Blitzed by the Brit: A Secret Baby Sports Romance (4 page)

P
eter is
in the office sitting at his desk, because of course he is. He’s not even supposed to be working today, but he never misses an opportunity to put in a few extra hours and shove his nose further up Professor Fenwick’s ass.

Says the girl who just agreed to tutor Charles to stay in Professor Fenwick’s good books.

“Please don’t tell me you’re actually submitting this garbage,” Peter says, not taking his eyes off what he’s reading. “I can tell within the first two paragraphs that you know nothing about football.”

“What are you talking about?” I ask. I look closer at the paper in front of him and realize he’s reading my article. “Where did you get that?”

“It was on the printer when I came in.”

I snatch the paper out of his hand. Last night I must have sent my article to the printer at college, before printing it at home. I do that all the time, and never learn.

“It’s a draft,” I snap. “And I don’t care if it was on the printer, you still shouldn’t have read it.”

“You shouldn’t have written it in the first place. Why the hell did Professor Fenwick pick you to write this, when you know nothing about football? Mind you, I suppose you know a lot about
footballers
. You certainly have more intimate knowledge of their bodies than I do.”

“Shut up Peter. I’m rewriting the article, and if I need any help with the terminology then I will just ask Charles. He’s more than happy to help me.”

Jealousy flashes across Peter’s face, but he tries to shake it off with a forced laugh. “Whatever. While you’ve been spreading your legs for footballers again, I’ve been working on an article that will get me noticed for a publication much more prestigious than DMZ or whatever gossip rag you will end up in.”

“Is
Sports Illustrated
still considered prestigious?”

“Very funny. I don’t have time to stand around arguing with you. This article is somewhat time sensitive; I need it to be ready in time for my interview.”

Interview?
He leaves the word hanging in the air without clarification, desperate for me to take the bait. How does he have an interview already? I’ve been in touch with every single publication that hires from this college and many of the ones that don’t, and they all said they weren’t ready to begin the recruitment process yet.

Mommy and Daddy must have pulled a few strings for him. That’s the only explanation. I can’t complain too much considering I have Professor Fenwick pulling strings for me, but it still stings.

“Good luck with that,” I say as politely as I can muster. “Sounds like we both have work to do, so you do yours and I’ll do mine.”

I hate Peter with a passion, but I have to admit he’s a damn good writer. What’s more frustrating is that he manages to come across as compassionate and caring in his work. He’s written articles on feminism, race relations issues, and poverty, and they’ve been near perfect. He doesn’t give a shit about those topics, but he knows what he needs to do to get noticed.

Two can play at that game. If he can feign an interest in a topic he hates, then so can I. I’m going to write the best damn article on college football that’s ever been written. There’s still the minor issue of not understanding the rules or the context of college sports, but if I need clarification then I’m sure Charles will help. He damn well owes me one.

“
I
knew
you couldn’t get enough of me.”

It’s him.
How did he get my number?
I quickly close the office door. I know I have to speak to him again now that I’m his tutor, but does it have to be this soon? I haven’t prepared myself.

“Who’s this?” I ask innocently. There’s only one person it can be.

“You know who it is.”

“Mr. Lewington?”

“How many calls do you get from guys with English accents?”

None, unfortunately. Charles is the first English guy I’ve ever spoken to, and his voice isn’t one I’m going to forget in a hurry. Last summer, I had my heart set on a study abroad program to Oxford in England, but alas my scholarship wouldn’t cover the costs.

“What do you want? I’m kind of busy right now.”

“I just heard the good news. Sounds like you’re going to be my teacher.”

“I’ll be your
tutor
. I’m not a teacher.”

“But you’ll still spank me if I misbehave, right?”

“If you misbehave, then I’ll quit. I’m only tutoring you for the money and another line on my résumé.”

“I heard you specifically requested to work with me.”

Please God, I hope Professor Fenwick didn’t tell him that. He’s arrogant enough as it is.

“Professor Fenwick pleaded with me to do the job,” I lie. “From the sounds of it, you need all the help you can get.”

“I’m just pleased we’re going to be spending more time together, especially after you said we’d never see each other again. So then, when’s our first study date?”

“Okay, buster, let’s get one thing very clear; we’re going to have to spend a lot of time together, but at no point will any of those meetings be referred to as a date of any kind.”

Charles is silent on the other end. Good, he’s taking me seriously.

“‘Buster’? Did you just call me ‘buster’?”

I sigh loud enough for it to be heard down the other end of the phone. “Are you going to behave, or do I need to speak to Professor Fenwick and cancel this entire thing?”

“You’re not going to cancel.”

“Try me.”

“Okay, I’ll be on my best behavior.”

“Excellent. See, that wasn’t so hard was it?”

“It is hard actually,” he replies. “Oh, you were talking about making the promise.”

“Right, that’s it, I’m done. I’m phoning--”

“Calm down, I was joking. Trust me, after the day I’ve had, I think it would be physically impossible for me to have an erection.”

I consider asking him about his day, but the silence hangs in the air for too long. I’ve missed my opportunity. “Let’s set up a study da… a time to study. Are you free tomorrow afternoon?”

“Sure. Your place or mine?”

Definitely not mine. Never mine. I live in a small dorm that the college lets me rent dirt cheap. It’s basically charity, but I’m only too happy to accept it.

Charles probably has the best study environment, but there’s no way we can study there. Not on his turf. He’ll have us studying in his bedroom, and will spend the entire time suggesting I get on the bed. I’ll then spend the entire time pretending I don’t want to. Pretending I’d rather talk to him about art history than strip off my clothes and ride him silly.

“I’ll book a study room in the library,” I reply.

“Okay,” Charles says heavily. “But there is one big drawback to studying in the library.”

“Are you allergic to books or something?”

“No, but once you’re done teaching me, I plan to teach you a few things. You have your areas of expertise, and I have mine.”

“Clearly memorization isn’t one of your talents, because only a few minutes ago you specifically promised to behave.”

“I meant, I could teach you about football for your article. What were you thinking about, you dirty girl?”

Dirty girl
. Charles whispers similar words in my ear when he fucks me in my fantasies.
Dirty girl. Naughty girl. Naughty girls need to be punished.

“Be in the library at three,” I snap. “I’ll send you a message when I’ve booked the room.”

“Looking forward to it. See you tomorrow for our first study dat… session.”

I hang up before he can hear my flustered breathing. My heart beats a mile a minute in my chest, and the words on the screen are too blurry to read. Screw it. I close the article and email it off to one of the editors for review.

Charles messes with my head, but worst of all I think I like it. I’m looking forward to seeing him tomorrow. I’m excited, nervous. This is bad. Really bad.

I
have a date
. I feel so American. I’ve only been here for a couple of weeks, and I’m already ‘dating.’

Okay, so the girl I’m dating refuses to call it a date, but that’s what it is. A spade’s a spade, even if you call it a bucket. We’re going to be studying, but that doesn’t make it any less of a date. Some couples go for dinner, some go to the cinema, some study.

I’m not sure what’s more remarkable—that I have a date, or that I’m going to study. I’ve never done much of either. Rugby stars on £10,000 pounds a week don’t ‘date.’ Well, some of them do, but I’ve never understood that. Why do the dating thing when you can cut straight to the sex?

I guess I have the answer to that now. With some women you have to do the dating thing before the sex. And there’s going to be sex. Lots of it. I’ve been thinking about her ever since I walked out of the sauna, and that meant I spent most of the weekend walking around with a rock-hard cock.

Just hearing her voice on the phone got me excited. She has that stern but sexy vibe going on. She’ll tell me off one minute, and then demand I fuck her the next. Maybe not yet, but so long as I play my cards right she’ll be dropping her panties by the end of the week.

I have to have her.

This is probably not the ideal time for thoughts about Becky. I’m in the middle of a training session, and these tight Lycra pants, complete with plastic cup, don’t leave much room for stinking great big erections. I need to keep my mind on the game. I don’t understand half of what’s going on as it is.

“Play fifty-six, guys,” the quarterback shouts at the offensive lineup. “The three receivers need to run their decoy routes here, here, and here,” he waves his arms in what seems to me like a random motion, but makes sense to my teammates. “I’ll hand off straight away to Lewington and he’ll sneak through the gap at three and four.”

I hear my name. Shit. That usually means the quarterback gives me the ball and I need to run with it. The question is, where do I run?

“This play is all about the element of surprise,” the quarterback continues. “If we surprise them, this should be an easy first down, if not more. If we don’t, then Lewington’s probably just going to run into a wall. They haven’t seen this play before, so let’s pretend this is the real deal. It’s the fourth quarter and we’re behind by a touchdown. All right, let’s go.”

He claps loudly and everyone cheers. That doesn’t mean much—they cheer most things, even in training.

“What do I do?” I ask Sean as we line up for the play.

“Don’t you ever listen?” he asks laughing. “Stand here, and be ready to take the ball. When you get it, run through the gap and go as far as you can.” He subtly points out where the gap in the defense should be.

“Gotcha.”

Don’t gotcha.

This isn’t my first training session, but it is my first with all the coaches watching. I need to make a good impression. The first game is in less than a fortnight and I can’t afford to waste any time sitting on the bench waiting for my big break. If I’m going to force my way into the first team, I’m going to have to do it quickly.

The quarterback shouts and screams and a few seconds later he’s handing me the ball. I clasp it tightly and look for the gap. Sure enough, there is a small gap right where Sean said there would be. I set off on my run, going from stationery to full speed in less than two seconds. I’m too slow—a large guy moves into the gap blocking my way. I quickly swivel on my right foot and head for the sideline. There’s not much space, but I run anyway and somehow I make it past all the outstretched arms and flying tackles.

There’s nothing but clear space in front of me, so I keep running and running until I’m in the end zone. I dive down and slam the ball down to the ground, before remembering I don’t need to do that for a touchdown. Force of habit.

As I walk back to my teammates, I realize everyone’s looking at me. Have I done something wrong? I didn’t hear any whistle, so there was no reason for me to have stopped my run.

“You’re fast,” Sean says, slapping me on the back. “You’re fucking fast.”

“That’s why I’m here.” My speed is literally the only thing I have going for me when it comes to playing football. Hopefully it will be enough.

The quarterback passes to receivers for the next couple of plays, so my only involvement is acting as a decoy, which actually gets me slammed to the floor more often than when I have the ball. A few plays later, I’m given a job to do again. This time I’m on the left-hand side, but the result is much the same. I run through the defense with almost embarrassing ease.

This used to happen when I played rugby. At about the age of fourteen I’d been the oldest and biggest on the team and could run past everyone without much difficulty. My coach pulled me to the side one day and told me not to be selfish. After that, I passed the ball to teammates and let them score some of the tries instead of claiming them all for myself. That had worked well for team spirit when I was fourteen; there’s no reason why it won’t work now.

I’m twenty-five yards from the end zone when I look over my shoulder and see a few teammates running five yards behind me. What the hell. I throw the ball back to one of them, but he is so stunned by my pass that it just hits him in the chest and bounces harmlessly to the floor.

Oops.

“What the fuck was that, redcoat?” the offensive coach yells as he storms onto the field. “You were clean through.”

I shrug. “Figured someone else might want to score.”

“Fucking socialist Europeans,” Coach mutters under his breath. “You’re in America now. Capitalism. Survival of the fittest. Greed. You don’t pass to a teammate to let them have a chance.”

“Won’t happen again, boss.”

Best to discover these little quirks in training, rather than in a game when it matters. I really should learn the rules of this game at some point.

We continue training for another thirty minutes, and not a minute goes by without one of my teammates laughing at me for my mistake. Better they laugh at me than hate me though; this sort of thing is good for morale.

The second that training ends, the head coach strolls up to me and demands I meet him in his office in fifteen minutes. I run to the sideline to grab my stuff when I notice for the first time that we’ve got a small audience. A group of five girls is sat a few rows up the bleachers and they’re all staring at me. I recognize the look of hunger in their eyes. It’s probably much the same way I look at Becky.

“I thought that was really sweet,” a chesty blonde says.

“Excuse me?”

“The pass. People should pass more in football.”

“I don’t think I’ll be doing it again,” I admit.

“It’s good to share,” the blonde says suggestively. “We don’t mind sharing, do we girls?”

The other girls all smile at me. “Sharing can be fun,” one of them says.

“We wouldn’t mind sharing you,” the blonde says. “From what we saw out there, you have more than enough energy to satisfy us all.”

I don’t know about that. Threesomes? Yes, been there done that. Foursomes? Yes, been there, done that, left absolutely exhausted. What would this be? A sixsome? Is that even a word?

Old me would have fucked first and looked up the dictionary definition afterwards. And when I say ‘old me,’ I mean the me from only a week ago. From before I met Becky. I’m no genius, but I don’t have to be to figure out what’s caused the change of heart.

“Thanks, ladies, but I need to keep my mind on the game at the moment. No time for extracurriculars right now, but I’ll keep you in mind.” I give a wink for good measure which they seem to appreciate.

Boy, that feels weird. I haven’t had sex in weeks, and I just turned down a month’s supply. That’s like a starving man turning down a $400 steak. Or should that be five $400 steaks? But this starving man has an even better meal to look forward to. So long as I get to eat before I starve.

“
Y
ou’ve chosen
to major in English literature with a minor in art history?” Coach takes off his glasses and places them down on the only part of his desk not covered in books and papers. For a guy who does his job on the field, he sure has a messy office. “Do you have any idea how tough that is going to be?”

“I’ve been to a few art galleries, and I’ve read books.”

“There is a little more to it than that.”

“Like what?” I ask.

“Well, you have to write… stuff about the books. And about paintings. Or do you have to paint things? I’m not sure, but I know that the players on the team don’t usually take classes like that.”

“I’ll manage. I have a great tutor.”

“She’s going to have her work cut out for her. No offense, but your performance in that entrance exam was pretty pathetic. I read the essay you wrote on Rosa Parks for question four. What the fuck was all that about?”

“I did think it was weird to have a question on the influence of a nineties soap opera actress on modern politics. That one did throw me a bit. I doubt she’s had any influence on politics at all.”

Coach slaps his hand to his head and massages his bald scalp. “She’s not an actress. Rosa Parks is… you know what, never mind. That’s why you have a tutor. Just work your fucking ass off. I don’t want to have to keep you out of the team just because of your grades.”

“That makes two of us.”

I wish everyone would shut up about that entrance exam. The questions were clearly all geared towards American students. I studied a bit of American history before coming over because I figured those questions would pop up, but there were still tons of topics that were complete blanks to me. I’d like to see coach take an exam focusing on English history and politics.

He has a point though. I’m going to have to work fucking hard. I want to be in the team week in, week out. Knowing my luck, if I have to miss one week that will be the week a scout shows up. And that’s not the only reason. I want to impress Becky, or at the very least not make a fool of myself.

I have three hours before I’m supposed to meet Becky. It’s not long, but it’s just long enough to prepare. I head straight to the college bookstore and pull up the list of required reading on my phone. The art history textbook is heavy enough that I could use it in lieu of weights at home, but at least I only need one book for that class.

I look down at the reading list for English literature. You’ve got to be fucking kidding me. I have to read at least a book a week, sometimes more. They don’t look like easy reads, either. There’s no
Harry Potter
or
The Lord of the Rings
to lighten things up a bit. I thought I’d escaped Shakespeare when I left school—apparently not.

I dump the books on the counter just as I’m about to drop them. I don’t mind a bit of heavy lifting, but that art history textbook is staying in my locker on campus, and likely never seeing the light of day.

“Looks like someone has a busy year ahead of them,” the young female cashier says.

“A busy year and a boring year.”

“Yeah, this isn’t really my type of light reading either. I don’t envy you, and that’s saying something; I major in calculus.”

“I’ve made a huge mistake, but it’s too late now.”

“Let me guess—trying to impress someone?”

“Got it in one,” I reply. “Although I don’t think buying the books is enough to impress her. I’m going to need to understand them as well.”

“I think I can help with that.” She disappears and comes back a few minutes later with even more books, although these look mercifully short. “I never would have made it through my first year without study guides. These will help you understand some of the more complicated books.”

“Sounds a bit like cheating.”

“You care?”

“Not in the slightest. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. She’s a lucky girl. Good luck.”

I smile and walk out of the store with three bags of books weighing down my arms. When I get home, I pick out the Shakespeare book Becky wants to start with and flick through it before putting it back down again and picking up the study guide.
This is more like it.

“
Y
ou’re late
.”