Playing Hard: A Bad Boy Sports Romance (3 page)

For a long moment, my dad simply sits there, looking at me. “All right,” he says finally, “I agree. To think about it.”

For a moment, I consider withdrawing my agreement, but I’m not stupid, and I know my dad: this is likely the best I’m going to get. Gritting my teeth, I smile.

“All right,” I say, reaching across the table to shake his hand. “You’ve got yourself a deal.”

CHAPTER TWO

RILEY

“You have an image problem.”

I squint up at Coach Jackson, trying hard to get my eyes to focus. Pretty sure this is the first day since the playoffs I’ve been sober, and even then it’s only because Coach called me and said I had to come see him this AM, and honestly, when Coach calls, you come running. Whatever charming bullshit I can use to wriggle out of trouble with anyone else, it doesn’t work on him. And from the expression on his face, I can see it’s a bad idea to even try — he looks like he could kill a man with his bare hands right now.

But seeing as I have literally no idea what kind of bug has crawled up his butt, it’s probably better that I stay quiet ’til I find out what exactly it is I’m supposed to be apologizing for this time.

That, and I have a hangover that could kill a bear.

So I sit, starting up at Coach Jackson, and try to look like I’m paying attention.

Without another word, he reaches forward, snatching up a newspaper from his desk and holding it up.

There’s a picture of me on the front page, a blonde under each arm and a beer in my hand, laughing wildly, under the headline, ‘HARDLY A SAINT’.

I can’t keep myself from grinning at the memory — it’s a little hazy, considering how much beer I’d put away by that point, but there’s some things you don’t forget. I mean… except whether I actually nailed those two chicks or not. I mean, probably? But I can’t be sure. All I really remember is waking up on someone else’s couch.

I try to smother my grin as Coach’s expression goes even further south, but it just can’t be done.

“Oh, c’mon,” I finally say when it’s clear he’s
really
pissed, as opposed to just regular pissed. “Are you gonna get on my case just for getting laid now? After the biggest win of
my life?
You cannot be fucking serious.”

Coach drops the newspaper back into his desk, leaning forward. “This is not about getting laid,” he says. “This is about your future.”

What the fuck? What the hell is Coach getting at?

I shake my head. “Okay, well, thanks, but my dad already —” I start to say, before Coach Jackson cuts me off with a wave of his hand.

“This is hardly the only headline you’ve generated this week,” he says.

“I sure as shit hope not,” I say, starting to get a little heated. “After I won the game? Everyone in town is talking about me.”

I know it’s true. Everywhere I’ve been over the last week I’ve been getting free drinks, high-fives, women offering themselves up on a silver platter. Everyone loves me. How could they not?

I’m
Riley fucking Knox
, and everything you’ve heard is true, from the skill with a ball to the massive cock. I’d say guys want to be me and women want to be with me, but I’m pretty sure there’s a ton of guys, even straight ones, who’d kill for a good bit of dick from me as well. All part of life’s rich tapestry.

“You might be perfectly happy walking around with your head up your own ass, Riley,” Coach says, “and yeah, I agree — after that run, you deserve whatever you can get. That’s why I waited a week to haul your ass in here. Being the talk of the town because you won a game is one thing. But once your football starts being overshadowed by your… okay, let’s call them ‘extra-curricular activities’, then we have a problem.”

I look up at Coach in disbelief. “Are you serious?” I ask, shaking my head and causing at least seven hundred more brain cells to die instantly. Goddamnit but my head
hurts
. “You told me to get my GPA up, and I got it up. You told me to quit drinking until I turned 21, and I did. Are you
really
going to start riding my dick about
this?
”

I can see as soon as I’ve said it that I’ve crossed the line. The line that separates ‘sane Coach Jackson’ from ‘lost his goddamned
shit
Coach Jackson’.

“Even if I wanted to ride your dick, I’d have to get in line behind about fifty damn floozies, none of whose names you’ll remember
if
you even bothered to ask them in the first place.”

I blink. “Floozies?”

“And
don’t
try to give me all the kind of bullshit you’ve tried to shovel down my throat in the past.” Coach’s voice gets all high and whiny, in what I guess is supposed to be an imitation of me. “‘I just don’t want to get tied down right now, Coach,’ ‘It’s better this way, I can focus on the game instead of on a girl,’ ‘It’s all about not being complicated, I don’t need that right now.’ How uncomplicated do you think it’s going to be when one of these sluts sues you for paternity?” he roars, succeeding in both setting my head pounding again, and demonstrating that he knows some modern-day vocabulary after all.

“Oh, come on, Coach,” I say, trying to calm him down. “You know I’m way more careful than that. My parents gave me the talk — I know what a condom is.”

“You’d better,” he mutters darkly. “Though that’s not the only thing I worry about. When I said this was about your future, I wasn’t joking. Right now, you’re a top five draft pick. But don’t think that just because you shit gold now you can do no wrong. You show you can’t keep it in your pants, and teams start getting kind of nervous, and they start saying things like, ‘This boy Riley, sure he can play, but what’s he going to cost us in scandal?’”

I stare at Coach Jackson, a cold feeling grabbing hold of the pit of my stomach. “You don’t think I’d — you
can’t
think I’d ever —”

And it’s true. I might like to party, but I’m not a fucking rapist. I’ve never screwed a girl who’s been anything more than tipsy — no one who can’t tell me exactly what she wants, and how she wants it. Guys who try to get girls drunk to get them into bed make me sick, and I’ve walked more than a couple of their attempted targets out to taxis during my time.

Coach slowly shakes his head. “No. I know you wouldn’t, and you know I believe you because you’re not sitting in a jail cell right now, and both of your nuts are still attached to your body. But you have to understand that kids like you are being watched.”

I pull my eyebrows together, not understanding what Coach is saying for a moment, until realization hits. I sneer. “So, what, if I were a trust fund baby here on legacy I could be caught doing lines off the Dean’s wife’s tits, and — ”

“What I am saying,” Coach interrupts stonily, “is that kids like you — and kids like me, when I first arrived here — have to do extra. You can’t even be
seen
to be doing the wrong thing. You might have grown up on the wrong side of the tracks, but you’ve been given a chance. Don’t fuck it up. Watch yourself, and don’t put a foot wrong from now until after the draft. And remember that you’re being watched. Every move you make from now until next year, you’re under the microscope.”

I already know that’s true. You don’t get to be at my level and not get used to seeing your name and photo in most places you go, have people shouting out to you on the street or girls throwing their panties at you 24-7. This is a town obsessed with college football, and, as everyone knows, I’m the king of college football.

It’s not arrogant of me to say that — it’s just the truth.

“All right,” I say, defeated. My head hurts too much to continue this conversation right now, anyway. And I’m pretty sure once Coach calms down, he’ll climb down out of my ass about it. “No more girls. Or less girls, whatever. I’ll be more discreet.”

I try flashing a smile, hoping that just this once, Coach will be charmed by it. It works on everyone else.

But as per usual, he remains immune.

“Oh no you don’t,” he said, his tone flat and acidic. “Don’t think you’re getting out of this that easily.”

What the hell?

Okay, now I’m really confused.

“What, you gonna buckle me into a chastity belt or something?” I ask, trying not to sound
too
pissed. Coach Jackson might have played a big role in getting me where I am today, but fuck it, my private life is just that — private. Whether it ends up on the front page of the sports news or not.

Coach sits back down again, which I take as a pretty good sign. Now I just have to try not to get him angry again.

“Just shut up and listen to me for a second, kid,” he says. “You remember that girl you hugged after the game, when you were busy showboating with your shirt off?”

“No,” I say.

I’m totally lying.

Of course I remember her.

Smokin’ hot bod, big blue eyes, dark brown hair. Even the conservative sweater she’d had on couldn’t disguise what were a pair of world-class tits.

Even when I’m on an adrenaline high like nothing I’ve ever experienced before, I can still zero in on quality like that. Call it a sixth sense.

But I’m not going to let Coach know that. Somehow, my sixth sense is
now
telling me that girl has got something to do with my current situation. And I don’t like it one bit.

“Do you know
who
she is?”

“No,” I say again, and this time I’m
not
lying. How the hell should I know? It’s not like I got her number — though I totally should have.
Smokin’ hot
doesn’t even start to do her justice. My cock twitches a little at the memory of her pressed up against me, her smooth cheek tucked against my chest while I spun her around…

“That was Ava Westwood — you’ve probably heard of her father, Orson Westwood.”

Holy shit.
Yeah. I know who that is.

Pretty unavoidable, actually. Orson Westwood’s name is never out of the university newsletter, or out of the news in general. The Westwood family are one of the families who just seem to be professionally rich — I mean, they own companies, real estate, donate hospital wings, that kind of thing. I walk past the hotel his family owns every day on my way to campus. It’s huge and shiny and the kind of place I could never afford to stay in in a million years — at least until I go pro. Then I’ll be rolling in it. It’s gonna be nothing but money and pussy ’til the day I die, my face buried in some hot girl’s tits.

But that’s later. Right now, I have this bullshit to deal with. 

“Yeah, I know Orson Westwood, I’m not stupid.”

If that chick was Orson Westwood’s daughter, then I don’t like where this is going. That’s the other thing about Westwood — he’s known to have a stick up his ass a mile long. Maybe
this
is what this is all about after all.

“Is he pissed that I touched his daughter or something?” I ask. If the ax is gonna fall, best to get it over and done with quickly.

Coach just shakes his head. “Just listen, and keep your mouth shut for five damn seconds. I told you your image needs improving. Turns out Orson Westwood has the same problem.” Coach Jackson sits back, steepling his fingers and watching me. I’m burning up with curiosity to know what the hell this is all about, but I make myself be quiet.

“It’s the world’s worst-kept secret Orson Westwood is going to make a senate run later this year,” Coach continues after a moment. “Now, I don’t know why — so please, God, don’t ask me — but I got a call from one of his people earlier today. I was planning on calling you in to rake you over the coals anyway, but he had an interesting offer for me. And you.”

I blink. Coach is seriously testing me now. Just what the fuck is this about?

The look on his face warns me to keep quiet, though.

So I do. Just barely.

Maybe he can see my struggle, because Coach finally just puts me out of my misery.

“He wants you to pretend to date his daughter.”

What the… what the fuck??

I have no idea if I’m allowed to talk now, but I don’t care. Some thoughts need to be vocalized. So I do. “What the
fuck? Pretend
to date? Is this some kind of sick joke?”

When Coach doesn’t answer me, I stand up, anger surging in my veins.

“Sit down, Riley.”

I simmer for a moment and consider ignoring Coach’s command. I should just storm out of here. Pretend to date. What the hell?

But in the end, my ingrained obedience to my coach gets the better of me. I sit. But I’m not happy about it.

Coach lets out a long, deep sigh. “Look, I know it sounds weird. I was skeptical myself. But let me lay it out for you. Orson Westwood needs to show he’s… got more of the common touch.
You
need to show you’ve settled down. Show everyone there’s more to you than booze and hook-ups. We think this could be an opportunity for you both.”

“Oh yeah?” I ask, bristling. “Who’s
we?
Last I checked, you were my coach, not my pimp, and that’s one sick dad who wants to —”

“You wouldn’t be actually dating her,” Coach interrupts. “In fact, the man I talked to made it very clear that the relationship was
not
to progress beyond the professional. You’d go out a few times. Get photographed. You will
not
spend the off season getting trashed with hookers and waking up in public parks. That’s it. That’s all I’m asking.”