RHINO: A Bad Boy Sports Romance (With FREE Bonus Novel OFFSIDE!) (40 page)

“
Not if you stay out of my position.”

“
If you play better you might be able to keep me out.”

“
You even watch the game today?”

“
I saw you hobbling around.”

“
I’ve seen you in training, Jasper. You don’t even know which way you’re running.”

“
At least I can run twenty centimeters before someone touches me.”

“
We’ll see next week. Maybe they should put you in, it might give us all a good laugh.”

Topher splashes over, a girl on each arm, and it breaks the tension.

“
That what you meant about Penny?” I say, nodding over to him.

“
Someone get this guy a girl, he obviously can’t do it himself.”

I have to laugh at that. “You show me a girl worth having.”

“
Take your pick, English. Have you girls met the latest signing for the Moxlin Tigers?”

The girls shake their pretty heads in unison.

“
He’s got a huge dick and he talks funny.”

I fill the gap in conversation with a smile. “I can’t deny either of those two things.”

“
That what you do all day, look at each other’s dicks?”

“
Sometimes we play with each other’s balls as well.”

It’s a rugby joke but it translates well enough. The girls who look like they turned eighteen yesterday smile and giggle enthusiastically. Short skirts, big tits, mutton dressed as lamb but better than mutton dressed as mutton. If I took them both I’d be doing Penny a favor, but Topher would just find someone else. That’s why I’m single. I don’t like fucking people around.

“
Jasper’s new in town, can you girls show him a good time?”

“
Sure.”

“
Welcome to Moxlin motherfucker”, Mosley says over my shoulder as Topher disappears back into the crowd.

It’s a hazy night. I get drunk, I get laid and I get into a whole bunch of trouble, half of which only comes back to me in stabbing memory the following morning. I don’t wake up in my own house, and it takes me a while to realize that the girl I wake up next to, isn’t the girl I ended up going home with. I don’t know where the hell she’s come from.

I know I’ve done something I shouldn’t, and half way through the morning it comes back to me as loud as a fucking alarm bell.

Harrison is going to kill me if he finds out. Penny too. Dougie will probably get on a flight just to bust my balls. They’ll dock my wages if this gets out, and I’ll probably deserve it too. I knew drinking absinth was a bad idea, I’m just lucky I didn’t wake up in a jail cell again I suppose. I’m lucky I’m here, although I have no fucking idea where
here
is.

When my phone rings, my heart skips a beat. I can’t get the image out of my head. I can’t stop thinking about what we’ve done. Naked, Moxlin main strip, every single one of us doing The Switchback.

Fuck.

“
Jasper”, Penny says a serious tone cutting through her voice. “We need to talk.”

Four.

Penny

Dad plays the CCTV footage three times. It’s grainy, but not grainy enough that
I can’t make it out, Jasper’s huge dick swinging about between his legs. I can’t take my eyes off the thing, way bigger than I thought possible, much more pronounced than anything I’ve ever seen before in my life. Next to Topher, Jasper looks like a different species entirely.

I shouldn’t be looking there, at that, but I am, and I can’t help it. Every time I try to look away I'm drawn back to it magnetically.

“
Sixteen complaints of noise pollution, two reports of criminal damage, and one of indecent exposure to a minor. Link and Greenberg arrested, Mosley still AWOL and Topher so badly hung over he’s spent the whole morning puking up. You’ve been here one week, Jasper. One fucking week and this is where we’ve ended up.”

“
I’m not entirely sure what happened, Sir.”

“
You’re not entirely sure what happened? Do you want to see the footage again?”

Jasper might not but I certainly do.

“
That’s not going to be necessary.”

“
One month’s wages.”

“
Come on.”

“
Penny, tell him.”

“
You fucked up, Jasper.”

“
You’re lucky I don’t send your British ass back to England.”

“
Look, nobody got hurt, we were just fooling around.”

“
Have you seen the papers?”

Dad is mad and he has every right to be. The last thing Moxlin needs is even more bad press. We’re a joke of a team enough to not need this bullshit.

Dad thrusts a series of front pages in front of Jasper and Topher, each one of them with an increasingly more embarrassing picture and defamatory write up. A thick finger jabs at Topher’s chest.

“
You should have known better.”

“
It won’t happen again.”

“
Damn fucking right it won’t happen again. One month’s wages, both of you.”

“
Come on, man.”

Topher turns his attention to me but there’s nothing I can do, even if I think the punishment is harsh.

“
It’s out of my hands.”

“
One month for that?”

“
One month will be two if you continue to have trouble accepting the decision I have made. Moxlin get beaten, comprehensively, and you jerks go out looking to get drunk and get laid.”

“
Don’t look at me”, Topher says, holding his hands up innocently. “I may have had a drink-.”

“
You fucking idiot, Christopher. You may have had a drink. From right now, you are banned from going out and banned from having a drink.”

“
You can’t do that.”

“
What did you say, English?”

“
I said you can’t do that.”

I’ve never seen Dad go so red. My eyes go from his, to Jasper’s, across to Topher’s and then back to Dad. He looks like he’s about to explode.

“
If you want to play in my team, you play by my rules. If you want to drink and whore, you’re going to spend the rest of the season cleaning the fucking boots. That goes for the both of you. Do you understand me?”

“
You play me next week and I’ll make sure I stay out of the papers.”

Dad can’t help but laugh at Jasper’s arrogance. He’s got balls, I’ll give him that. Actually, he’s got huge balls and a huge dick.

“
Get out of my fucking sight.”

Jasper and Topher look at each other and then both of them look at me, but there is nothing I can do. Dad continues.

“
You heard me, get out of my fucking sight. Go and train, or go home or go to the fucking bar, whatever, I don’t care. Get out of my fucking sight. Both of you are worthless excuses for athletes. You wonder why the fuck Moxlin are in this position, why you, Topher, can’t throw a ball straight any more and you, Jasper, have been sent here for bad behavior? You’re a fucking mess, the pair of you. Get out of my sight.”

“
Go”, I add. “This isn’t a joke.”

“
Pen”, Topher whimpers.

“
Go home, Topher. We’ll talk there.”

“
This is bullshit.”

Topher gathers his bag and makes for the door, while Jasper hangs about half a second more before following him.

“
This is on you”, Dad says, when they’ve gone, his finger now pointed accusingly at me. “You knew what he was like.”

“
I’ll talk to him.”

“
The first game, Pen. We didn’t even win and this. All over the papers, the joke of the fucking country again.”

“
We’ll change it.”

“
How the fuck are we going to change it? You’ve seen what I’ve seen. None of these players care anymore, it’s getting harder for me to do so too.”

“
Play him.”

“
Your boy is a drunk, Penny, not an athlete.”

“
All he wants to do is play, play him.”

“
That’s not what the reports from last night are telling more, nor the ones from his illustrious career in England. All Jasper seems to want to do is drink and fuck. If throwing and catching a ball fits into that then so be it.”

“
I think you’ve got him wrong.”

“
Whose side are you on?”

“
Yours of course, Moxlin’s. This club is everything to me, which is why I think you should play him. He’s got drive Dad, he’s got energy and desire. You know Topher made him run into training twice this week. Did you even watch him? He ran twice as far and twice as hard as anyone else.”

Dad drops his eyes. He goes to the window, hands in his pockets, eyes out towards the turf he’s collected so many memories on.

“
He’s trouble, Penny.”

“
This?” I hold up the paper. “Running down the street without his clothes on. This is what a fourteen year old boy does. He’s immature, bored probably.”

“
It doesn’t look good.”

“
So dock his wages, just don’t tell him he can’t play. If he sits on the bench, frustrated, he’ll take it out on the street. The more you sit him out, the more he’ll fuck around.”

“
That’s not my problem.”

“
Dad, he’s as good a player as any we have, even better probably. You can’t just not play him because you don’t like him. We brought him here to use him, not to have him sit out a ban cleaning boots and getting drunk.”

Dad growls. He turns away from the window and back to me.

“
Why are you so confident in him?”

“
Because I’ve seen what he can do on the field.”

“
This club, Penny, this fucking club used to mean something.”

“
I know, and it will again. It’s not over yet, Dad. Far from it. Just give him a chance.”

“
One month, Penny. I’m not backtracking on that.”

“
I know and you’re right, he has to be punished.”

“
Topher too. He’s the captain, I put Jasper under his control.”

I hold up my hands. “You have to do what you have to do.”

“
And the rest. When you find Mosley, he’s not escaping punishment either. As for Link and Greenberg, those fucking amateurs.”

“
They’ll be dealt with, Dad. Greenberg’s still only young.”

“
He doesn’t fucking drink either.”

Dad and I catch eyes for a moment and for some reason his lips curl up into an ironic smile. It makes me smile too even though I feel like I probably shouldn't.

“
One week.”

“
I know.”

“
I thought they didn’t even like him.”

“
Maybe they changed their mind.”

“
And you?”

“
If he behaves himself and works hard, which I think he has the potential to do, then I’m happy. If he doesn’t, and he turns out to be just another drunk womanizer, I’m going to be very disappointed.”

Dad mulls this over for a moment.

“
And Topher?”

“
What about him?”

“
Is he behaving himself?”

Shit quarterback, even shittier boyfriend. “He is now.”

“
He’s a good kid.”

Dad and my opinions differ a little about Topher’s inability to keep his dick in his pants. I haven’t told him that Topher didn’t come home at all last night, but I don’t want to give him even more shit to worry about. I’ll talk to Topher. I’m sure there is a perfect explanation for his absence.

“
Just make sure Jasper doesn’t lead him astray. He seems to have a bit of influence.”

“
Believe me, Topher’s not the one to get easily swung.”

“
I know you guys haven’t always been solid, but Topher is definitely the one. I can see you’re in love with him.”

Rose tinted glasses. I don’t want to tell him because I don’t really know myself, but the more I think about it, the less I think it sounds right. Topher and I have never been solid. I mean, when Topher was throwing well and the Tigers were winning and Topher wasn’t cheating on me, I suppose we were alright, but since then and recently, even though he’s stopped steppin out, I don’t know, for a long time it feels like something’s been missing.