Next Man Up (Making the Score Football Romance Book 2)

by Tawdra Kandle

  “Same here. My mom used to read them to me when I was little, because she thought it was important for me to have an appreciation for language. So now, I’m hooked. I figured it would be a good way to fill a requirement without too much stress.” He picked up the crumpled napkin and twisted it between his fingers. “I know we’re not friends, so I don’t need that reminder again, but it might be cool to study together sometimes. I don’t know anyone else in the class, and I think it’s a good reinforcement to talk about the lectures or have someone read my papers before I turn them in.” His eyes flickered up to meet mine. “What do you think?”

  I knew I should nip this right in the bud and tell him hell, no. There was nothing but heartache and angst in this direction. But despite all that, I found myself nodding.

  “That might work.” I kept my tone neutral. “Now and then, I guess. When it’s convenient for both of us.”

  Eli inclined his head. “Cool.” That was all he said, but behind his eyes, I thought I detected a hint of something that might have been triumph.

  “Hey, Zel, toss me another candy bar.”

  With an exaggerated sigh, I leaned down into the bag by my chair and felt around until I found the familiar shape of a Reeses. “Here you go. Catch.”

  Sitting against a mound of pillows on his bed, Eli caught the candy in one swift movement of his right hand. “Thanks. See, I told you going trick or treating was a good idea. Here it is almost Thanksgiving, and we still have study snacks. You’re welcome.”

  “I don’t think it was the trick or treating I objected to, bud. I think it was the costume you chose for me to wear.” I shook my head at the memory of the very brief, very tight nurse’s outfit Eli had presented me to wear on Halloween when he’d announced that he wanted to participate in Birch’s trick or treating party. “Being the sexy nurse to your wounded World War II soldier felt like I was being used.”

  “Well, you were,” he admitted with a wide grin. “But not for my own kicks. It was all for the candy, Zelda. And it’s not like you haven’t benefitted, too. I share, don’t I?”

  “Yeah, you do. So we’re both going to end up with rotten teeth, diabetes and a weight issue.” I turned back to face the desk and tried to figure out where I’d been reading, hoping that Eli couldn’t see the smile that refused to leave my face. He was honestly incorrigible. And he had a way of getting around me before I even knew I’d been out-maneuvered.

  Take the fact that I was sitting here in his room right now. When I’d reluctantly consented to the occasional study session on the first day of classes, I’d thought maybe we’d meet in the library once or twice to discuss something for class. However, Eli had explained that it was easier to be in his room, where everything was set up for his needs, and I’d given in. Somehow—and I still wasn’t sure how this had happened, for the life of me—my vision of once or twice had morphed into three or four nights a week. I was spending more time with Eli Tucker than I did with my own roommates.

  To be honest, the Shakespeare class was considerably more demanding than either of us had expected. It required a copious amount of nightly reading and frequent essays. Maybe it wasn’t unreasonable, then, that Eli and I ended up studying together more often than not.

  “When are you leaving to go home?” Eli spoke with his mouth full of chocolate and peanut butter goodness, and I twisted around to look at him again, shaking my head.

  “That’s disgusting. Don’t talk with candy in your mouth.”

  “Sorry.” He swallowed and winked at me, totally unrepentant. “But answer the question. When are you leaving Birch?”

  “Uh, I’m not entirely sure.” I toyed with the small silver star around my neck. “I could leave Friday night after class, but I might wait until Sunday, when they close the dorms.”

  “How come?” His brow drew together. “I figured you’d want to get back to the farm and see your family. Do you have something to do here?”

  “No.” I paused. Of everyone I knew here at Birch, ironically Eli was the only one who would understand what I could confide. He was still the only person who knew about my complicated history. “Lottie is going to be home next weekend, from Friday afternoon until Sunday.”

  “Lottie?” He narrowed his eyes. “That’s your—well, your mother, right?”

  “Yeah.” I turned to face Eli more fully, folding my legs up on the chair and resting my back against the edge of the desk. “She’s been in a long-term care facility since I started college. She’d gotten more and more demanding, even with meds, and Grammy and Gramps can’t handle her on their own anymore. So she’s in a hospital not too far from the farm. They visit her as much as they can . . . but I guess she said she wanted to come home for Thanksgiving this year. Grammy suggested they compromise on the weekend before, so that it’s not so overwhelming when the entire family shows up on the actual holiday.”

  “Ah. Okay.” Eli nodded. “But you don’t want to see her?”

  “Not really.” Closing my eyes, I dropped my forehead onto my folded hands. “That makes me sound like a cold bitch, doesn’t it? But it’s the truth.”

  “No. It makes it sound like you’re protecting yourself, and there’s nothing wrong with that.”

  “Maybe.” I cleared my throat. “Anyway. That’s what’s going on with me. Why do you ask?”

  “Oh.” As if he’d almost forgotten the original question, Eli gave his head a little shake. “Oh, yeah. I was thinking about the essay that’s due right after Thanksgiving break. If you have time, I’d like to talk about it before we go our separate ways.”

  “Which one is that?” I reached behind me for my notebook and flipped to the syllabus, running my finger along the lines of print until I found the right date. “This one? Sexual Consent in Shakespearean Plays?”

  “That’s it. I think we’re supposed to use A Midsummer’s Night Dream as a basis for our discussion.” Eli shifted a bit in his spot on the bed, and I saw his tongue dart out to swipe over his lips. “I think I could use some input. It’s kind of a sensitive topic, right?”

  “Um.” Suddenly, the room seemed a little bit warmer and smaller. I didn’t want to have a debate with Eli on the subject saying yes or no to sex. “Yeah, I guess it is.” I shot him a wink, trying to lighten the mood. “But rest easy. I’ve never taken a guy by force yet. I swear, they’ve all been mostly sober and completely willing.”

  “It’s not you I’m worried about.” Eli stared down at the bed, his face drawn and his eyes filled with misery. “I think . . . God, this is not something I want to think about.”

  “Then don’t,” I suggested. I had a sudden presentiment about what he was going to say, and I desperately wanted to avoid it.

  “But maybe I should. Because . . . Zelda, I told you I was a jerk before.”

  “I think you said dick, actually.” I tried for a smile, but Eli didn’t comply.

  “Right. Either one works. I had lots of sex with lots of girls. Like, sometimes . . .” He drew in a ragged breath. “More than one a night. I was not a nice guy, Zel.”

  “Okay. I’m not sure what you want me to say here. Is this about confession and absolution? Because I’m absolutely not qualified if it is. You know I’m not exactly lily white when it comes to sex and monogamy.”

  “No. It’s not about confession—not really. It’s about regret. It’s about how my actions back then might have affected the girls I was with.”

  “You were careful, though, right?” In my mind’s eye, I could see him reaching for a condom. “You were safe, weren’t you?”

  “Yeah, as far as I can remember. And I wasn’t usually that wasted if I was hooking up. To the best of my knowledge, I always used a condom. But I’m not talking about STDs or pregnancy here. I’m thinking that maybe not all the girls I had sex with were . . . completely aware. Maybe they were drunker than I thought. Maybe . . .” His voice trailed off.

  “I’m sure you were probably good about checking. I can’t imagine you taking advantage of
someone on purpose.” I swallowed hard. What I’d just said wasn’t true. I knew he wasn’t always sure about the girls he’d slept with, because I’d been one of them. And while I hadn’t told him no, hadn’t fought him off—hadn’t actually even tried to stop him—neither had he realized the extent of my inexperience that night. And he’d been so intent on fucking me that I wasn’t certain he’d have stopped if I had told him no.

  “So many of them, I didn’t even know.” He raked his hand through his light brown hair, leaving it standing on end. “The girls who were from my high school were one thing. I knew which ones were down for casual and which ones I should leave alone. But sometimes I hooked up with girls from other schools, ones I met when we were playing other teams or when I went to parties outside Franklin. How can I be sure I always did the right thing?”

  “You can’t be.” I tried to sound matter-of-fact. “You can only hope for the best and move forward. You’re not the same person you were back then. You know you’d never take a chance like that again.”

  “I guess.” He still looked almost tormented. “What if I did something, and the girl’s still . . . suffering? What if she’s depressed or it really fucked her up? I think about that a lot. And I wonder if someday, I’m going to meet one of those girls I can’t remember, and she’s going to hate me. Or worse, tell me how much I messed up her life.”

  “Eli.” My body was humming, and I felt as though I could jump out of my skin. On one level, I was calm, because I knew what I had to do. But inside, that frantic girl who’d let Eli Tucker touch her was screaming at me to stop. I drew in a deep breath and ignored her.

  “Eli, don’t.” I kept my voice low. “Listen . . . you’re beating yourself up over something that you can’t change. And you know something? Girls—women—are tougher than we seem. I’m not saying that women who have been sexually abused or raped should just get over it,” I added hastily. “Not at all. But that’s not what we’re talking about.”

  “No.” He shook his head. “I can’t imagine that I’d ever keep going if a woman told me no. I don’t believe I ever forced myself on anyone. But I might’ve hurt girls by being cold or cruel or ignoring them after we’d had sex. I might’ve led them to believe it was something more, when it never was.”

  I unfolded my legs and stood up, stretching for a moment before I sat down on the end of the bed. “Can I tell you a story? Something that might . . . put your mind at ease?”

  Eli nodded, but I saw the caution and the fear in his eyes. I held his gaze as I began to speak.

  “The first time I had sex, I was fifteen, almost sixteen. I didn’t know much about it. I’d kissed some boys, but never anything serious. I never let any of them go any further than kissing, because my grandparents had taught me about what was okay and what wasn’t, and I never wanted to disappoint them.”

  Eli made a small noise. I wasn’t sure if he was telling me to stop or to go on, but either way, I continued.

  “My cousin Hannah and I drove to visit our friend who had moved away from Lancaster. It took forever to convince Grammy and Aunt Sally—that’s Hannah’s mom—to let us go, but they knew Be—our friend’s parents, so they eventually said we could. Hannah was a year older than me, and she could drive. So we went over to spend the weekend.

  “But when we got there, it turned out our friend’s family had changed since they left Lancaster. Her parents were fighting, and I think they’d gotten so preoccupied with their own shit that they ignored their daughter. At any rate, no one was really paying attention to us. We ended up going to a party that Saturday night, and while we were there, I met a guy.” I smiled a little, thinking back to the first time I’d seen Eli. “He was the cutest boy I’d ever seen. I think I fell halfway in love before he even saw me, and then when he started talking to me? Well, I was in heaven.”

  Eli was watching me, but so far, I didn’t see any recognition on his face.

  “When he asked me if I wanted to get something to drink and go find somewhere quiet to talk, I knew I should’ve said no, but I didn’t. I said yes. Eventually, we were upstairs in a bedroom, and we were drinking rum and Cokes, and when he started to kiss me, I only knew that I never wanted him to stop.”

  “Zelda.” Eli whispered my name, and I pretended not to hear.

  “Then kissing became . . . something more. I was so far out of my depth, but I didn’t know how to stop it—or if I even wanted him to stop. When he touched me, it felt good. And he showed me how to touch him, too.

  “And then everything happened faster than I expected. I was more than a little buzzed on the rum, and I was eager not to seem like I was too young for this guy. That’s why I never said no. I never tried to shut him down. I just . . . let it happen.”

  I felt something wet on the back of my hand. To my surprise, tears were running down my face. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d cried, but remembering all of this now, saying it out loud for the first time ever, I couldn’t help weeping for the girl who’d been so scared and alone that night.

  “Zelda.” Now Eli did sound truly pained. Still, I couldn’t stop yet.

  “Afterward, we both fell asleep. Or I thought we did. The only thing I know is that I was alone when I woke up. I . . . needed to clean myself up, so I found a bathroom and took care of that, and then I got dressed and went back downstairs to find him. But it was like he’d disappeared. Finally, I went outside with my cousin to find our friend, and that’s when I saw him. He was sitting by the firepit, and he had a girl in his lap. He was kissing her. And I realized then that I’d been just another notch in that guy’s belt. I realized he hadn’t cared about me at all. The conversation, the sweet-talk—all of that had been a means to an end, and once he got there, I didn’t matter anymore.”

  “Holy fuck. Holy God. Zelda.” Eli buried his face in his hands. “The horses. I remember . . . you told me about riding horses and living on a farm in Lancaster. I remember it now.”

  “Yeah, that was me.” I wrapped my arms around my legs and hugged them to me. “That was me, then. A long time ago.”

  “You were Becca Licomb’s friend. I asked her about you, the next week. I said I’d met you at the party and asked about you. She said you hadn’t mentioned talking to me at all.”

  I shook my head. “I never did. I never told anyone.”

  “Zel, I’m so sorry. So fucking sorry.” At last, Eli lifted his eyes to meet mine. “No wonder you hated me the minute you saw me again here. God, what a prick I was. I’m so sorry. I wish—” He stopped, rubbing his forehead and closing his eyes. “I had no idea it was your first time. I tried to never hook up with virgins.”

  “I always looked older than I was.” I lifted a shoulder. “I didn’t tell you. You couldn’t have known.”

  “Fuck that, I should have asked. I should have cared enough to find out. I should—” Again, he broke off. “I’m a rat bastard. I was a cocky son-of-a-bitch. I thought I was entitled to have as much sex as I wanted. I was—” He groaned. “How can you even stand to be in the same room with me?”

  “Hey.” I touched his foot and then realized he couldn’t feel me. Crawling up, I knelt alongside his hip, much as I’d done last May. “Eli. I didn’t tell you this so you could take a guilt trip. I don’t want your apology. I don’t want your sympathy. What happened is what happened, and neither of us can go back.”

  “Did what I did—did what happened that night . . .” He pinched the comforter on the bed between two fingers, playing with it. “Is that what made you not trust anyone enough to be in a relationship?”

  “I think that would be a very simplistic way of looking at it.” I laid my hand on his arm. “Eli, the decisions I’ve made for myself are just that—my decisions, for me. That night was one night in my life. If I said what you and I did had nothing to do with who I am now, I’d be lying. But you didn’t make me promises. You never said anything to make me think we were going to have a future. I was young, and I was naïve. I had unrealistic expectations,
and I realized that pretty quickly. It wasn’t your fault.”

  He stared at me, his eyes closing in a slow blink. “Still. I’m sorry. Why didn’t you tell me before?”

  I tried for a smile. “There didn’t seem to be any point in it. When I realized you didn’t remember me at all, I just wanted to stay away from you. There wasn’t anything to be gained by throwing it in your face.”

  He moved his hand to cover my fingers where they lay on his arm. “I know we’re not friends, Zel. But I have to ask this anyway. Can you ever forgive me? Will this always be between us?”

  I hesitated, sensing this question was more important than a simple yes could answer. “I think I forgave you a long time ago, Eli. Before I even came to Birch. I think the older I got, the more I realized that you’d been immature and thoughtless, not intentionally cruel. And it’s not between us. You’ve changed since that night, and I don’t mean just your injury. You’ve grown up, and you’ve stopped being such a dick.” I poked him in the ribs to lighten my last word. “I’m not the same person, either. The Eli and Zelda who had sex four years ago aren’t who we are now.” I took a deep breath. “This Eli and Zelda . . . I think they’re friends, even though Zelda tried really hard to avoid that. But it turns out that this Eli is just as persuasive now as he used to be. He’s just . . .” I grinned. “Purer in his goals.”

  The lines of tension on Eli’s face smoothed. “You’re not saying this just because I’m now the guy in the wheelchair, are you? This isn’t pity forgiveness, is it?”

  “Hell, no.” I scowled at him. “I’m a hard-ass, Tucker. It would take more than breaking your back and ending up on wheels to make me feel sorry for you. I’m saying it because you really have changed. I like the new Eli Tucker. He’s sort of cool.”

  His eyes softened. “This new Eli Tucker likes Zelda Porter, too. Actually, now that I remember more, I think even the old Eli liked what he knew of the old Zelda. He was just too stupid to get to know her more.” He paused for a beat. “Are we seriously friends now?”