RHINO: A Bad Boy Sports Romance (With FREE Bonus Novel OFFSIDE!) (39 page)

The second half is worse than the first. I sit for some of it with the rest of the team, and then I head up into the stands when I’ve had enough. Topher gives up after the third quarter, and he’s just about the last to go. No-one seems like they want to be here. It’s a fucking disgrace, and when the game ends 50-3, I expect Harrison to tear into them like any good coach would.

“
Well, at least we tried”, are his words.

It’s shameful. I don’t know what I expected, but I didn’t expect this. I expected some kind of fight. I expected some kind of camaraderie. That? What I just watched, what I just had to witness, I’m ashamed to align myself with these people. My mother would play this game better. My dead father, bones and dust in his grave would make a better offensive line.

Topher’s statistics make him sound like the worst quarterback in the league, which is probably true. Six sacks for seventy six yards thrown. Mosley and Jackson between them didn’t even get into treble figures on running yards. And the worst thing about it all, no-one seems to even give a shit. This isn’t my country, or my sport and I seem to be giving more of a shit than the offensive and defensive line ups, even the field goal unit.

Those three points came from one kicked field goal. A fluke. A piece of luck for a team that didn’t do anything to deserve it.

Harrison doesn’t want to listen to me, so I decide to look for Penny. I find her with her arms around Topher, commiserating the poor fucker on a terrible performance.

“
That was fucking awful.”

“
They’re a good side.”

“
Are you kidding me? Did you watch the same game I did?”

“
Jaguars were semi finalists last year.”

“
That team?”

“
It’s over, English. We lost. Forget about it. Let’s go for a drink, you know how to do that right?”

“
We need to talk.”

“
It’s up to Dad whether he starts you or not. I just handle the finance.”

“
Not just that, Penny. I know this isn’t my game, but I know how a team should work, and this, from what I’ve just seen, isn’t a team.”

“
You’re an expert now, right?”

“
You should be ashamed of yourself, Topher.”

He shrugs his big shoulders at me. “You want to talk to the offensive line. I throw the ball and I can’t do that if they don’t stand up.”

“
Tell me something. You want to win?”

Topher gives me that lurching fake laugh again and Penny and I catch eyes for a moment.

“
You know about that do you?”

“
Actually I do.”

“
In football?”

“
In sport.”

“
Right.”

“
Tell him to play me, Topher. I’m ready. Penny?”

Penny shrugs. She doesn’t look right with him. She’s hanging off him like it means something, but she doesn’t look right with him. I hate seeing good looking girls get messed around.

“
You reckon you can do better than Jackson?”

“
I reckon my grandma can do better than Jackson.”

“
Training, Jasper. You prove it in training and we’ll see.”

“
This club is falling apart and you’re doing nothing about it.”

“
So what do you care? Aren’t you only here because you have to be?”

“
I don’t like losing.”

“
Maybe you’re just going to have to get used to it.”

Topher uses that moment to pull Penny closer to him and to make sure I’m looking.

“
So, you coming?”

“
Where?”

“
To get drunk of course. Fuck, Jasper, don’t tell me you don’t know how to do that?”

“
I thought you didn’t drink.”

“
I don’t drink during the week. I get drunk on game days. What do you think I am, a fucking animal?”
“
You coming Penny?”

Penny pushes herself away from Topher. “Nah it’s a kind of guys thing. Tradition. You’ll see why.”

“
You do this every game?”

“
Whether we win or lose. Don’t you?”

Something tells me Topher can’t hold his drink. He looks like he’s barely old enough to be able to afford to buy one.

“
So, what, I come with you?”

“
That alright with you, English? Your mom not going to complain?”

“
Fuck you.”

“
Don’t get too drunk”, Penny warns.

“
That it? No debrief, no warm down, no fucking talk from the manager?”

“
You really don’t know how this works, do you?”

Penny fills in for him. “We’ll go through the game on Monday. Until then you’re free to do what you want. Have fun. Don’t get too drunk. Don’t end up in the papers or in jail. Whatever the fuck you do, I don’t want to have to explain that to Dad.”

This club is severely lacking basic communication skills.

“
That’s you riding with me, English.”

Penny either looks sad she’s not coming, or sad that we’re going.

“
Everybody else?”

“
Everybody who else? They’ll all be there to kick your stupid ass, don’t worry about it. Now, do you want to get in the car or do you want to run? It’s the same to me.”

We say goodbye to Penny - Topher in the way I want to and the way he doesn’t seem like he should deserve to be allowed, and me in my way, much more formal and fucking English - and then we get in his car, this time me alongside him in the front instead of way behind running against the choking fumes of his exhaust.

“
She’s alright isn’t she, Penny? Hot.”

I nod. I know this fucker is just testing me.

“
Tight pussy. She shaves it clean just for me. Tastes like a fucking ripe peach. I’m her first as well, you believe that. Broke her in. Penny knows her place. You like pussy?”

“
What kind of question is that?”

“
Stay away from Penny, English.”

“
You already told me that once.”

“
She isn’t for you. She likes baller’s, but she doesn’t like ugly foreigners with tiny pencil dicks like you. You feel me?”

“
You’re a fucking dick, Topher.”

“
I’m taking you with us because you're a Tiger, but I need to make sure we’re on the same page, because I don’t know you. None of us do.”

“
Go on.”

There’s a flash of something mean spirited in Topher eye and I know the fucker is bad news.

“
What happens after the games, whatever, you know, it stays with us. You understand that? This is between all of us, the players, the Tigers, nobody else.”

“
You can trust me.”

“
You wouldn’t be in my car if I didn’t think I could, believe me on that.”

“
Alright.”

“
Penny’s a good girlfriend, and she’ll make a good wife, but we’re men, right, sometimes one just isn’t enough. The thing is, it’s best she doesn’t know. Harrison can’t afford to lose me, he knows that, but Penny, she’d drop me like
that
if she found out I was playing away.”

“
So don’t get caught.”

Topher breaks out into a smile. “That’s it, Jasper. I knew I could trust you.”

“
So, every game day?-”

“
Fucking A. Just thinking about it makes me dick itch during the last quarter.”

“
So where are we going?”

“
I’m going to show you, English, just how The Tigers do it in Moxlin. Harrison gave you an introduction, Penny did what she felt like she needed to do to welcome you here and get you settled, and now I’m going to show you the rest. I’m going to get you laid motherfucker, even though you don’t deserve it.”

“
I don’t know what to say.”

I don’t know what to say. Getting laid is always good, but I’d prefer not to have to hang around with this jerk to make it happen. I’d much prefer to be spending the night with Penny, especially as I know she’ll be alone. I can’t imagine this guy’s got any class at all. It’ll be cheap champagne, a nightclub and a brothel. This town doesn’t look like it can offer anything much more than that.

“
Well fucking thank me.”

“
I’ll thank you after you make it happen.”

“
Alright. Let’s go and get freshened up and then I’ll show you just how it’s done.”

I can’t fucking wait. First I have to watch a team butcher their own sport and now I’m obliged to watch that same team butcher themselves in front of a bunch of women.

Welcome to fucking Moxlin.

Jasper

It’s worse than I thought. It isn’t even champagne, and this place is more like a dive bar than a high class club. I know Moxlin are struggling but surely these guys can afford more than this. I feel embarrassed to be here, but at least I’ve got a drink in my hand and the girls are attentive and pretty enough.

We’ve got the VIP section of the Snake and Ale, which is apparently
the
club to come to in Moxlin. If it is, I dread to think what the rest of the places are like. Topher has women dripping off him, and he isn’t exactly holding back with his affection either. The rest of the team seem just as popular with the
it
crowd here. It’s like the attention we get back home, only tackier and much more plastic. I get my fair share of attention too, even though nobody knows who the fuck I am. As soon as I open my mouth though it’s like a pheromone that sends women my way. I could look like a fallen log and talk in this accent and still get laid. That’s a novelty that’s definitely not going to wear off any time soon.

Some of the players are hostile, others are much more welcoming. Some of them I don’t even recognize yet they all seem to know me - the English ass-hole that reckons he’s better than everyone else.

I get chatting to Mosley for a while and then Tate, Price and a few others, all of whom seem to share my opinion that the team doesn’t exist now like it used to, Harrison has gone off the boil with the stress of too many losses and Topher is an absolute dick, who gets paid far too much and doesn’t deserve Penny, who he’s spent the last three years cheating on.

They reckon that whatever happens, after this year if they don’t have some plan to transfer out, they’ll be queuing up at the job centre. As far as they are concerned, Tigers had their last season three years ago, and right now it’s just about the administrators coming in and taking control. They’re just enjoying themselves as much as they can before it happens, and trying to stay free of injury.

Price points at me with his beer.

“
They’re fucking you like they fucked us.”

“
You think they want to win?” Sanchez cuts in.

“
Harrison doesn’t give a fuck anymore, you’ve seen him.”

“
He doesn’t want to give up”, I offer.

“
Too late for that, he already has.”

“
And you? The team?”

“
What fucking team man, you said it yourself earlier. Half of these player want out. The other half are here in contract and couldn’t break it. This is a bullshit season.”

“
And if we win?”

“
You come all the way from England with your hopes and dreams, forget about it. If I were you-”, Carlisle jabs his finger into my chest, “-I’d sit back, relax and let everyone else stress out. They’re paying you right?”

I nod.

“
Well then. Fuck it, what do you care. Play out your ban, stop trying to change what you can’t change and go back home at the end of the season a happy man.”

“
I want to play.”

“
You’re fucking stupid.”

“
Maybe.”

“
You don’t even know how to play.”

“
I’m faster than you Jackson. I don’t think I even saw you run today.”

“
Fuck you.”

“
Anyway. We can’t win if nobody cares.”

“
Since when was it
we
?”

“
Since last week and until I go back home, you have a problem with that, Mosley?”