Out of Bounds: A Sports Romance (Soulmates Series Book 5) Page 3

  “Nikki asked Troy for me.”

  “You want something to drink?”

  She lifted her brows. “You have something besides orange juice?”

  “You don’t like orange juice?”

  “Actually, orange juice is my favorite but—”

  My mouth curled into a smile. “You still think I have cooties.”

  “If all you’ve got is cooties, I’d be very surprised.”

  “Ouch,” I said, heading to the fridge. “Tell me how you really feel.”

  “I didn’t mean it like that,” she said. “I just—”

  “I get it,” I said into the fridge. “I was blatantly chugging from the carton when you showed up. How about a Gatorade?” I grabbed a lemon one and turned around. “You can have your own personal bottle and everything.”

  “I suppose I did walk here. My electrolytes could be deficient.”

  I twisted the lid as I crossed the room and handed it to her.

  “Thanks,” she said, taking a sip.

  “I’m not the manslut you think I am, by the way. In answer to your totally patronizing cooties comment.”

  She licked her lips and screwed the orange cap back on. “I’m sure that’s none of my concern.”

  “What dorm are you in?”

  “Forbes.”

  I rolled my eyes up and consulted the half-finished campus map I’d been piecing together in my head. “How is it?”

  “Fine.”

  “So did you come by to tell me how much you missed me this summer?” I asked, walking around the coffee table to sit beside her.

  “Actually, I came to ask you a favor.”

  I wondered what it would be like to unhook one of her overall straps, slide it off her shoulder, and—

  “Luke?”

  “Sorry. I’m listening.”

  She looked askance at me for a second before relaxing her face again. “I have to interview a person of interest for my journalism class.”

  “And you thought of me?”

  “Sort of,” she said. “My professor asked if I knew any athletes.”

  “Why’d you pick me instead of Troy or Austin?”

  “So you’ll do it?” she asked.

  “Answer the question.”

  “Actually, I’m the one that’s going to ask the questions, and it would be your job to answer them.”

  “Rosie.”

  “Because you’re better at football. That’s why. And because I…”

  I leaned towards her until I was in the outer limits of her personal space. “What?”

  “Because I…”

  “Like me best?”

  “No,” she said, diverting her eyes from mine. “Because I thought you would be the most interesting person to interview.”

  “So we’re not role playing right now. You genuinely want to interview me?”

  “What? Of course. Jesus, Luke.”

  I leaned back on the couch and put my hands behind my head, giving her a moment to squirm over how low my sweatpants were sagging.

  “Well?”

  “What’s in it for me?” I asked, rolling my head towards her.

  She ogled my stomach and took a sip of her Gatorade.

  “My eyes are up here,” I said, pointing at them.

  She groaned. “You know what? Never mind. I can see that you’re obviously too busy loving yourself to make time for this.”

  “That’s it?” I asked as she stood up. “You’re just going to chicken out like that? I thought you were serious about this journalism thing?”

  “I am serious,” she said. “It’s you who isn’t serious.”

  I sat up. “Are you kidding? I’m taking this more seriously than you are! If you can’t handle a potential subject asking you what’s in it for them, how could you possibly think you’re cut out for—?”

  She sank back down. “Fine. What do you want?”

  “Dinner,” I said, suppressing a smile. “Have dinner with me, and you can question me to your heart’s content.”

  She cocked her head.

  “That’s my offer,” I said, resting my hands on my knees. “Take it or leave it.”

  “I suppose I would feel more comfortable in a public place.”

  I furrowed my brow. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

  “It means I think I can do a better job on my assignment if you’re properly clothed.”

  I smiled and stole a glance at her glossy lips. “Fair enough.”

  “I certainly think so.”

  “How about Friday?” I asked. “I’ll pick you up.”

  “I’d rather meet you,” she said. “So you don’t get confused and think it’s a date.”

  “Does that mean no kiss goodnight?” I asked. “I thought you were willing to do anything to get this story?”

  “Are you done?”

  “Can I pick you up?” I asked.

  “You can meet me at Florentino’s at six o’clock.”

  “That’s when practice gets out,” I said. “Make it seven and you’ve got a deal.”

  “Fine,” she said, standing up and smoothing her denim dress down.

  “You’re welcome.”

  “I might have said thank you,” she said. “But you didn’t exactly make this easy for me, did you?”

  I stood up and looked down into her defiant face. “You’re the one that makes it hard, Rosie. You always have been.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means I’m looking forward to dinner.”

  A smile cracked through her face as she tore her gaze from mine and headed for the door.

  And that one moment when I saw a flash of the woman behind the tough façade was enough to hook me all over again.

  “Thanks for stopping by,” I said, opening the door and bowing my head as she stepped through it.

  “I’ll see you at the end of the week,” she said, stepping out onto the open balcony that connected all my teammate’s front doors.

  I watched her walk away, amused at how enchanted by her I still was after all this time.

  “Hey Rosie,” I called before she reached the stairwell.

  She turned towards me with her thumbs looped in her backpack straps. “Hey what?”

  “Wear something nice,” I said. “I’ve been waiting four years for this.”

  F I V E

  - Rosie -

  As I looked around the coffee shop, all I could see was abs.

  Okay, that’s not exactly true.

  People were clothed. It was my imagination that was undressing them. And as if that weren’t weird enough, they all seemed to have the same abs.

  Luke’s abs.

  Had they been that washboard in high school? I’d never had a chance to check. They looked Photoshopped up close, and their every shadow seemed burned into my memory.

  Thank God he would be dressed on Friday. Speaking of which, what the hell was I going to wear?

  I didn’t want to be unprofessional, but if what he said was true…

  Could he really still be hung up on the fact that I rejected him all those years ago? Had I owed him this dinner even before the interview assignment came across my desk?

  It bothered me that I was weak enough to be swayed by his good looks, that in his presence, my mind reeled with stuff I only knew about from reading too many of Nikki’s Cosmos.

  I wonder was he into all that? Tying women up, lowering himself between their legs, and panting against their—

  “Sorry I’m late,” Nikki said. “The squad has gone totally Mean Girls, and I had to comfort this other freshman who was crying.”

  “Why was she crying?” I asked, pushing her cappuccino across the table.

  “One of the upperclassmen told her to get a new bra.”

  “Because…?”

  “Hers was cutting right across her back fat or something. Who knows?” She grabbed a packet of sugar off the napkin between us. “I think it’s just part of their plan to haze the
shit out of us so we’re too timid to compete for their places in the pyramid.”

  “That sounds hideous.”

  “It is,” she said. “If that bitch makes another girl cry, I swear to God I’m going to kick her straight in the camel toe.”

  My eyes grew wide.

  “Sorry. Too much information.”

  “Perhaps.”

  “Whatever,” she said. “Cheerleading is supposed to be fun. I’m not working my ass off to get bullied.”

  I wrapped my hands around my cup. “Fair enough.”

  “So what did Luke say?”

  “He said he’ll do it.”

  “Oh good,” she said, clapping her stiff hands together as if it were a spasm left over from practice.

  “If I go to dinner with him.”

  She craned her neck forward. “What?”

  “I think he gets off on tormenting me.”

  “First of all, I’m kind of jealous. The only guy who’s asked me out so far is my RA whose mouth-breathing is a total deal breaker.”

  “He didn’t ask me out.”

  She squinted. “Kinda sounds like he did.”

  “He’s just—”

  “Obsessed with you?” she asked, raising her eyebrows.

  I pushed my glasses against my face. “That’s definitely not it.”

  “If you say so,” she said. “But you know I think he’s always had a thing for you.”

  “Maybe because I’m the only girl who doesn’t throw herself at him.”

  “True,” she said, pulling a half-eaten Clif Bar out of her bag. “Even I’d throw myself at him if I thought he’d catch me.”

  The thought of her competing against me for his attention made a wave of nausea rise up my throat.

  “You’re going though, right?”

  I nodded. “Florentino’s on Friday.”

  “Florentino’s?” she asked. “Was that your idea?”

  “Yeah, why?”

  “No reason.”

  I studied her face. “What are you not telling me?”

  She waved the question away. “Nothing.”

  “I picked it because it’s quiet and I didn’t think we’d run into a bunch of his teammates there.”

  “Good thinking. I only second-guessed it because that place is kind of expensive. For someone like Luke.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Nothing,” she said. “His family situation is just different than yours, financially speaking.”

  “Should I call him and suggest a different place?”

  “No. You don’t want to offend him. I’m sure if he couldn’t afford to take you there, he would’ve suggested somewhere else.”

  “I was planning on paying anyway. The whole thing was my idea, and I picked the place.”

  “So there’s no problem,” she said. “Except for you totally abandoning me on Friday.”

  I laughed. “Oh please.”

  She stuck out her lower lip and made sad eyes at me.

  “You didn’t sound so lonely when you pocket dialed me at two a.m. last night.”

  “It wasn’t a pocket dial,” she said. “I was going to tell you to come meet me out, but I hung up when I saw what time it was. Sorry if I woke you.”

  “You didn’t. Just my roommate.”

  “Really?”

  “No,” I said. “That’s a joke. She can’t wake because she doesn’t sleep, get it?”

  “Right. Well, you want to come out tonight?”

  “I’ll see how I feel later.”

  She groaned. “You know sometimes you have to go out first and feel like it second.”

  “I’m trying to pace myself, Nik. We’ve got four years of partying ahead of us.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Well, by all means let me know when you’d like to get started.”

  “Fine. Maybe I’ll come out for a few drinks.”

  “Yay!” she said, clapping again.

  “You have to stop clapping like that outside of practice,” I said, looking around to see if anyone noticed her excessive pep.

  “Sorry. It’s like a muscle spasm at this point.”

  “I can see that.”

  “There’s a bar by your place that’s supposed to be cool,” she said. “They’re doing dollar Jägerbombs tonight.”

  “Sounds like I picked the right night.”

  “Plus, some frat is hosting a rush party there, so it’s going to be crawling with young bachelors eager to impress.”

  “So no regrets about breaking up with Jason, then?”

  “No,” she said, shaking her head. “I only regret not changing my number before I came to school because he’s still sending me really sad messages.”

  “Poor guy.”

  “I know.” She cast her eyes down and bit the inside of her cheek. “Hey,” she said, her face lighting up. “Maybe we’ll find you a man tonight.”

  “I’m not really down with that being part of the plan.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t need the distraction frankly. What I need is to get good grades so I can land a sick job at a reputable news station out of college. Then, when I’m twenty-eight, I’ll find a man.” And maybe—if my career and love life were in a secure enough place—I’d try for a baby a few years later…assuming I actually met someone who made putting myself through all that discomfort worthwhile.

  “Newsflash, Ro. Tonight has no bearing on any of those things. Besides, you can’t study while you take shots.”

  I raised a finger at her. “Not true. I did it last Thursday, and it worked for a whole forty minutes.”

  “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but there are men everywhere here, and you can’t avoid them forever, especially since a surprising number of them have already noticed you.”

  “I object to your use of the word surprising.”

  “I just meant for how hard you try to be invisible, you don’t do as good a job as you think.”

  “I suppose I’ll take that as a compliment.”

  “You should,” she said. “Just like you should take it as a compliment that I’m going to be your personal stylist tonight.”

  “Absolutely not,” I said. “Last time we did that it took me three days to wash off my eyeliner.”

  She raised her palms. “I admit I was a little heavy-handed on that occasion, but I won’t let you down this time.”

  “And if I say no?”

  “I’ll pin you down and do it anyway. And trust me, if you don’t want to attract the attention of the guys on your floor, that’s the last thing you want.”

  “Fine,” I said. “But if I don’t like what you do, you have to buy me Jägerbombs till I feel pretty.”

  She smiled. “Deal.”

  S I X

  - Luke -

  So much flesh.

  I’d never seen so much flesh.

  To be honest, after only a few hours, I was starting to feel like all the eye candy might give me an eye toothache…or maybe my head was just spinning from downing too many beers.

  I found a seat on one of the worn leather couches and went to take another sip from my Solo Cup. It was empty. Just as well. I leaned back and watched the sea of girls in hot pants and miniskirts teeter on high heels in the condemned football house before me.

  The music was so loud I couldn’t think, and when my eyes noticed Jordan across the room, part of me envied him.

  He was having the time of his life, unapologetically enjoying himself as the jersey chasers he’d always dreamt about fawned over him.

  Meanwhile, I tried to wrap my head around the phenomenon. After all, in the weeks I’d spent getting to know these guys, I’d learned that most of them were womanizing assholes, the kind of guys that would make me want to put my sister in the witness protection program. If I had a sister.

  And yet these girls were so hungry for it, even hungrier than they seemed in the campus bars.

  Then again, if your ultimate college ambition was fucking an athlete, this
house was practically candy land. And that was before the basketball team showed up, which cranked the sleazy sexual energy in the air up to a whole new level.

  To say I was conflicted would be an understatement.

  On one hand, I could see how easy it would be to take advantage of the situation. There wasn’t a single girl I’d spoken to all night who wasn’t making eyes at me and giving off every signal that yes, she would love to go upstairs, if only I’d ask.

  But I hadn’t asked.

  Perhaps it made me less of a man, but the idea of banging some chick who wouldn’t be able to tell me from any other guy on the football team tomorrow wasn’t very appealing. And while I was all for consensual casual sex, being in that room full of users felt seedy as fuck.

  To make matters worse, despite how overloaded my senses were, I was still thinking about Rosie. For some reason, she was still the only girl I cared about impressing, the only girl whose O face I really wanted to see.

  And she was like another species compared to these women before me, these women who seemed completely willing to sell themselves short.

  “Hi there.” A leggy blonde slid onto the couch beside me and crossed her legs in my direction. At the same moment, her friend, who looked indistinguishable apart from the fact that all her clothes were made of neon fishnet, perched on the armrest of the couch.

  “Hi,” I said, wishing Jordan were in my place so he could be the filling in this bleach blonde sandwich of opportunity.

  “What’s your name?” the closer girl yelled in my ear.

  “Luke.” I took one look at her eyelashes and knew why the older guys always joked about finding them in their beds.

  “What position do you play, Luke?” she asked, raising her painted eyebrows at me.

  Earlier, I’d found myself in a similar situation, and I’d been honest. I told the girls, who were very proud to be from some particular sorority, that I was a QB. It couldn’t have been more than three minutes before they asked if I’d give them a tour of the house.

  As flattered as I was, the whole thing made my skin crawl. The older guys said that line was all it took to get a girl alone, and the fact that the girls had suggested it made me think it probably wasn’t their first rodeo. As if I wanted one of my teammates’ sloppy seconds.

  It would’ve been easy to indulge them, though. Too easy. There was a room upstairs just for that purpose so the guys who lived in the house didn’t have to share their personal spaces. And I couldn’t blame them. But I was about as interested in having a threesome with those girls as I was in licking those community bedsheets.