by Allison Parr
Blood skipped my cheeks and rushed past my ears, speeding up my heart with anger. “Why do you say that like it’s so impossible? You have such a double standard. Guess what? We aren’t in the 1930s anymore. Women can sleep with as many people as they want to, and it does not make us sluts while it makes guys heroes. Okay? Do you have a problem with that?”
“I’m not talking about women. I’m talking about you.”
I glared at him. “You don’t know anything about me.”
He leaned his hip against the counter, gaze fastened on me. “It’s either not something you do, or you’re playing coy.”
I refused to gape, even though I wanted to. What did coy even mean anymore? It conquered up images of Betty Boop, flitting her lids at unsatisfied suitors. “I’ve never played coy.”
“So let me get this straight—you don’t play games, and you’re comfortable sleeping around, even with guys like your ad man who you don’t particularly like.” He raised his brows. “Which means the only reason you wouldn’t sleep with a guy you’re crazy attracted to is if you actually are worried about society’s standards, since it doesn’t bother you, personally.”
Wait, how had I gotten into this tangle? Now if I said I wouldn’t sleep with him I’d basically be weakening my argument for sexual equality. “Maybe I’m just not attracted to you.”
His lips curved, his eyes chastening me for lobbing such an easy ball. “Bull.” He polished off his drink, and even his throat was corded and golden. “Admit it. You have issues. You’d never just sleep with a guy for fun. Probably made the ad boyfriend up.”
“I did not!” I shouted. The words echoed in the huge room. “For all you know, I sleep with a different guy every night!”
He put down his wine glass and stepped over to where I leaned against the kitchen island. “Go ahead then. Prove me wrong.”
I wanted to. I wanted to wrap my fingers around the back of his neck and pull him forward. I wanted to dig my fingers into his hair, scrape my nails down his back, feel his lips on my mouth and my ear and my neck. I wanted him.
He knew it, too, and his mouth curved in victory. His eyes locked on mine, heady with desire, as he angled his head down. “I thought so,” he whispered, his breath soft and touched with wine.
He thought what?
He thought I was messing with him. Playing games.
And he had just manipulated the hell out of me. I twisted away.
He jerked back. “What the hell?” The strain in his voice made me glance up. For a second, he looked bewildered, but he quickly masked it with anger. “Are you serious?”
“This just isn’t a good idea.”
“Really,” he said flatly. “Why the hell not? You’re attracted to me but you won’t even kiss me?”
“You’re right. I have issues. Happy?” And I was furious he’d tried to play me into sleeping with him. I grabbed my purse and my jacket. “I have to go.”
“Whatever.” He yanked open the fridge door and grabbed a beer. I opened my mouth to say something, anything else, and realized the tip of my tongue was, for once, empty.
So I suited up and left his apartment. And it took every ounce of will power not to slam his ridiculously expensive door.
Chapter Eight
“I have to admit,” John said Sunday afternoon, “I was surprised when you called.”
“What can I say?” I told him as we walked down the stadium steps. “I do love a good game.”
The only football field I’d ever set foot on had belonged to Ashbury High, and I’d been only twice: at graduation and for Homecoming my senior year. My friend Carly lost out on Homecoming Queen to Sophie Salisbury. We weren’t too surprised. Carly had the science kids, the actors, and the artsy students, but Sophie had the jocks.
In college, we’d been too busy getting liberal arts degrees to look at the sports teams.
The Leopards’ Stadium was in Chelsea, built over rail yards between Penn Station and the Hudson River. It had been raised in the ’90s, partly for an Olympic bid that fell through. I’d never been inside, and the size of it shocked me. Seventy-five thousand seats rose sharply around the long stretch of bright green turf. Tiny people streamed into the neatly divided sections, mere blurs of predominantly red and black. Above, white light fixtures and advertisements gleamed down at us, while screens were interspersed throughout the stadium.
John led me through the slowly moving crowd to his family’s season seats, saying hello to one or two people on the way. I sat down, feeling a little nervous and uncomfortable. Going out with John just to prove to Ryan that I did watch football—when I didn’t—and that I was happy using a guy for sex—when I wasn’t—was much less appealing when I was actually on the date. “So,” I asked once we were settled. “Do you follow football? Closely?”
He tossed popcorn into his mouth. “Close enough. My dad took me to a couple games when I was younger. Now, of course, I’m usually too busy with work to come watch them. It’s very time-consuming, after all. This week I had to meet with Karl Peppington—you know, of the Park Avenue Peppingtons—but I didn’t mind, since we really hit it off. He thought I was very funny. You should have seen...”
My brain closed down as he started on about the ad agency. When I’d first met him, I’d found his unceasing conversation engaging, but by the ill-fated third date I’d realized that John never paused to ask me anything about my job, except as a mere nicety, and that he cared more for an audience than a partner in conversation.
This had been a bad idea. I couldn’t exactly show Ryan up when he wasn’t here to see John with his arm thrown casually around my shoulders.
But that wasn’t how I should be viewing this. No, instead this was a practice in sexuality, proof that I didn’t have walls like China and that I could sleep around with the best of them. No prudes here!
Uh-huh.
John stopped speaking when the announcer started. The players jogged onto the field, streaming through sparklers and a fog machine and a line of jacketed men in matching colors. Around me, the crowds cheered on cue, with all the energy and delight a Broadway audience would pour into a standing ovation, even though the performance hadn’t even started.
All the Leopards looked the same; black jerseys with huge padded, puffed sleeves that made their waists look narrow, marked with pale gold numbers that matched their gleaming helmets. Shimmering crimson fabric molded to their thighs and backsides before tucking into high black socks. I searched for anyone I recognized, but they were small and uniformed and unknown.
“Which number is Ryan Carter? And Malcolm? Lindsey.”
John’s expression quite clearly stated that if he hadn’t wanted to get in my pants, he’d consider me too dumb to keep around. “Seven and eighty-three.”
I nodded, trying to pick them out of the crowd. I had no luck until a regulated voice boomed across the field, informing the ladies and gentlemen of the audience that we would be standing for the national anthem. We did and the players stopped moving, their helmets tucked under their arms.
Ryan’s gold hair flashed in the sun, and I smiled faintly, as his helmet matched. I supposed singing “The Star-Spangled Banner” made sense, since it was a war song and the players looked like they would be marching off any minute. Then, as the song peaked and Ryan’s hair glowed and my mind wandered, I wondered if there were any world championships games between the States and England where we sang our anthems, and if that ever struck anyone as awkward, since ours was essentially about bombing British ships two-hundred years ago.
The song ended and I reined my mind back in.
“Where’s the rest of them?” I asked John as the men gathered in the field, as a coin glinted in the air. Ryan crouched down, his pants stretched tight against his muscles, and I swallowed.
“What are you talking about?”
I opened my mouth, and then closed it, realizing I hadn’t a clue what Keith and Dylan and Mike and Abe’s last names were. I’d recognized Malcolm’s cl
osely shorn head, but missed the others. “Aren’t there other players?”
“Of course there are.” John didn’t bother looking at me. “Fifty-three. But only eleven start.”
“Oh.” Who knew?
A Colt kicked the ball, and it spun through the air, the men scattering like marbles. If life resembled urban fantasy novels, football would be about shape-shifters and I’d be watching a battle between horses and big cats right now. “I heard they’re out some of their starting players. Is that bad?”
John laughed. “Of course it is. Don’t you read the paper? Danvers and Gutierrez and two linebackers were in a car crash right before the opening. But Carter and Lindsey are still in, and those two are indestructible.”
Down below, the game stopped and the teams separated into huddles. I searched until I found number seven thick in his clump. He said something, heads nodded, and the group broke.
I hadn’t realized how often these pauses would occur. Each quarter lasted fifteen minutes, theoretically—except those fifteen minutes kept stopping, as each coach was given three time outs per quarter. Then the clock would start and go for thirty, forty seconds—and the whistle would blow.
It’s hard to love something if you don’t understand it, and to me this was a field of men scrambling about, leaping and falling, legs tumbling through the air before they smacked into the ground. It was flailing, outstretched arms and legs scissoring across the field. The men charged around the turf like gladiators trapped in their coliseum, fighting until death or the emperor’s whimsy. Number seven moved swiftly and confidently, catapulting the ball through the air with an arm like iron. I might not have understood the game, but I hardly took my eyes off him.
Until he was buried by two opponents.
Everyone groaned. Even John, beside me, leaned back in his chair with a grunt. I tugged at his arm. “What just happened?”
“Ryan fumbled. Should’ve passed to Tsuga when he had the chance.”
“No, I mean—is he okay?”
John gave me a funny look. “It was just a sack.”
Silly me. Here I’d thought he’d slammed into the ground hard enough to break a limb.
The clock paused again, this time for half-time. “It’s really dangerous, isn’t it?” I looked at John.
“Yeah.” He sounded unconcerned until he caught sight of my face. Then he smirked and leaned closer. “You know, I used to play football in high school.”
Oh, John, I thought, trying not to laugh. You will never be an expert fiddler.
“You must have been very brave,” I said, just to see if he’d notice I was making fun, but instead he smiled and placed his arm along the back of my chair.
“I got us a reservation at Mariette’s. It’s right by my apartment.”
Subtle. “That’s sweet. But I’m not sure if I’m up for dinner.”
He grinned at me. “We can skip it.”
Ah, that’s what I’d seen in him. That smile. “Oh, John, I don’t know.”
He scoffed lightly. “We both know why you asked me out, Rachael.”
Actually, I’d asked him out to make a guy who would never know we’d gone out jealous. I bet John wasn’t juggling that in his head.
Someone kicked the back of my chair, and I twisted around to glare at her. Except the glee filling the woman’s face threw me off. “You’re on!”
What?
John wasn’t as slow. In fact, he flashed a grin, and then reached over to cup my head, planting a long, slow kiss smack on my mouth.
I froze, and then sighed against his lips. Oh. That was the other reason I’d liked him.
Ryan’s face popped into my head, and I squished it down. I was done thinking about Ryan. Besides, wasn’t John right? Wasn’t this why I’d asked him out? He was good-looking and since I’d already discarded the idea of an actual relationship with him, he wasn’t an emotional risk. And by making out with him, I could distract myself from Ryan Carter, who was. I lifted my hands to frame John’s cheeks, and went at it.
Laughter echoed around the stadium as I nuzzled into John, deepening the kiss. His arm wrapped snugly around my waist, and I might have been able to entirely focus on him if the chair’s arm hadn’t bit into my side, and our twisted postures hadn’t irritated my spine.
When I drew back, he grinned at me like a fool. “Nice,” he said, with unexpected pride, before turning his face away. I followed his gaze to the large screen over the field that had been displaying close-ups.
A pink heart framed a middle-aged couple that pecked each other on the lips, and then laughed.
The picture changed to a pair in their twenties, both streaked with paint. They threw their arms up in the air, and then around each other.
The next couple sported white hair, and the man gallantly kissed the woman’s hand.
I shook my head, jaw slightly loose. “What is that? Were we...was our kiss there?”
“It’s the kiss cam.” He smiled smugly. “And yeah. It was.”
Football: war, sex, and exploitation. No wonder it sold well.
To keep myself from staring at Ryan throughout the second half, I asked John to explain the rules. Since he had an ulterior motive, he explained much more extensively than the guys had. There were too many rules to follow, but even with just the basics, knowing that a field goal scored three points and a touchdown six with a point-after option, I followed it a lot better. And I liked the energy, the fans whirling their black and red colors, whooping and cursing and sighing out in relief so palpable it could be bottled.
By the time the game ended, 23 to 17, even I had caught some of the herd mentality, biting my lip every time the ball headed toward the end zone. And after the last second ticked off the clock, I cheered in tandem with seventy thousand relieved fans.
“So what happens now?” I asked as we funneled out of the stadium, surrounded by all our new, joyful friends who kept smacking each other on the back and bursting into song. “Where are the athletes?”
John pulled me tighter against him, purportedly to save me from the path of four rampaging men with painted faces. “The reporters interview them in their locker room, and then they probably go out.”
“People interview them in the locker room?” What an awful invasion of privacy.
“I think they get a ten-minute cool down before the media comes.” He squeezed my shoulder. “Wasn’t that great? Ahh! Leopards win!” His fingers trailed over my upper arm. “Gotta love a good game. You ready for dinner?”
I shot a glance over my shoulder, half expecting Ryan to come pounding after us. But it wasn’t like he knew I’d even come. I mean, not unless—I turned to John. “Can the players see the TV? You know, with the close-ups and the kiss cam and everything?”
“I don’t know.” John pulled out his phone and texted someone. “Maybe if they record it?”
My stomach rolled over. Did that mean... Well, I had told Ryan I was sleeping with John. So what if he saw me make out with him? It was none of his business.
I felt like I’d swallowed something rotten.
And why did I care? All Ryan had done was insult me. He’d called me coy! He was difficult, and rude, and shallow. And he had a total double-standard. I could sleep around if I wanted to. Sex was fun, not the be-all end-all.
I looked up at John’s even, symmetrical face. I didn’t like him, and that made him safe. We weren’t emotionally involved, so no messy strings straggled out of our non-relationship.
Not that I was emotionally attracted to Ryan, since lust didn’t count as a real emotion. And it wasn’t like I needed to remind myself of how unlikeable Ryan was, how snarky and bad-tempered and complicated.
“You know what? You’re right. I don’t really want dinner.”
“Really?” He snapped his phone shut.
“Really.” And I pressed my lips against his.
* * *
When I woke up, I was naked and alone and my head felt like it was shrouded in fog. I pushed myself up, and
then fell back with a groan, squeezing my lids shut and curling up around the sick pit in my stomach.
From somewhere else in the apartment, I could hear John yammering into his cell. “What you worried about, baby?... Yup... Yeah... Yes, I love you too.”
The door opened. Closed. The light lessened, and I sighed in relief. And then a body draped over me.
“Hey, baby.” John nuzzled my neck. “Time to wake up.”
What had I done? Was I going to be sick? When we’d come back to his apartment, we’d had more alcohol, and then we’d fallen into bed in a drink-fueled stupor. And now all I wanted was a hot, hot shower, my own bed, and some vast quantities of comfort food.
“John.” I pushed him off me. “Was that your girlfriend?”
“Hmm? Oh, yeah.”
“John!” I was aggravated enough that I wrenched away and toppled over the side of the bed. Ugh, my head still spun. I narrowed my eyes and glared at the blurry vision. “Do you really have an open relationship?”
“Of course I do.” He sounded offended. “I don’t believe in being tied down.”
I started looking for my clothes. “And what does Caroline believe?”
“She agrees with me.”
Of course she did. “But does she really, or does she just agree with you to keep you?”
Now I’d made him angry. “That’s ridiculous. Just because you’re narrow-minded doesn’t mean—”
I yanked my shirt over my head, and then tugged my jeans stiffly up my legs. “You know what, John? You’re a sloppy kisser.”
John looked wounded.
“I shouldn’t have done this.” I shook my head. “I was just—”
“Horny. I know. You mentioned that several times last night.”
“Yeah, well.” I picked up my purse, and stood awkwardly in the doorway. “Anyway—I have to go.” This was awkward. Was I awkward, or the situation? Probably both.
John frowned. “I don’t get it. I thought we were having fun.”
“Yeah—I think—” I frowned at the ceiling, embarrassed and uncomfortable. “You know—the first time—when we—I sort of thought we were going to be a thing. A couple.”
