Chapter Two

Finn

" W ho crapped in your Wheaties?" Bax asked when I stumbled into the kitchen after dropping Chessly at her dorm.

Making a beeline for the fridge, I grabbed a beer and downed it in one go. It wasn't enough. I tossed the can at the recycle box and grabbed another.

Bax's eyes rounded to dinner plates. "That bad, huh?" Crossing his arms over his latest slogan T-shirt which read "Life is an inherently dangerous sport," he waited for me to finish my second beer.

Pointing at his shirt with my third beer, I said, "That should read ‘Dating is an inherently dangerous sport.'"

He snorted. "Dating? Since when do either of us do that?"

I drank down about half the can and leaned against the table, facing him. "Well, I thought I had a shot at it tonight."

Giving me the universal gesture for "go on," he said, "You didn't have a date when I showed up at Stromboli's." He stilled. "Wait. Did you go after that cute little doll who showed up with Jamaica? Dude."

When he put up his fist for me to bump, I left him hanging. Grinning, he sipped from his beer.

"She shot you down, huh?"

"Everything was going well. I offered to drive her home so she wouldn't have to deal with Callahan and Jamaica's mush." I finished my third beer and went for a fourth. "She noticed I was taking the circuitous route to her place—"

"I was going to say something about slowing down on the beer," Bax interrupted, "but since you still have your vocabulary, carry on."

He laughed when I flipped him the bird.

"Anyway, we were having a nice getting-to-know-you conversation—one she was enjoying too, or she would have said something when she saw the route I chose to drive her home. But about twenty seconds after I parked in front of her dorm, Tory showed up and everything went to hell."

"Wait. Jamaica's hot friend lives in the dorms? She's jailbait too?"

The censure in Bax's voice irritated my nerves, but I didn't rise to it. "Nah. She's a junior, the RA on the floor above Jamaica's." Slumping down into a chair, I tipped back more beer.

"So what's the problem?"

Shrugging, I said, "Beats me. Chessly got the wrong idea about Tory, I guess."

My friend stared hard at me. "Wonder how that could have happened."

Glaring balefully at him, I said, "I didn't encourage one damn thing with Tory. She showed up out of nowhere and started banging on the windows of my truck right when I was about to talk Chessly into giving me her number." I swigged back more beer as Bax joined me at the table. "Chessly took one look at Tory and jumped out of my truck as if the seat had caught fire. So while Tory yapped outside my driver's window, I just had to watch her stomp into her building without giving me a backward glance."

Crumpling up my empty can, I threw it into the recycle box and sighed. "The whole time we were at the bonfire, we kept sneaking looks at each other. From how she smiled my way a couple of times, I could have sworn I had a shot with her. Then Tory showed up, and I lost my chance before I could even take it." I stared at the ceiling and wished like crazy for a different outcome to my evening.

Chessly was so damn pretty, and she smelled like sunshine and summer. The way she flipped back and forth between self-assured and careful simultaneously intrigued me and put me at ease. Plus, she liked science.

Damn, did I want to spend time with her.

"At the risk of piling on the shit, Callahan and I have been warning you about those jersey-chasers, Tory especially, since the semester started. That girl is going to make life hell for some poor schmuck, and you don't want him to be you." He tipped up his drink and finished it, tossing the empty into the box and staring between me and the cans on the floor that I'd tossed and missed.

Dragging myself to my feet, I stepped over to the recycle box and cleaned up. Sitting heavily back on my chair, I asked, "Is it so wrong to enjoy the attention of pretty girls?"

"Depends on the girls. Tory and her posse are bad news." Bax leaned his forearms on the table. "Don't forget what happened to Freeman when he got tangled up with Tory's sister."

With a snort, I crossed my arms over my chest. "Tory's not interested in me anyway. She keeps asking about Callahan." My roommate started to say something, but I put my hand up. "So I've kept my distance." Narrowing my eyes, I added, "And as I recall, you're the one who outed us to her when we all met at Stromboli's before the bonfire."

He looked away, a dull red tinge coloring his cheeks. "Fine. Sometimes I get suckered by a pretty face too. But it sure sounds like the girl cost you a shot at that blonde angel with the smart mouth."

"I'll figure something out."

It was my friend's turn to snort. "Like that's gonna happen for you with a girl."

"Fuck off, asshole." I sounded petulant even to my own ears, and Bax laughed because we both knew he wasn't wrong. I didn't have a clue how I was going to score another shot with Chessly Clarke.

Yet when a picture of her porcelain skin and Delft blue eyes flashed in my head, I knew I was going to do my damnedest to find a way to make a better impression.

I lived for game days. Nothing fired up my blood like the anticipation of stepping onto the field with the goal of wrecking another team's offensive plays for a few hours. Homecoming was especially sweet because every man in the locker room knew the other team desperately wanted to ruin our big day in front of a sold-out stadium of our fans and alums.

As I suited up to face the Tigers, a team who was on the rise in our conference, Bax sidled up to me.

"You gonna be on your game today?"

I scrunched my brow. "Why wouldn't I be?"

"Just making sure some hot blonde isn't taking up headspace you need for running plays out there." He nodded in the direction of the field as he adjusted the pads on the fronts of his thighs, his nonchalant movements at odds with the warning in his voice.

Right then Callahan joined us. "Heard Chessly's not too impressed with you. You were a gentleman like you promised last night, yeah?"

I didn't hold back on the sarcasm. "I kept my hands to myself, Dad." My eyes took a tour of my brain that I made sure my teammates didn't miss.

"She shot him down," Bax helpfully supplied. "Over Tory Miller."

With an expression of total disappointment, Callahan said, "Finnegan, Finnegan, you haven't been listening. Jailbait is toxic. Especially the Tory Miller brand of jailbait."

Putting my hands up, I said, "I'm getting that." Standing, I tugged my jersey over my pads, adjusting them beneath it to make sure nothing pinched. "Maybe you could ask your girlfriend what I can do to get back in Chessly's good graces."

Callahan shook his head, but he said, "Get a sack in this game and I'll see what I can do."

"Ladies, stop gossiping and get your asses over here," Coach Ainsworth interrupted.

Coach Ellis, the Wildcats' head coach, stood in front of the massive whiteboard at the end of the locker room, opposite the showers. Ainsworth, our defensive coordinator and assistant head coach, stood beside him. Once the whole team was standing in a semi-circle around them, Coach Ellis launched into his pregame speech.

"The Tigers have been down for a few years, but they've shown some spark this season. They beat the Trojans on their home turf and gave the Golden Bears a game before they imploded in the fourth quarter. We are not going to give them one second of hope that they can beat us today. Understood?"

He stared hard at every player in the room before we broke into a booming chorus of "Understood, Coach!"

"We are going out onto that field as Wildcats. Wildcats win championships because we give no quarter. Understood?"

Another echoing chorus of "Understood, Coach!" answered him.

"No quarter," he repeated.

Again the team echoed him loud enough to be heard in the visitors' locker room.

The senior captains then led us in a rousing chant of "Wildcats! Wildcats! Go! 'Cats! Go!"

As one unit we tugged our helmets over our heads and headed to the tunnel leading out onto the field.

For the next forty minutes, my brain only entertained thoughts of football. But when I strip-sacked the quarterback on the Tigers' twenty and Bax recovered the fumble, I allowed myself a brief scan of the student section. Not that I truly expected to find Chessly cheering there. At the bonfire, she'd mentioned something about taking Jamaica's call and staying in the dorms today. Intellectually, I knew she wasn't at the game, but I hoped she was watching it on TV or online or something. The woman liked football, so maybe my play would impress her.

When I returned to the sidelines, Coach Ainsworth slapped my back with a rousing, "Fuckin' A, McCabe! Great work on that series." Turning his attention to my teammate, he added, "Excellent fumble recovery, Baxter. You boys make me look good."

As I made my way over to the bench, a trainer squeezed some Gatorade into my mouth. I swallowed the mouthful of energy and sat my ass on the cold metal seat. Bax joined me on one side while our nose tackle, Jeremiah Fitzgerald, a.k.a. Fitz, flanked me on the other side.

"It's good for us when you play angry, Finn." Fitz laughed.

"It's good for me when you open holes big enough to drive a truck through. Makes my job that much easier."

He laughed again. "I'm enjoying having my way with their center. That big ol' farm kid is too easy."

"He's a sophomore, you big bully," Bax said with a smirk. "You'd better have your way with him."

Fitz reached behind me to give Bax a good-natured shoulder punch. I might have leaned forward to accommodate him. Bax rubbed his bicep and grinned.

A loud roar interrupted their antics when Mick Patterson, our quarterback, connected on a pass to Callahan. We were off the bench in a second, running out to the edge of the sideline to see our buddy shake off defenders as though his uniform were made of Teflon as he ran the ball into the end zone. He pointed the nose of the ball toward someone in the stands behind our bench—didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out who—then tossed the pigskin to the ref while the rest of the offense mobbed him.

When he returned to the sidelines, I fist-bumped him and said, "Thanks for taking advantage of that turnover."

"My pleasure. Thanks for giving me an easy chance to show off."

"Yeah, we caught that." Bax laughed.

Since ESPN was televising the game, following 'Han's sweet touchdown, we had a media time-out. Coach Ainsworth took advantage by calling the defense into a huddle. "It's still early, so they're not giving up on the running game. Fill the gaps. Leave that slippery little son-of-a-bitch of a running back absolutely zero daylight. New set of downs. New game. Get out there and fucking win it."

He stuck his hand in the middle of the huddle and every man in it covered it.

"On three. One. Two. Three."

"Wildcats!" we shouted, forcefully dropping our hands and stepping out of the huddle right as the special teams unit trotted onto the field for the kickoff.

Though he was only a freshman, Dalton Sneed had one hell of a leg. He boomed the kickoff into the back of the end zone, leaving the Tigers no chance for a return. We lined up on the Tigers' twenty-five, and I heard Fitzy start razzing the Tigers' center. To his credit, the center didn't move early and incur the five-yard penalty for doing so. But he couldn't hold Fitz either.

Bax shot through the hole Fitz opened up and leveled the running back behind the line. In no time, we'd left the Tigers no choice but to send their punting unit onto the field.

Though our fourth roommate, Danny Chambers, was a freshman walk-on at wide receiver, he was the same age as the rest of us in our house. While the other three of us had redshirted our freshman year and played the past three years, Danny had served a stint in the Air Force. At the halfway point of the season, his four years away from the field didn't show at all. He ran the best routes of anyone on the team and didn't drop Patty's passes. That meant on the next offensive series, Coach gave him a chance, and his heroics matched Callahan's.

By halftime we were up by ten points. By the end of the game, we'd made our point about deserving our ranking in the top ten teams in the nation and as the top seed in our conference. With the way the four of us had played, everyone on the team expected the after-party to be at our place.

For once I was determined not to fuck up when the girls arrived.