Quarterback Sneak

Thank you so much to my readers for allowing me to create characters that you can really connect to.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Galynn sat at a warm booth in the university coffee shop and stared up at the flat screen in front of her. Celt fever was taking over, and them clinching their division was enough cause to have everyone partying – football fans and nonbelievers alike. She watched with a raised eyebrow as
SportsCenter
continued to run the highlights from last week’s game. People she had heard of but never personally met were being interviewed by the analysts and asking all the “hard hitting questions”. Galynn rolled her eyes, turned back to her textbook and tried to tune out the TV.

She managed to read one page before the voice of Alceo Russell had her full attention. She fought the urge to stare up at the television but found that she couldn’t. She hated herself for melting at the sound of his gravely voice and deep hearty laughter. She never met the guy and would probably die if she did, but she just couldn’t help but imagine what it would be like to have him laughing at something she said. Or smile at her just because he was happy to see her. But that was wishful thinking.

Sure, she’d seen him around, hadn’t everyone? His face was plastered on everything, and often she wondered if it was just some cruel joke the universe was playing on her.
This is what you want, but you can’t have it, nah-nah-nah nah nah.

Galynn was ordinary - five foot seven, nondescript dark brown hair and glasses. No, there would be no reason for Alceo Russell to be smiling at her unless he was laughing at her. She didn’t consider herself skinny by any means, but she didn’t think she was overtly obese. Well proportioned – that’s what she liked to say. She may be heavy, but she thought she looked nothing like the girls that were always fawning over him. Not to mention she was black and he was white. Did that really matter? Not to her, but she’d never seen him with anyone other than skinny white girls. Hey, to each his own.

She resolved herself to just fantasize about being his friend – thinking about being anything more was just too far fetched for Galynn’s little brain to process. Her sophomore year, she’d had a Chemistry class with him. It was there her infatuation with him began to bloom. Before that, she had known who he was, but she knew absolutely nothing about him. But there, he didn’t seem to be a dumb jock and she had been shocked on the first day when she walked in and saw him. Weren’t athletes supposed to take easy classes? It appeared as if he was someone with a brain, and that attracted her more than anything.

In the middle of boring lectures, she would catch herself daydreaming about what it would be like to have inside jokes with him and share a milkshake. It was crazy. She didn’t consider herself obsessed, just in lust with a guy that she could never have. Heck, half of the female student body wanted the guy in one-way or another. But the semester had ended and she never got the chance to sit anywhere near him again.

Sighing to herself, she packed up her books and laptop. With
SportsCenter
running updates on the school football team and the status of all their players every ten seconds, there was no way Galynn would be able to concentrate. So she stood, cleared off her table and headed for the library. At least there it would be quiet.

The more Galynn started walking, the more she hated her decision to leave the warmth of the coffee shop. The blustering wind was whipping against her face and stinging her hands. She left her dorm early in the afternoon when the temperature had still been rather warm. Now that the sun was setting the temperature had dropped considerably and she was not prepared. Curly brown hair whipped about her face and she fought to keep a hold of all her possessions in the wind.

Maybe I should just go home.
She thought but then groaned at the prospect. Galynn had driven to the coffee shop that afternoon. Her decision to walk to the library hadn’t been a bad one, but with the weather seeming to worsen with every step she took, she was now twice as far from her car as she had originally started. If she hadn’t been so caught up in thinking about a guy that didn’t know she was on the planet, she would have been sitting in the warm coffee shop getting her work done. Instead, she was walking through the courtyard, as clouds seemed to be coalescing directly over her head.

Galynn turned on her heel to head back towards her car. She had given up all hope at this point of going to the library or heading back to the coffee shop and actually getting anything of meaning done. She was cold, she was tired, and she was over it.

Having finally made it back to her car in one piece, Galynn set her things on the hood of her car and searched for her keys.

“Aha!” She squealed just as the wind picked up. She pulled her keys from deep in her bag, grabbed her things and slid the key into the keyhole. She noted to herself that she needed to invest in a car remote. This opening doors with the key was getting old. Galynn turned the key expecting to see the lock pop but nothing happened. She took a deep breath and tried again.

Silently pleading with her temperamental twelve-year-old Honda, Galynn closed her eyes and tried again, slowly. When the key snapped in her hand, she wasn’t exactly sure what had just happened. She started down at her hand holding the fat end of her key. She didn’t have a spare on her so she stood for a minute trying to think of what to do without dissolving into tears. She had a biochemistry paper due the next day, no coat, a broken key and no car.

Bursting into hysterical laughter, she dared to think,
what else could happen?
And what else could have happened except the sky opening up and freezing rain falling down on her. Certainly, tonight was not Galynn Pierce’s night.

--

“I’m bored.”

“With what?”

“Everyone. Some girl I don’t know just sent me a text saying I could eat whip cream off her tits.”

“What the fuck are you bored with?”

Alceo couldn’t explain it to his best friend; they were just wired too differently and with the music so loud, he didn’t feel like bothering. “I’m going out for some air, it’s hot as fuck in here.” The party was so packed with warm sweating bodies; it was impossible to tell it was only 20 degrees outside.

Will said nothing as buxom brunette sauntered up to the chair where he was sitting and brazenly plopped down on his lap. By the look on Will’s face, he didn’t mind. Will was his best friend but they couldn’t have been more different. As the team’s best running back, they were always together on and off the field, but it was times like these, Alceo wondered what else, if anything they had in common.

As the only running back in the country with more than 2,000 rushing yards for the season already, everyone knew Will’s name; including girls who didn’t know what sport he played. But whereas Will loved the limelight Alceo shied away from it.

As Alceo stepped out into the frigid winter air, he couldn’t help but feel bored. More than bored. Something was missing. They won another football game and as usual another nameless girl was throwing herself at him. He used to eat this shit up, but not anymore. It was boring, and it was all becoming too easy.

He majored in biochemistry because it wasn’t easy. He was the quarterback of the Division I Celts football team because it wasn’t easy. Alceo liked a challenge, and lately he wasn’t getting it. At 6 feet 6 inches tall, and built like a Division I player, it wasn’t hard for him to find someone to warm the sheets, or even the couch or car or anywhere else he wanted them. But it just wasn’t thrilling anymore. Briefly, he wondered how many people would have wanted to have his problems. He bet it was a lot.

Alceo had even considered breaking things off with his long time fuck buddy. All she wanted was to be known as the girl that fucked the winning quarterback, all he wanted to do was bust a nut. The relationship, or lack thereof worked well for a time, but Alceo was tired. 

He thought nothing as the sounds of the party began to fade into the background as his feet carried him further and further from the party being hosted in the football team’s honor. The biting cold began to nip at his fingers as he realized he didn’t bother to grab his coat in his haste to get away from the party.

He thought about going back to his place to get his running clothes. He loved to run; nothing but him and the sound of air rushing in and out of lungs, but decided against it. The sky was darkening impossibly quickly and it looked like it was about to rain.

Alceo kept up his pace as his feet carried him to the coffee shop on campus. Something warm would do him good. Shaking his shaggy hair from his eyes, he pulled his hood over his head and started to walk a little faster. He was only a about a half mile from the coffee shop when he felt the first drops of freezing rain clutching to his eyebrows.

He took the chance to pull his hand from his pocket and glanced at his watch. It was 11:48 and the coffee shop closed at 12. He could easily jog the distance, and the freezing rain helped him make up his mind. Carefully, but quickly Alceo picked up the pace. The feel of the freezing rain soaking into his hoodie helped him along. He said a silent prayer that he wouldn’t get sick, knowing the he would catch hell from the coach and the team if he had to sit out a game.

--

The laughter died on Galynn’s lips when her bag flipped from the hood of her car and landed in a puddle of water. As if it wasn’t enough for her bag to get wet, it toppled topside down, the contents of the bag now floating in the water. She couldn’t move fast enough as she watched her laptop slide from the bag and into the murky water.

No, no, no!
Her life was in that bag. Her computer, her notes, her books; everything was gone. What was she supposed to do? Her paper was due tomorrow, and her notes were now floating in the water. Galynn watched the ink spread from the paper and her words bleed together as tears slid down her face. She wasn’t one for feeling sorry for herself, but lately things just seemed to continually go from bad to worse.

The emotions and the stress took over her body as she finally let out the anger and frustration she had been carrying for weeks. Her glasses fogged up and her hair matted against her face as she sank to the slick pavement. She stuck her fingers into the frigid waters trying to preserve as many clumps of paper as she could. While she knew it was useless to save anything, she felt as though she had to try.

She lifted her laptop out of the puddle and watched as rivulets of water splashed back into the puddle. “Fuck.”

“Are you okay?” the sound of another’s voice startled Galynn out of her self loathing and the sight before her knocked her back on her butt.

“Fuck me!” flew out of her mouth as the ice water quickly soaked her pants and sloshed up the inside of her sweater. Quickly her hand went to her mouth, she wasn’t sure if it was the cold water trickling down her back or the sight of Alceo Russell squatting before her that sent the obscenities flying, but she wanted to make sure nothing else unexpected came from her lips.

“Do you need some help?” Alceo asked with a grin.

Galynn didn’t move. She knew it was insane to sit there and stare at the guy as he was offering her a helping hand, but her brain couldn’t process. It was as if the night had dimmed further and all she could focus on was the curve of his lips and the deepness of his eyes.

“Ah, can you get up?” He had the good grace to look like she hadn’t noticed her ogling him and her face heated. She knew he’d caught her staring as she sat in a puddle of ice water, and that just made the situation all the more awkward.

“I got it. Thanks,” she mumbled as she tried to pick herself up. Things would have gone easier if her ass hadn’t frozen to the pavement. Galynn struggled to right herself and only succeeded in placing her hand wrist deep into a pothole filled with water.

Great, just what I need. Alceo Russell watching the fatty who can’t get up.

She didn’t want to chance a look at his face, she was already eight shades of embarrassed.

“Here, let me help you.” Before she could refuse she felt one hand on her forearm and the other at her elbow as he helped her stand.

“Thanks,” Galynn finally managed to mutter. She was staring at her belongings in the puddle praying to God he would just leave. She wasn’t sure what to say to the guy she’d been lusting after for the better part of two years. She had fantasized about this moment – well not him catching her ass deep in freezing water near tears – but about the first time they met.

She imagined it would be like something she saw in the movies. He would see her from across the room and instantly know she was the one for him. They would walk to each other, kiss and then… Well, she wasn’t sure what. She couldn’t decide if she would want to go on a walk with him or have him take her under the moonlight – but either way, this scenario had never crossed her mind.

Alceo bent down and began to gingerly lift her soaked papers and notebook from the puddle. He made a wincing sound as he lifted her laptop from where she’d dropped it and watched as water poured from its seams.

She remained tight lipped as she watched him gather her things. Galynn was aghast that Alceo was helping her. She supposed she should help him to gather her things, but she couldn’t get her body to cooperate, plus she didn’t want him to see her fat rolls bunch when she bent down.

“Looks like there’s no saving this,” he said as he looked up at her. Their eyes caught for the briefest second, and Galynn could have sworn she could have recounted every color his eyes held.

“Yea well, I’m a klutz. Thanks for helping me.” There she went opening her mouth again, but this time, it wasn’t so bad.
I can do this; I can do this,
she thought to herself over and over again.

Alceo’s eyes seemed to register something and his gaze turned hard. “Where’s your coat? Didn’t you realize it’s raining right now?”

Slightly taken aback by his concern, Galynn swiped the hair from her face and pulled off her glasses to clean them. “I didn’t think it would get this cold, and I didn’t think I would be out this late.” She didn’t know why she had to explain to him, but she felt the need to.