams line up to begin again, and all around the stadium I hear the echo of their nickname being sung.

  “Donkey, Donkey, Donkey.”

  “Sit down”, Marcy says pulling me back into my seat. “You don’t want them to put you up on the big screen and ruin the surprise, do you?”

  The atmosphere is infectious, and even though my brain refuses to turn itself off, I can’t help but enjoy myself. Throughout the first half, under Donkey’s measured guidance, The Tigers are absolutely unstoppable.

  They go into the break 14-3 up, both touchdowns a combined piece of brilliance from the Godlike duo.

  Whether they win or not is of no interest to me, and I know that it won’t bother Jack and Zach either, as long as they have performed to the best of their ability, what is of interest to me is watching them perform, and as the game continues, Marcy, I and any of the rest of the crowd who are watching, get treated to an incredible display of the prowess of the human body.

  I can’t see their faces under the helmet’s but I know each curve, line and distinguishing mark so well I can imagine it. The way they twist and turn, the lycra sticking to every contour of their body, the way their muscles flex from the broadness of their shoulders, down the curve of their spine to their perfect hips, the moment Zach lifts his top to reveal briefly an even more toned six pack than he left with and when Jack bends over to receive the ball at every single down so his ass looks like a work of art directed specifically towards me, I feel like I’m going to explode with excitement.

  I can hardly contain myself, each second that passes becoming more animated and more involved, that when they score the third touchdown, a work of individual brilliance by Jack that sees him cover a third of the field and dance majestically between advancing tackles, I’m the first out of my seat and the loudest to cheer.

  When I return to it, Marcy reminds me I’m cheering the wrong team, and as I look around us I get looks of pity from the diehard Badgers supporters, as though typically, as a female, I’m confused and don’t understand how the whole thing works.

  Before I realize it, and much sooner than I want, the third quarter melts into the fourth and the game begins to wind down.

  Donkey have clearly been the stars of the show, and despite The Tigers losing the fourth quarter to a late resurgence by The Badgers, the boys have do
ne enough to steer their team to victory and convince anyone who still wasn’t sure that these two have the potential, if they haven’t already done enough to achieve it, to be absolutely massive.

  We stand as a group and clap the players off the field, while Jack and Zach take off their helmets and wave to the raucous support.

  There is just enough time to listen to a summing up of the performance by Landon Maddox, before post match entertainment begins and those members of the crowd uninterested in listening to a marching band or watch a bunch of scantily clad cheerleaders run through their tired routine begin to quickly disperse.

  Marcy turns to me. “Ready?” she asks.

  “No”, I say again.

  “Too bad”, she says. “We’re not leaving until you’ve done what you came here to do.”

  “I’m scared”, I confess.

  “That’s why I’m here”, she says.

  “Locker room?” I ask nervously, my voice almost breaking.

  Marcy nods.

  “It’s a terrible idea”, I say, suddenly realizing it. “Everyone is going to be in there celebrating, they’re not going to be interested in seeing me in the slightest. I’ll look like a dick. It’s a terrible idea Marcy, what was I thinking?”

  Marcy sighs. “Here’s what we are going to do. We’re going to go down to the locker room, I’m going to go in and I’m going to tell Donkey that someone is here to see them while you wait patiently outside, figuring out how you’re going to seduce them with your writer’s brain.”

  She taps on it again and I shake my head.

  “Jenny.”

  “I timeout”, I say, making a T shape with my hands.

  “You don’t even know what that is.”

  “I’ll do it tomorrow”, I say.

  “Just come with me, you can freak out all you like when it’s done”, Marcy insists.

  “Let me just sit here a little bit longer, at least until everyone else has gone.”

  “Everyone?” Marcy asks. “The whole stadium?”

  I nod, so close to crying if I let myself go I know I might never stop. I think Marcy can see it too, because instead of encourage me or tell me I have to, she just leans back into her seat and takes my hand in hers.