The End Game

by Kate McCarthy

  “Oh my god,” she gasps and rolls over, moaning loudly. “I think you dented my ass with your knee.”

  “Better that than your face,” I reply weakly, getting up on all fours.

  “That was,” drawls a deep, amused male voice from somewhere in the room, “the single best thing I’ve seen all day.”

  I lift my head and my eyes climb upwards, slowly taking in the Viking warrior standing before me. Worn jeans encase brawny legs, and a Colton Bulls muscle tee shirt covers a chest so powerful and wide it deserves its own postal code. Further up I catch brown hair pulled back off his face with a tie, a scruffy jaw, and eyes the color of dark blue denim—one of which winks at me.

  I close my mouth.

  “Elliott, this is my boyfriend, Hayden. Honey bunches of love, meet my new roommate, Jordan Elliott.”

  I can’t imagine this guy being a honey bunches of anything, but the endearment doesn’t faze him in the least. He stalks toward me, powerful thigh’s rippling with each step, and holds out his hand. A little dazed, I scramble to my feet and take it in mine. His handshake is firm and warm, and I like him instantly.

  “G’day, mate,” he says with an excited grin.

  I burst out laughing. Hayden’s attempt at an Australian accent is horrendous. His grin morphs into a pout. It should be ludicrous on such a colossal specimen of man, but on Hayden it’s charming. “Too much?” he asks. “Not enough? I’ve been practicing for weeks.”

  “He really has,” Leah corroborates as she picks herself up off the floor with a groan. “He’s never met an Australian before so I’m warning you now, he’s going to swamp you with questions, crack jokes about dingoes, and make lewd references about your vagina being the land down under.”

  “It sounds perfect,” I reply with a grin, letting go of Hayden’s hand. “Keep doing that for the next year or so, will you? My course load is going to kick my ass, so I could use a good laugh now and then.”

  “I like her,” he says to Leah without taking his eyes from mine. “She can stay.”

  “Yeah? Good,” she replies, already wheeling one of my suitcases inside the apartment. “Because I’ve already decided I’m keeping her.”

  After I bring the other suitcase inside, Leah gives me the grand tour, starting with the living area. A flat screen television rests on a small cabinet in front of a three-seated sofa. A PlayStation sits on the floor between both. The screen is paused in the middle of a game of Major League Baseball. It reminds me that Leah mentioned along the drive from the airport that her boyfriend plays college baseball.

  “Nice,” I say, waving my hand at his score. “You’ve got version fourteen, right? We have twelve back home on the PC and the glitches do my head in.”

  Hayden’s eyes go wide and his nostrils quiver with ill-concealed excitement. “You play?”

  “I have a brother. Of course I play.”

  “You want to play now?”

  Leah shakes her head at me. “You haven’t done yourself any favors, Elliott. My man is not going to leave you alone until he kicks your ass on that stupid baseball game.”

  “You only call it stupid because you’re a sore loser, babe,” he says.

  A smirk plays on her lips. “I’ll show you who the loser is later tonight. In bed.”

  Hayden jabs a finger in her direction as he sinks down on the sofa. “You better put your money where your mouth is.”

  “How about I just tell you where to put your mouth, and we can go from there?”

  Leah’s boyfriend groans as he picks up the controller and returns to his game, muttering something under his breath that sounds a lot like, “I’m going to eat you alive.”

  “How long have you two been together?” I ask when she leads me into the kitchen that sits off to the left of the living space.

  “Three years.”

  “I don’t believe you.” I fan myself with my hand from the heat sparking between the two of them.

  “Believe it.” Her grin is smug. “He’s a man madly in love.”

  Hayden’s snort from the living room is loud, indicating he heard us talking. Ignoring him, Leah opens and closes a few cupboards, showing me where everything is kept before she leads me to the opposite end of the apartment. There are three rooms: two bedrooms with a bathroom situated in the middle.

  My room has a double bed pushed against the far wall and a nice, wide window. Beneath it rests a study desk and chair, and beside that a single dresser with five drawers. It’s tucked neatly next to a built-in wardrobe. The furnishings are basic, but it’s clean and it doesn’t stink like sweaty gym socks, which is always a huge plus when you’re rooming with athletes.

  The bed is already made with fresh sheets. “You can change them if you brought your own,” Leah says, “but I figured jetlag would be making you its bitch and you’d want to crash for a couple of days before you settle in properly.”

  I face her, pressing my lips together to hold in the sudden well of emotion. I’m an outsider here, in senior year no less—where strong bonds and deep friendships have long since formed. I was prepared for it to take months to feel welcome and accepted as a team member, but Leah and Hayden have managed to do just that in one afternoon.

  “Thanks,” I choke out, my eyes burning.

  “Don’t cry over sheets, Elliott.” She pulls me into a hug, one hand rubbing my back soothingly. “Why don’t you go have a shower? Afterwards we can have dinner and something to drink.”

  I do just that, washing the stink of the airplane from my hair and pores. Not bothering to unpack just yet, I pull a tank top and sweatpants from my suitcase and get dressed.

  When I pad quietly out of my room, Leah’s on the PlayStation, and Hayden has his head buried inside the fridge. He holds out a dark bottle of something cold over his shoulder when I make my way into the kitchen.

  “That’s not some kind of American piss-weak beer is it?” I ask teasingly as I take it from him.

  “You don’t drink piss-weak beer?” After getting out another two bottles, he goes to snatch mine back. “All the more for me.”

  I jerk it out of reach. “Are you kidding? I’m Australian. We drink anything with alcohol in it,” I joke, though in truth I rarely drink at all, but tonight is my first night in a strange, new country. If there ever was a time for alcohol, it’s now. Before I take a sip, I clink Hayden’s glass with mine. “Cheers.”

  He echoes the sentiment, and after bringing the bottle to my lips, I almost spray a mouthful everywhere when he asks me if I have a boyfriend back home. “I know a lot guys who are gonna want to meet you,” he adds.

  Hell no. Receiving this international sports scholarship is the equivalent of winning the lottery. I beat out thousands of foreign students for this chance. It’s going to be the most influential year of my life, and I simply can’t risk it for anything, or anyone.

  “Thanks, but no thanks,” is all I say.

  With my head down, I immerse myself in the next three months of pre-season training. It involves getting acquainted with my new teammates, head coach, assistant coaches, team manager, nutritionist, sports therapists, the team doctor, and everyone else on board that makes our Colton Bulls soccer team the team to beat.

  It’s a whirlwind of activity: weight training, watching plays, endless drills, fitness tests, drug tests, and everything in between. I fall into bed exhausted every night with no time to wallow in my homesickness, or traipse around the countryside playing tourist. I haven’t even had time to decorate my walls with my motivational prints and my treasured signed poster of Lionel “Leo” Messi, a forward for FC Barcelona. I could sit here all day listing out his achievements, but to put it simply, the man is a soccer-playing god. I also have a signed poster of Cristiano Ronaldo waiting to be hung on my wall, but that one’s for more nefarious purposes. The Portuguese player is not only hotter than hell itself, he is, of course, my future husband.

  The stadium we train in, and will play in, is bigger than I’m used to and seats a maxim
um of thirty thousand people. It sounds impressive, but it sits alongside the college football stadium, which seats over a hundred thousand, so our arena is nicknamed David, and our bigger counterpart, Goliath.

  I haven’t met any of the football players, despite sharing the same parking lot. We hear them train though, so I know they’re there. Their grunts are loud and roaring shouts echo across into our field. It sounds more like an epic war rather than an ordinary afternoon of football training. Leah tells me they’re all big, hairy deals on campus, with egos that match the size of their stadium, so I vow to avoid them where possible.

  Two weeks before our senior year of college starts, our team has its first exhibition contest. I would call it a sell-out because the bleachers are full, but admission for the match is free. My nerves are shot, knowing it’s going to be televised live on the Colton Bulls network. Through some miracle I manage to keep my head, and it’s an easy win—six nil. It sets us up with confidence and before I know it, I’m back in an airplane, flying to Hawaii for the Outrigger Resorts Shootout. We play two matches against Arizona State and Hawaii and walk away with one win and a draw.

  We touch back down in Texas on Monday night and start classes the next day. I have my schedule tacked to a corkboard on the wall of my bedroom and my campus map studied.

  When Leah taps on my door at ass o’clock on Tuesday morning, I roll over with a tired groan and seized muscles.

  “Say it ain’t so,” I whine, the sound muffled because my face is mashed into the pillow. Her appearance is merely a hallucination from lack of sleep, I tell myself.

  “On your feet, sistah,” Leah drawls, dashing my hopes.

  I drag my exhausted body toward the edge, wondering if my legs will hold if I try standing. Probably not. They’re going to buckle beneath me and I’ll fall and hit my head, pass out, and maybe earn myself an extra hour in bed. My sleep-fogged brain decides that sounds marvelous, so I plant my feet on the floor and push up gingerly.

  When I remain standing, I simply glare at Leah through bloodshot eyes. “I hate you.”

  Leah is a morning person, so she simply blows me a kiss and sings, “Hi ho, hi ho, it’s off to the gym we go,” as she leaves my room.

  I acknowledge the voices in my head that tell me to throw my bedside lamp at her head and let them go. For now.

  After weight training and five miles on the treadmill, Leah and I shower, make a protein shake for breakfast, and hit campus. It’s the biggest college in the state, and reviewing it on my map is completely different than seeing it in person. Our apartment is right near the soccer fields, but campus is in the other direction. I haven’t had time to familiarize myself with the buildings. Parting ways with Leah, I make my way toward where I hope my first lecture is held. Ten minutes later, I’m hopelessly lost. I have to ask three separate people for directions. When I finally arrive at my destination, I’m late. It sets the tone for my entire week. I’m late for every single class, and worst of all is my Business Law and Ethics lecture on the Thursday morning. I don’t know how it happened, but I read my schedule wrong, so when I arrive two-thirds of the way through, books piled in one arm, my protein shake in the other, I’m flustered and out of breath.

  When I race through the doorway, Professor Patrick Draper pauses mid-sentence and turns in my direction. He looks in his mid-forties, but he’s ridiculously handsome and wearing a suit that looks as expensive as a brand new car. He makes an exaggerated motion of checking his watch before he looks at me again, his brows raised high.

  Every student in the room follows his line of sight as though my interruption is the most interesting part of their entire morning.

  “Sorry I’m late,” I say.

  I start scanning the room for a free desk. Please God, point me to one right now, I pray silently.

  “Late?” my professor echoes, his tone aggravated and sharp, and I realize he’s not going to let this go as easily as I’d hoped. “Late is ten minutes. You’ve almost missed my entire class.”

  Several chuckles dot the room, and I want to close my eyes and sink well below the crusty layers of the earth. Before I can form an excuse, he says, “I hope this doesn’t set the tone for the entire semester.”

  I want to reply with “me too,” but humor or flippant remarks aren’t going to save me right now. “Of course not.”

  “Good.” He jerks his chin toward an empty seat near the back of the room. “Take a seat so I can continue what you so rudely interrupted.”

  “Ouch,” I hear a student mutter as I make my way toward the vacant desk. I don’t look his way. I can’t. My face is on fire and I just need to get to my seat so I can die in peace.

  Brody

  The first hour and a half of the lecture I’m in is about as fun as getting sacked repeatedly on the football field. I spend most of it wondering how I’m going to get through the course without failing. My professor, who also happens to be my mother’s brother, may as well be speaking Spanish. My books are spread out in front of me and a pen rests expectantly in my hand, but my notes are non-existent because none of his words sink in.

  Patrick pauses to take a breath, and I want to fist pump the air at the small reprieve, even if it is because someone made the heinous error of showing up with just a half hour to go. If it were me, I wouldn’t have bothered turning up at all. Better to claim a sudden, debilitating illness than face the hardass that is my uncle.

  Arriving five minutes late to class with my cousin and roommate, Jaxon, cost more than a glare. I was ordered to see him after class. That earned me a smirk from the teacher aide, Kyle Davis. I had to restrain the urge to walk over and punch the superiority off his face. Instead, I bared my teeth in a grin and gave him the finger as I took my seat, settling in for a nice, mind-numbing session on the need for ethics in the world of corporate law.

  Davis has a beef with me. He was gunning for the wide receiver position in high school senior year and didn’t make the team. I did. Now he never misses an opportunity to rub my shitty grades in my face. Being Patrick’s TA this semester affords him the perfect opportunity to do so.

  Giving up all pretense of taking notes, I lift my head. My gaze hits the berated student, not catching her reply as air leaves my lungs in a loud rush. She’s making her way toward the last available seat beside me. Her stride is loose-limbed, her long, slender legs toned. They weave around desks and bags on the floor with a fluidity that’s mesmerizing. My eyes rise further, watching her hips roll in a way that makes me want to hold on and take her for a ride.

  My gaze reaches her face. It’s a tomato, flushed bright and red. She doesn’t catch my blatant stare. Her eyes are focused on her destination like she’s adrift in a wild storm and the empty desk beside me is her life raft.

  She slumps in the seat on my right and the appealing scent of vanilla hits me hard. It’s sweet and tempting, and reminds me of eating ice cream on a warm summer night. Leaning over, she pulls books from her bag. Long tousled waves of honey-colored hair fall in her face. She straightens, tucking them behind her ears with an annoyed huff.

  The sound brings me back to Earth. What in the everloving fuck? Vanilla? Honey? I write my response off as hunger. Fueling a body my size is a constant effort. I’m always eating, and when I’m not eating, I’m training. Between that, I should be studying because I’m on the fast track to failing my senior year of college.

  Not a surprise. I scraped by the past three years—professors rounding up my grades by more than a single mark to see me pass their course. It’s to be expected. I’m starting wide receiver for the Colton Bulls. I’m also a top draft prospect. Suspending me from play for poor grades would be an extremely unpopular move.

  In the long run it won’t do me any favors and I should care, but I don’t. The game is more important to me than breathing. Whatever it takes to play, I’ll do it.

  It’s been that way since I caught the quarterback pass in peewee league and ran fifteen yards for my first touchdown. The exhilaration, the
slaps on the back, and the acceptance bore down on me like a tsunami. It filled a void I didn’t understand was missing in my life. Sweeping me up, it took me along for a ride I never forgot.

  So I kept at it. In training I worked harder, running until I thought my lungs would explode and my legs give out beneath me. I got better, and with it came more: more time on the field, more touchdowns, and more games. The back slaps got harder, the acceptance spread wider, and my love of the game grew hotter and brighter.

  Now I’m facing the most important year of my life, the very cusp of an NFL career. I’m on the radar of several large sponsors, agents are taking notice, and the pros are calling. College football isn’t just something I do between classes for fun. It’s a full-time job. And this year I have a set of professors who aren’t like the ones of my past. There will be no favors and no bumping grades. The safety net has been pulled out from beneath me, and I’m worried.

  If I tell them I have dyslexia it will help smooth my path, but the shame runs too deep to shake. All these years I’ve managed to make do, thinking it better for my teachers to make allowances based on my football ability rather than bringing the real issue to light.

  My father is a high-profile politician, my mother a society wife, and both refuse to acknowledge I was born anything less than perfect. All my life they’ve put my failing grades down to simple laziness. If only I bothered to apply myself rather than waste time on the field, I would be an intellectual success, blazing political trails like my father wants. Instead, I’m an unwanted inconvenience. All I have is football, a game they don’t understand or support. Needless to say, my success in the sport remains unacknowledged in our house.

  I was barely seven years old. We were seated at the table, finishing dinner, when my father first acknowledged my learning disability. “Your teachers seem to think you need some kind of additional tutelage.”