RHINO: A Bad Boy Sports Romance (With FREE Bonus Novel OFFSIDE!) (55 page)

Two of our players have gone off injured, Sparks with another concussion that left him lying inert across the thirty yard line, knocked out this time for nearly two minutes, and Carter with a twisted knee that may or may not keep him out until the new year.

I’ve been on the dirt so many times I almost feel like I should start off each play there, but I haven’t given up. None of us have. That’s the thing about rivalries, you play them like cup finals and you don’t lose, whatever happens. Especially not at home, in front of a legion of diehard fans.

If we win this we go 4-4, second in the division and with every chance of getting to the playoffs if we make the second half of the season as good as I know we can. Even Topher’s brought his A game. Jackson too. As the minutes click down in the final quarter, every single person in the stadium knows we’ve got a chance. We are 17-14 points down, but we’ve got the ball in their half and a dummy running play has just given us a first down.

Topher switches the play at the last minute, goes against Harrison’s call and attempts to run straight through the field himself. He gains about ten yards before the earth comes spinning towards him at a thousand miles an hour, and I watch the wind get knocked out of his sails and the ball spin dangerously towards their cornerback before Jackson gathers it up and holds on tight.

Harrison throws his folio to the floor and Peters has to restrain him from running onto the field. I’m about to kick his ass too, but I don’t get a chance before we set up for the second down and I watch the ball spin through the air and float ineffectually out of bounds, three feet over Cornelius’s head. It’s a cheap, wasted play with less than a minute on the clock, forty yards to the end zone, three points to the bad and zero time outs left to burn.

If Topher is doing this on purpose, I’m going to kill him for it, and I’m not the only one either. I can’t see it though. Division rivalry, scouts in the crowd, Topher wants to win this as much as everyone else, so maybe he really is choking. If he isn’t, I really can’t see what his plan is to win.

This time I make it over before the play is set. Third down, clock ticking, we’re running out of time.

“
What the fuck?”

“
Chill, Jasper. I got this.”

“
You better’ve fucking got this.”

Topher grabs me by the grill of the helmet. “Forty-one to six, Kansas style motherfucker.”

“
That won’t work.”

“
Yes it will.”

“
Reverse it.”

They’ve been smashing me to pieces all game on the right hand side of the field. If I try to go through them like I have before, they’ll swat me to the ground like a fly. I’m a big guy but I can’t beat six men. Switch the play at the last minute and I’m fast enough to sneak round the back.

“
It’s on you, Jasper.”

“
Chill, Topher. I got this.”

“
Just get close enough to kick from.”

“
Fuck that. Give me the ball and I’ll win the game.”

Forty-one to six Kansas style is a play we invented in training. It’s a dummy throw where I essentially take the ball from the quarterback while he runs surrounded by the complete offensive wall towards the middle of the defensive unit. It works once in ten goes, but when you start it right, and you get the jump, there’s no fucking way to stop it.

Harrison calls a play there is no way we’re going to go with. It’s a running play that will take us within kicking distance of the goal and a chance to tie and push overtime. We won’t survive overtime. Not with the way the team is falling apart. They’ve got better strength in depth and their squad is fresher. We’ve got thirty five seconds, a dumb ass play, me and nothing else.

I see Harrison out of the corner of my eye fuming at the edge of the field. There is silence as we line up in one formation, switch, switch again and then drop as close as we can all get to Topher in a sort of semicircle that confuses the shit out of everyone. I see ends looking at cornerbacks and the whole defensive line looking uneasily at the coach with no idea at all where to put themselves to defend whatever craziness they are about to witness from us.

Those people that are still on their seats are sat on the very edge of them, while everyone else stands up, hands over mouths in complete silence. I could hear a pin drop. I can hear my heart thumping in my chest. This is it. This may not be the superbowl, at least not quite yet, but it’s definitely the most important game we’ll have had a chance of winning for a long time.

Three. Heads down.

Two. Muscles tense.

One. Here it fucking comes.

Snap. The crowd explode in a wall of noise.

The ball comes to Topher through a line of players and out to me as I pass behind him, running in a chain for just long enough to confuse all but one of their players. For a brief moment, no-one knows where the ball is, until I emerge on the far side at the very edge of the field, a good ten yards from the nearest player and a clean corridor of grass in front of me all the way to the end zone.

There is a pile of bodies in the center of the field, a call for a flag that doesn’t come, me and the one player who watched it all but didn’t react quick enough closing in fast. I’m the quickest player in the English rugby premier league by a country mile and I thought I was the fastest here too, but with twenty yards to go to the end zone, I’m conscious of something closing in as fast as a fucking greyhound.

He has one chance to stop me, but if he fucks up the timing the game is over. Fifteen yards to go, and I dig in, head down and teeth gritted to find that extra gear, the swirl of support from the home crowd igniting a fire inside me. I don’t even know what the clock says, but I know if he stops me now, there will be barely enough time to get the field unit on, let alone kick the ball through the uprights. It’s now or never.

Ten yards to go and he’s on me. I can feel the heat from the blood pulsing in his veins, his breath going cold on the back of my neck. It’s all about who wants it more, who is the better athlete, who will survive the challenge.

A brief look behind me sees him launch himself, leaping through the air like a jaguar setting on it’s prey, lithe and wiry, smaller than me, but stocky and thick across the chest, capable and determined.

I’m five yards out from the line when he makes contact, arms wrapped around my chest and locked in tight to jerk me out of stride and pull me to the floor in one unbroken movement. A lesser man would admit the game was up. A journeyman would break stride, fall by the wayside and greet defeat like an old friend. Not me. Fuck that. I don’t go down so easily. I don’t break like normal people do, and I definitely don’t lose at something I want to win.

With every ounce of strength in my body, I hold him off. I stumble, look for all the world like I’m going down, but gather myself quickly, dig my heels into the turf, stand up straight and hold on.

“
What the fuck?”, I hear him say, like a distant call for help behind me, as I stride like a giant, the final five yards, the rest of both teams having already given up, stranded in the middle of the field to watch the wild cat and the rhino fight it out to the death.

It must look incredible for everyone watching. It must look unbelievable from almost every angle. At that pace, with that force, I should be eating turf and waiting for the world to declare us losers.

Instead, I hold him off, unsure exactly how I’ve done it myself, and as the clock ticks down I battle the last five yards, my legs weighed down but not giving up, not just into the end zone, but right underneath the fucking goal posts.

We’ve won. When the clock ticks out and the klaxons sound around the stadium, I drop to my knees, exhausted, clutching for breath. Their player looks at me like I’m some kind of impossible being, before breaking out of his tackle hold, and scrambling away from the approaching fans as they begin to invade the field.

We’ve done it, we’ve beaten our bitterest rivals, and it feels like we’ve won the whole fucking thing. That’s 4-4. A win in every fucking game I’ve played in and a loss in every one I haven’t. I don’t need to say anything else to prove my worth, the statistics speak for themselves. The players can see it, the coaching staff can see it, Penny can see it, and Harrison can see it, even if he struggles to admit it. I may not be what we wants, but without me, Moxlin are going to fail. I’m the best thing that’s happened to this team since they won the superbowl back when the thing didn’t even matter.

We victory lap until security clear the field, my legs so rubbery I can barely stand. In  the locker room afterwards champagne gets passed around, while Harrison and the rest of the coaching staff give reluctant praise to a side that lost by six touchdowns the last time they met these opponents.

No-one can believe what they saw me do. Jackson gets it up on replay just so we can go through it again. When he’s done, we switch to the TV output of the game and watch the commentators break the move down as though they’ve just seen something that will never be repeated.

When Harrison comes up to me, I expect muted congratulations. A pat on the back, a shake of the hand, or a thank you at the very least. What I get is something else entirely.

“
Office, when you’re done here. I’ll be waiting for you so don’t fuck around.”

“
Just me?”

“
Just you, Jasper. Do you see me speaking to anyone else here?”

I want Penny to come down, but she doesn’t, which I respect. The shit with Topher’s still dragging on, and I know she’s been trying to keep out of the way of it. I didn’t see her in the crowd either, but I know she would have been there watching. She doesn’t miss a game, not even when she’s pretending she’s not interested. When I’m done here, I’ll see her. I may be exhausted, but I’m never too tired for Penny. I could be dead for a million years and just one look from that girl would bring me back to life again.

I know she thinks I shouldn’t be saying the stuff I am to her, but I can’t help it. I’m spontaneous and I do things that I feel, even if I don’t think them through properly. I’m not lying either when I say it. As far as I’m concerned nothing else is as important as Penny and I.

I’ve fallen for that girl so hard I’ve got bruises. Strip back everything else and leave what we’ve got and if I died tomorrow I’d die a happy man. We just need to work out how I can continue to play rugby, or football if it has to be that, and be together. I never thought I’d get on with this game when I first started playing it, but to be honest, it isn’t as bad as I originally thought. It isn’t rugby, of course, nowhere fucking near, but it isn’t golf either so if it has to be this rather than nothing at all, I’m big enough to cope.

“
Well done.”

Topher doesn’t usually give praise, especially not to the person fucking his now ex-fiancee. Off the field this is the most he’s said to me in weeks.

“
Likewise. Couldn’t have done that without you.”

“
You coming tonight? You should.”

I’m suspicious but I suppose it isn’t outside the realms of possibility that he’s finally gotten over his issue and forgiven me.

“
Let me talk to Penny.”

“
Shit man, she doesn’t own you. I thought you were better than that.”

Jackson and Cole are looking over and laughing. “Treat them mean keep them keen”, Jackson says. “That’s always worked for me.”

“
Jackson, I’ve seen your wife, I know who wears the trousers.”

“
Just warning you, man.”

“
Tonight”, Topher repeats. “Don’t get controlled on the field and off of it.”

I feel like saying something to hurt him, but I stop myself from stooping that low. Topher may deserve it, but it isn’t fair. He’s lost already so I’m not going to rub salt in his wounds, even if he is being a class A jerk.

“
Right.”

“
Plenty of opportunity to get laid with proper girls. Sexy girls, you know. With big tits. Ones that know how to suck dick. That goes for you too, Jackson.”

I’m so close to saying something, but I hold myself back. These are the last words of a condemned man trying to hold on to a memory of what he no longer has.

“
Mrs. Jackson knows how to suck dick.”

“
I’m not talking about your Mama.”

I have no idea why Harrison wants to see me, but I figure it’s to do with the game. We went against his call, we could easily have lost and he’s probably super pissed about it. I’m not the quarterback, but Harrison’s clever enough to know that out on the field, I make the calls now. I may only be two months new here, but the team listens to me. Topher listens to me too, even though he’ll go ahead and make out that it was his plan from the start if whatever we do happens to come off.

Harrison’s alone in his office. It’s the one right next to Penny’s and I can’t help but glance through the glass hoping she might be there. She isn’t, of course. There’s no-one else about except for me and Harrison.

“
You wanted to see me?”

Harrison eyeballs me coldly as I sit down.