Balls: A Bad Boy Sports Romance (A Cruz Boys Novel Book 1) (2 page)

* * *

We walked down a long, empty hall toward the front of the church where Dad waited for me. He’d keep me from falling on my face as I made my grand entrance. I could already hear the massive pipe organ vibrating through the walls. Mom was probably already drowning in a puddle of tears. She seriously got weepy at
the big
life moments.

I had to admit. The sound of the organ was impressive. Robert had insisted on getting married in Manhattan, Kansas because our hometown Wamego only had three churches and none of them were fancy enough.

I pictured him waiting for me at the altar, way off down the aisle. The one that was probably only a fifty feet in real life, but in my mind stretched on for miles and miles. Anything could go wrong on that walk.

As we continued down the hall, my body seemed to float over the hunter green carpet. The connection between my head and feet felt tenuous at best. My feet apparently needed more input because the pointed tip of my left heel caught the trailing taffeta fabric.

The next step was a graceless one.

Like you see on all those
America’s Funniest Home Videos
. My leg automatically tried to swing forward as my balance shifted, only it didn’t swing and there was nothing to stop the forward momentum.

I crashed to the carpet like a two-legged deer with both legs in the back and nothing up front.

A horrendous ripping sound rent the air.

My arm in Megan’s brought her down on top of me. We were a twisted mess of limbs and crisp fabric. I rolled over and Megan fell to the side with a bump. In growing shock, I reached around to feel the back of my dress.

Oh no.

My fingers flinched when they landed on a ginormous hole in the seam on my backside. Loose threads spilled out like entrails, signifying a mortal wound. I looked into Megan’s eyes and the large white saucers there confirmed the worst.

I lost my shit.

Like, not pretty spectacle style.

With one cheek on the scratchy carpet, I came undone. At the edges. In the middle.

Everywhere in between.

It was all the emotion wrapped that kicked me over the edge.

A torrent of tears streamed over the bridge of my nose and blurred into the other eye as it added its own stream of anguish. Black mascara mixed with tears, smearing hazy blobs of gray across my vision.

Maybe it was the shock, but I didn’t make a noise. And that was saying something because when I really got going, I sounded a lot like a wounded farm animal.

I would’ve lay there silently weeping until that animal rescue team put me out of my misery, but Megan was too good a friend for that.

She choked down her own shock and, like always, stepped up to be the friend I needed.

“It’s going to be okay, honey,” she said. “It’s seriously fucked up, but it’s going to be okay.”

“Really?” The word came out squeaky and two notes higher than usual.

Megan untwisted her dress from mine and pulled me to my wobbling feet.

“Come on,” she said. “The bathroom is down the hall. We can fix this.”

I wanted to believe her. I yearned to believe the impossible. But what could she do?

Unless she had a history of feeding zillions with a couple of guppies or turning bathtub water into a bottle of fancy champagne, she didn’t have a chance of fixing me.

In a daze, I let her drag me on.

As we got close, a muffled wail came through the door. Like someone had sat on a pin and cried out. The sound didn’t register on any meaningful level.

Megan shoved the door open and we dove inside like two soldiers trying to avoid enemy fire.

There were three stalls, with the door to the furthest one closed. Seeing them made my bladder pinch. Maybe absolute despair activated the pee response.

“I have to pee,” I said. “Give me a sec.”

I stumbled into the middle stall and bumped the door shut.

I didn’t have trouble wiggling out of the dress…

Because it was ruined!

A fresh stream of tears and bubbling grief overwhelmed me.

“Sister,” Megan said from outside the stall, “take care of business and then we’ll assess the damage. Don’t freak out on me.”

“Okay. Okay.”

I situated my dress and sat down. I sniffed back tears and tried to swallow the softball stuck in my throat.

Peeing when you’re so emotional is
not
easy.

I sat quietly a minute trying to calm down and finally my body relaxed enough to give my bladder relief.

The person in the stall next door grunted and shuffled around knocking into the metal partition.

“Sssshh,” a voice whispered.

I stood up and was about to twirl my dress around to verify the catastrophe when something tickled the edges of my brain.

I sniffed the air.

Robert’s cologne. The one I’d bought him for our one-year anniversary.

Metal creaked in the next stall.

“Shhhh!”

The voice sounded familiar.

What the hell was going on over there?

I looked under the stall and saw a pair of lilac Jessica Simpson pumps.
 

And also a pair of shiny black wingtips.

What?

What was…

My heart froze in my chest.

As if on autopilot, I climbed up on the toilet and looked over into the next stall.

And that’s when the worst moment of my life instantly turned into the worst moment of anyone’s life that I’d ever heard of, fictional or otherwise.

The phrase
absolute fucking worst
didn’t begin to cover it.

I found Taylor, my absent bridesmaid.

And I found my fiancé, Robert PieceofShit Graves.

The tectonic plates of my stable life quaked. A day that thirty seconds ago had only fallen from planned perfection to accidental catastrophe now plunged into a bottomless abyss.

It was like a colossally-sized drill had cored out my soul, and my dreams had been sucked down into the darkness.

Only it wasn’t a drill.

It was Robert’s dick.

Which wasn’t colossal.

Though a hair short of five inches, it was my one and only basis for comparison and felt sizable enough.

And it wasn’t a bottomless abyss.

It was my treacherous missing bridesmaid!

My ex-fiancé had her bent over holding the toilet. He clutched her hips so tightly his knuckles were white. They both looked up at me with distorted grimaces on their faces.

Robert’s perfectly side-parted black hair and tweezed eyebrows seemed ironic considering the total lack of care that had put him in this situation.

Taylor’s dress was crinkled up like aluminum foil around her waist. Robert had his black pants crumpled around his knees, his white shirt pulled up, and his black tie thrown over his shoulder.

Thank God, he was being so careful!

Only he wasn’t! He wasn’t even wearing a condom!

We never once didn’t use a condom! We were too smart to risk ruining our futures with an unplanned pregnancy.

We could’ve been there for half an hour. I couldn’t tell. But finally, someone spoke.

“What the fuck?”

It was me.

Which came as a huge surprise because I didn’t expect to ever speak again.

Taylor’s mouth moved.

“Alex, please. I—”

And she didn’t get further because I slapped down an outward-facing palm in her direction.

“Alexis,” Robert said.

He got a hand too.

I looked at the man I used to love.

“How fucking could you? What about our future together?”

I threw my hands up. “On this day of all days!”

Any day would’ve been the worst. But this day made it infinitely more terrible.

I chopped toward his cock. “You’re not even using a condom!”

I flung my hands around.

“In a bathroom, for Christ’s sake!”

A part of me felt guilty for saying that in a church bathroom. Not the part running the show right now though.

I stared laser beams into each of their eyes.

“You both disgust me!”

They didn’t move an inch. Hadn’t moved an inch the entire time. I gestured at their point of carnal connection.

“Robert, will you please pull your dick out of my ex-best friend so I can talk to you?”

He chewed his lower lip and twitched out a nod.

His hips shifted back and his glistening shaft slid out. The muscles in his legs quivered. His stomach sucked in making his ribs stick out.

He grunted.

Taylor’s body shuddered.

The head of his dick popped out and bounced up.

“Alex, please,” Robert said as he reached up to me.

“No!” I screamed.

I jerked back to avoid his poisonous touch and my foot slipped on the toilet lid. My pump dove straight down into urine water, hitting the bowl and tweaking my ankle painfully.

I lurched to the side and grabbed for anything that might keep me from getting a mouthful of tile floor.

My hand landed on the metal lever and flushed the toilet with a loud whoosh.

I stood there in shock.

One foot in the toilet as urine swirled and realized the sound I was hearing wasn’t just the toilet.

It was the sound of my life getting flushed down the drain.

Leonardo

There was only one thing that came close to scoring a game-winning goal, and that was scoring a gorgeous broad. Plowing nine inches into a tight package (and for me, they were all tight) was my typical Saturday night. And Sunday night. And most weeknights too. I was blessed with a perfect body. One that was equally comfortable showing off on the soccer field as it was showing off in the bedroom.

To be honest, it would be a crime against humanity not to pass along these genes. Unfortunately, I’d never met a girl that deserved more than one night. Maybe I was cursed.
 

There were worse burdens to bear.

Rodrigo Romero, my buddy on the Spanish national soccer team, slapped my back.

“I’ve got a surprise waiting after the game.”

I couldn’t remember the last time one of his surprises had been the least bit surprising.

Rodrigo nodded toward the opposing goal.

“Take us home, Leo.”

I didn’t respond. I didn’t have to. We both knew what was coming. What happened every time I was called upon to perform in the clinch.

Perfection.

That’s what I demanded of myself, and that’s what I delivered.

The thundering echo of the entire stadium on its feet buzzed faintly in the back of my mind. All 100,000 fans packed into the Camp Nou stadium were on their feet.

For me.

For the victory I would bring them.

I shifted from toe to toe feeling my cleats dig into the lush green turf. The air shimmered with twirling bits of colored confetti. I flexed my hamstrings, reveling in their tireless strength. At twenty-eight, my body had never been stronger. My mind never more focused.
 

We would win the coming World Cup.
 

We wouldn’t repeat the final’s loss to Germany four years ago.
 

More specifically, I wouldn’t allow us to repeat it.

And then I’d have my revenge on Bastian Kramer, the bastard who stole my winning goal and sent my knee into ten months of brutal physical therapy in the process.

That Kraut motherfucker was going to feel the sting of defeat this time around. He’d feel the suffocating wave of agony as his country fell to its knees in submission.

And this penalty kick was another brick in the road to that redemption.

The ball sat five yards ahead marked at the penalty spot. A further ten yards beyond it crouched the goalkeeper for the Irish national team. His stance was wide and low. He was doing his best to look ready.

He may as well have been lying on the grass taking a nap. His chances of stopping my shot were the same either way.

I glanced at the enormous scoreboard display and saw myself reflected there. I winked in the general direction of the camera and the crowd went bananas.

Tied at one to one with three seconds left in the game. An Irish defender had taken my legs out from under me just before I got off a shot at goal. A penalty kick was awarded, and I, of course, was chosen to deliver the deathblow.

It was a glorious moment, no doubt. One a lesser player would either muff or end up calling the pinnacle of his career.

Not me though. Knocking the Irish national team out of the qualifying round for the upcoming World Cup would be one among a multitude of brilliant achievements.

Most players in my position would try to figure out what the goalkeeper might do, which way he might jump, if he was good going low or high. Not me. It didn’t matter what the goalkeeper did. It only mattered what I did. I chose the outcome, even before the ball moved an inch.

Upper left corner from the outside of my right foot.
 

I thought, therefore I did.

The ball exploded off my foot and spun wide to the left, arcing through the air. Far too late to make a difference, the goalkeeper dove to his right. The ball whipped back right and dipped hard. It sliced in, perfectly slotted in the upper left corner. It ripped into the net and slapped to the ground, spinning in place.
 

The goalkeeper landed hard with nothing to show for his pointless effort. Still, him doing something other than standing frozen in place made it appear more competitive. Like there was a chance that he’d actually stop the ball.

That was important for his professional future.

He rolled to his stomach and tears leaked from his eyes before he covered his face in the grass. He just lost his nation’s spot in the World Cup.

I knew the feeling.

I didn’t revel in his pain, but someone had to lose.
 

The tens of thousands of Spanish fans erupted like a volcano inside the vast stadium. The earth trembled underfoot with their ecstasy and adulation.

In a ritual that had become almost routine, my teammates hoisted me up onto their shoulders and we galloped around the field waving at the sea of rabid fans.

“Over there, guys!” I shouted down to be heard over the deafening roar. I pointed over to a mass of kids occupying first row seats at ground level. That section was usually reserved for celebrities and other notable luminaries. Tonight, it was a bunch of kids going absolutely crazy.