Challenge (2 page)

When I crack my eyes open, my vision readjusts to the light as I gaze at my Cumcasso painting on the wall. Not half bad for a match-day inspiration. Smiling, I cup my hands and splash water on the mess, effectively rinsing my artful load down the drain to join all the other match-day loads I’ve blown on the exact same shower wall.

Ritual complete.

So yeah, I guess that means Camden Harris jerks off to images of football. And yeah, sometimes he refers to himself in the third person. There are creepier ways to spend a Saturday morning.

Truthfully, football and sex are all relative when you think about it. Loads of sweating. Loads of heavy breathing. Loads of fluids. They’re both about slipping inside of a goal, finding room between two welcoming slits. It’s not easy. It’s a tight fit sometimes. But hell, does it feel good when that opening happily transpires, allowing your balls to hit the deepest point possible. Then the crowd—or writhing woman beneath you—goes wild.

That analogy isn’t one I share with any of my brothers, who all say jerking off before a game takes the edge off and tires you out. But this season has been the best of my life. There’s no way I’ll tempt fate and change course now.

“Could you be any more pervy?” Tanner’s muffled voice shouts through the bathroom door.

“What the bloody hell?” I cut off the water and wrench the glass door open.

“I can hear your barks of passion all the way down the hall. You sound like a chimpanzee caught in a bug zapper.”

My face screws up. “You’re the one standing outside the bathroom door,” I snap as I snatch the towel from the warming bar and wipe my chest dry. “I’d say you’re the pervert in this scenario. Piss off!”

His voice trails off as he retreats with a half-hearted protest, grumbling something about golden showers being next. I step out and wrap the towel around my waist, flinching as the fabric brushes against my sensitive tip.

Tanner can be a right bastard some days. Not only does he annoy me to no end at home, but he makes me sweat on the pitch just trying to keep up with him. Truth be told, he’s always been a better footballer than me. The Arsenal scouts have been inquiring about him ever since their striker retired last year, leaving the Gunners a man down up front. Of all the London-based teams, that’s the one I want watching me.

Then I went and scored nine goals by midseason. That’s unprecedented. Now it’s anyone’s guess who they’re interested in signing.

I stroll over to the foggy mirror and swipe away the mist. I shake the moisture out of my wet hair before I look at myself.

My blue eyes darken with determination. “Season’s almost over, Camden. Just do what you’ve been doing and let the balls fall where they may. You are football. Football is you. If you want a Premier contract, now is the time to prove yourself once and for all. Show your worth.”

Then, an errant thought tumbles into my head and a sly grin spreads across my face. “But when football season is over, it’s the season of women. And you’ve always been better than Tanner at that game.”

“
O
H MY
G
OD,
I
’M
knackered,
” I say as I stroll into the on-call room and flop myself onto one of the sterile blue hospital cots, which have zero give. The hard plastic smarts against my vertebrae at the force.

My fellow resident and friend, Belle, glances up at me from her own cot. Her dark eyes are partially closed and tired, similar to my own at this time of day. “Your timing is perfect,” she says, her voice perking up. “I just looked at the schedule. You’re on a nine-day stretch with me. We must discuss.”

I turn and prop my head on my hand and nod at the prospect of hitting the workweek finish line with my friend. “I saw that this morning, too. We’ve got three days down already, so I’m telling you right now that on day nine, we’re hitting Club Taint.”

“Hell yes,” she agrees with a lascivious smirk. When she sits up, her long, inky hair falls perfectly over her shoulders. I stare at it wistfully as she adds, “Club Taint is always a wild time. I’m so excited that we’re on the same rotation. Last time I missed you going out and I refuse to miss it again. Little Miss Innocent raging through the clubs of London is as good as Boxing Day in my book.” She exhales heavily. “You’re staring at my hair again, Indie.”

My eyes snap to hers. “Sorry.” Feeling a flush of heat in my cheeks, I drag myself up and stride over to the wall of lockers, knowing my fair skin does a crap job of concealing my emotions. It’s not that I’m into girls. I’m just into that silky, straight, shiny—

“Your obsession with my hair is bordering on creepy, darling.” Her tone is light, but her humour is dry as usual.

I crack open my locker and stare at myself in the mirror. “You have no idea how lucky you are,” I sigh, silently surrendering to my fate. My messy wad of curly, red hair is in its standard messy bun on top of my head. Coming in on the ninth straight hour at work, it has grown from the size of a kumquat to the size of a melon. I attempt to smash in some of the expanse, but it’s futile.

I push my cheetah-print glasses back up my nose and force a confident nod of acceptance over my appearance. These glasses are living proof of just how far I’ve come out of my shell since childhood—how much I’ve changed.

It sounds odd for a silly pair of glasses to carry so much meaning, but my upbringing was unique to say the least. I grew up in all-girls boarding schools. If that wasn’t bad enough, in year three, a teacher caught me reading
The Catcher In The Rye
and made me take some fifth grade level practise tests. Next thing I knew, they advanced me three whole grades. I was thrust into a classroom of girls all wearing training bras and talking about boys.

It was like being handed a big, juicy steak without any teeth to chew. No matter how much you try to gum it, you can’t seem to break it down. I wasn’t able to make friends with a single girl. Instead, I lived the majority of my formative years keeping to myself and hiding behind books. I immersed myself in schoolwork because it was easier than making friends. In the end, it paid off because I received a full-ride scholarship to University and, eventually, med school.

And that is where I met the wildly bold, Belle Ryan.

Belle waltzed right up to me before our first day of class and already knew who I was, even down to where my grandmother lived in Brighton. She worked in the scholarship department on campus and had data-entered my information into the system. Med school at nineteen isn’t the norm, so she set out to ensure that I wasn’t a terrorist. Eventually she made some crack about a child prodigy being pretty and smart and how it’s horribly unfair to the rest of the world.

In my one act of brazenness, I replied, “Well, sit tight. It’s raining outside so my curls should hit Einstein heights by the end of the day.”

I’ve always been leery of girls since some bad experiences in school, but something about Belle felt too transparent not to love. The cheeky cow stared at my hair during the entire lecture. We’ve been best friends ever since.

I smile at the memory as I spray myself with Evian facial spray, slather on a fresh layer of deodorant, and position myself to brush my teeth in the nearby sink. Belle calls these whore baths for doctors, but she takes it a step further and uses baby wipes in her nether regions—something that makes me feel horribly awkward.

I glance at the time and see I only have three more hours to go until I get my glorious board-required six hours of respite, even if I do plan to sleep on these horridly uncomfortable cots again.

“So talk to me about how wild you got last time. Stanley hasn’t stopped leering at you since then.” Belle stands up from her bed and straightens her blue scrubs, pausing as she notes a smattering of blood on her pant leg. “Damn, I didn’t see that before.”

“I wouldn’t say I got completely wild last time.” I bite my lip nervously, recalling my night with Stanley in more detail.

He’s a fellow second year resident whom I know I snogged senseless on the dance floor at Club Taint last week.
But that was it, right?

Then, as if my denial floodgates have instantly opened wide, I recall rubbing myself against him. I internally flinch when I remember that I even touched him through his jeans before ditching him like a thief in the night. Drunk, alone, and hard as a blue quartz stone.

“Gosh, I wasn’t trying to be a tease.” I blanch, feeling mortified because I haven’t thought about that night with him until right this moment. “He just caught me in a weak moment. Wilding out is survival.”

“I know, I know. Tequila Sunrise,” Belle adds, voicing our own personal mantra.

Tequila Sunrise
is essentially our more original version of YOLO. Actually saying YOLO makes my skin crawl. That’s what immature tweens shout when they decide to purchase a full calorie soda instead of diet. Tequila Sunrise is so much more.

Our first day in Accident and Emergency—or Patch Alley as the hospital staff all call it—Belle and I were both pummeled with a crippling dose of reality when a baby was rushed in on a stretcher and pronounced dead only moments later from SIDS. The mother’s screams shook us so much that Belle ended up sick in the bathroom while I stood there, frozen and shell-shocked.

The Paediatrics doctor on call that night yanked us both into her office, pulled out a sticky pad of paper, and scribbled some ingredients down on it.

Tequila Sunrise:

1 part Grenadine

3 parts Tequila

6 parts Orange Juice

Do not mix.

She told us to go home and make them when our shifts ended, and to remember that there is still sunshine above the chaos. Belle and I did exactly what she said and ended up completely wasted. We both realised in that moment that med school prepared us for the answers, but it did not prepare us for the heartache. So, rather than wallow in the sadness, we adopted the Tequila Sunrise philosophy as a part of our everyday lives.

Therefore, as a single, somewhat naïve twenty-four-year-old determined to live my life to the fullest, I thought that meant letting down my hair at clubs, drinking in excess, dancing ‘til I sweat, and traveling when I can manage the time. The occasional flirting and making out is all a part of that game plan, too. It’s not about being loose and easy. It’s about living the one life you’re given and having fun while you can. Then getting right back in the trenches when your shift arrives and doing your best to lessen the sadness in the world. Add some sunshine.

But what I did with Stanley wasn’t the perfect Tequila Sunrise decision. “I’m afraid Stanley was just…there,” I add regretfully. “I’d just finished a nine-day workweek, and I don’t think it’s unheard of for me to want to remind myself that I’m still alive and my girlie parts are all in full working order. I have you to thank for my wild side, you know,” I accuse.

Belle pulls on a pair of fresh scrub pants over her black thong. “Too right,” she admits proudly. “I’ll take the blame because we had a blast in med school and not many people can say that. But poor, poor Stanley.”

“Oh, don’t feel so sorry for him,” I baulk. “I hate that any time you kiss a man he just assumes it’s going to end in sex. I mean, seriously. What’s the rush? Foreplay is bloody exciting enough.”

She shakes her head and giggles. “No. No, it is not, Indie. I’m telling you for the hundredth time, I know you went to all-girls schools and probably had to learn how to kiss on the back of your hand, but you are seriously missing out.”

I roll my eyes and grumble, “I didn’t learn how to kiss on the back of my hand.” If I’m being honest, I didn’t have my first kiss until University and it was horribly awkward. I think my teeth scraped his tongue on its way in because I didn’t even know it was coming. Shouldn’t there be some sort of universal signal for tongue insertion on a kiss? A little shoulder tap? Maybe a couple cheek clicks? Something that says, “Hey, lady! I’m about to ramrod your mouth with my tongue. Open sesame!” The guy probably thought I was mentally unstable because he never spoke to me again.

“Look,” Belle says, striding over by me to lean against the nearby locker. “We know that you are book-smart, Indie. You’re sharper than the majority of the third year residents here and probably some of the attendings. You are my little prodigy wunderkid after all.”