Sacked By the Quarterback (2 page)

“I wasn’t trying to make up for eleven years. I thought we were starting over.”

“Starting over? Why on Earth would I start over with you?” Beyond the obvious. Oh God, the confidence of his touch made every other man she’d been with seem like a nervous teenager.

“Mandy, I thought I knew what I gave up when I lost you. I didn’t. I really want you to forgive me.”

“Forgive you? Oh that’s right. You needed some kind of superstitious mumbo jumbo forgiveness to make sure you don’t make a fool of yourself on national television in two weeks on the Super Bowl. Huh. Sucks to be you, I guess.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I got what I wanted, but I guess you didn’t.” Mandy kept her face still and unemotional. An art she had learned in high school thanks to Sonny.

“What you wanted?”

“A trip down memory lane.” Dear Lord, had she actually been about to have sex on her desk? How tawdry. “Did you think that meant something else?”

“I thought you might give me another chance.”

“Another chance?” She laughed to cover her confusion. What the hell was he talking about? Certainly not another chance with her. He had models and starlets throwing themselves at him. What could he possibly want from a college chemistry professor who had once loved him that he couldn't get from a thousand other women?

“Yeah, I loved you, Mandy.”

“Which is why you told everybody at school that the only way I would tutor you in chemistry was if you would have sex with me.” There it was, the burn of shame.

“I lied. I was a stupid kid.” Sonny zipped his jeans.

“You
were
failing chem.”

Sonny put his hands on his hips. “That was a long time ago.”

“And here you are still trying to trade sex for whatever you need.” Just when she thought it couldn’t get more embarrassing. When he’d told everyone she was trading him tutoring for sex, he could have been telling the truth from a certain perspective. Maybe she really was that undesirable.

“No, I was in love with you,” Sonny snapped.

Yes, because blond god quarterbacks always went for the geekiest girl in school. Jesus, he had been having sex with her in trade for tutoring. And now he had come here trying to trade sex for absolution for his crimes in high school. She did want to crawl under her desk. “I love how you showed it by humiliating me in front of everyone.”

“In high school. That was a long time ago. There’s something wrong with you if you’re still twisted up about what ninety-two people from our graduating class think about you. You hated them back then.” His fury made him seem bigger. Pretty soon he was going to fill her office with his anger alone.

“You should go before I call campus police and have you escorted out. That would make an interesting story on ESPN, don’t you think?”

Sonny glared at her a moment longer before yanking open the door and storming out. She tracked his progress out of the office suite through his footsteps and the yelps of people he encountered. When the noises faded, she felt safe to sink into her desk chair and cover her face with her hands. Did she still care what ninety-two people she used to go to high school with thought? That was insane. She never saw those people. Her parents didn’t even live in town anymore.

“Hey, was that—Mandy, are you okay?”

Mandy pulled on her poker face for Noor. His dark Indian face wrinkled with concern. “I’m fine,” she told him.

“Then why did you have your hands over your face?”

“Did you guys see Harrison Black in the hall?” Kaylin crowded Noor in the door. Dammit, Kaylin was practically psychic about how people were feeling. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong.” Ninety-two petty, jealous people from her old hometown that she never visited anymore. What a waste of resources to even think about them anymore.

“Mandy.” Kaylin squeezed past Noor and came in the office. “Something is wrong.”

“Nothing is wrong.”

“She had her hands over her face when I got here and I’m pretty sure Mr. Black was in her office.”

“Really?” Kaylin looked from Noor to Mandy.

“You two don’t even understand American Football.” Why couldn’t they just go away? Then she could cut her office hours short and go home to shower, in bleach, before settling in to drink a box of wine and watch
Casablanca
on repeat until she fell asleep.

“He’s in the Super Bowl,” Noor said.

“And that’s why you’re interested in him?” Mandy asked.

“He’s famous.” Noor grinned and did that side to side head bobble thing.

“You know, in America jocks like him beat geeks like us up and steal our lunch money.”
Not to mention our self-respect.

Kaylin and Noor looked at each other. The shrug was implied.

Mandy stood up, hoping her clothes weren’t completely out of sorts. “I think I’m coming down with something.”

Noor put his hand over his mouth and stepped into the hallway. One down, one to go.

“So I’m going to head home early.”

“Do you need me to cover your class in the morning?” Kaylin asked.

“No, no, I’ll be back.” She took her coat off the hook and slid it on. Kaylin was still eyeing her as if she knew everything. Nightmarish. “Probably just a sinus headache.”

“See you in the morning. Have a good rest.” Noor said, already scuttling down the hall.

“Do you want me to bring you some citron tea?” Kaylin asked.

“I have some,” Mandy lied. She grabbed her purse and shooed Kaylin toward the door. She paused long enough to write a message on her white board that she had left early and would be in tomorrow for normal office hours. None of her students should be in this early in the term anyway. “See you tomorrow.”

“Call me if you need anything,” Kaylin called after her as she hurried down the hall.

Great, now Kaylin would be checking up on her.

Of all the universities in all the towns in all the world, he had to walk into hers. On purpose.

Sonny’s anger got him as far as the outside of the front doors of the science building. Then the cold stopped him. His coat was open, and he could still feel the heat of Mandy’s body on his. The fact that she wasn’t still pressed there made him want to hit something. When Tawnie gave him her little spiel about getting forgiveness from someone he’d wronged, the first name that came to mind was Mandy’s. Not that Mandy’s name didn’t come to mind pretty frequently. Amazing how many times chemistry came up in conversation, at least around him. All those terrible equations and not enough explosions.

He and Mandy had lots of chemistry. They’d done lots of experiments too. He smiled, his body warming again. The fact that he was dating a woman named Tawnie should have been enough of a hint that he was off track for what was good for him. He wasn't designed for splashy, dramatic women who wanted to bathe in his reflected glow. He needed a woman who took care of her own shit and had her own light. Somebody like Mandy who kept her eyes on her own prize.

“Hey, aren’t you Sonny Black?” a girl in a black coat and combat boots asked. Heads swiveled in his direction.

“Yeah.”

“Can I get a picture with you?”

Sonny leaned down so his face was even with the girl’s as she snapped the selfie. By that time a dozen people had crowded around so he ended up rinsing and repeating for fifteen minutes before he found a guy wearing a football jersey.

“Hey buddy, you play ball?” Sonny asked. He still wanted to hit something. No way could Mandy still be pissed. All he’d done was tell a little white lie eons ago. Okay, it was mean, but he really hadn’t thought she cared what they thought about her then. Must have because she sure as hell cared now.

“I play defensive end.”

Sonny looked over the kid again. A little scrawny for a defensive end, but this school wasn’t known for its football program. They’d have weights and sleds that might burn out his frustration though. “You wanna point me in the direction of the gym? I have to get my workout in.”

“Really? You’re gonna practice here?” The kid pointed over his shoulder. “The workout room is across campus that way. I can walk you there.”

“Weren’t you headed for a class?”

“I’ll just skip it. I want to play pro someday and I could use some pointers. You want me to call the coach? He can meet us there.” The kid headed off at a brisk pace in the direction he’d indicated, already pulling out his phone. “Maybe you could scrimmage with us. Hey Coach, guess who’s—really? No, he’s with me.”

Another kid, this one a little bigger, fell in beside the original kid looking at Sonny with huge eyes.

See, that’s how he’d thought Mandy would have greeted him. Big eyes and awe. Not with anger and resentment. So he told the guys he was only doing her in trade for getting through chem. What was the big deal? Maybe it was awkward for her, but she’d always said those kids at school weren’t her real peers. She was better than the town they came from, and she was going to go on to great things. She was better and in more ways than brains. Great. Now he was hard all over again wanting her. He glanced over his shoulder at the science building. She might still be in her office. Of course now half the school knew he was here so it wouldn’t be a matter of shutting her door and working on her. He needed to know where she lived so he could drop by with some flowers or something. He needed that forgiveness.

More than that, he needed a second chance.

“Coach is cancelling his class so he can meet us at the workout room,” the kid said, cramming his phone in his pocket. “This is going to be amazeballs.”

“Word,” the second kid said.

Three more had joined them. He should have thought this through a little better. Showing up on a small college campus two days after clinching the division was probably going to make him the biggest thing to happen at this school in years. The wise play would have been to keep a low profile, but he’d already screwed that pooch. Might as well make it work for him. To get her forgiveness he had to prove that he wasn’t the kid he was in school, which meant telling people he was into her.

“Any of you guys have class with Amanda Daws?” He scanned the faces. His entourage had grown to fifteen, mixed male and female. Pretty soon the entire student body was going to be trailing him across campus.

“I have Dr. Daws.” A chubby girl in a puffy pink parka scurried her short little legs around the crowd to his side. She reminded him of Mandy in high school. Cute, awkward, cheerful. “I have Dr. Daws for intro chem. I need it for my major. My roommate had her last semester and she said I should take her because she never makes it hard or boring. This is only the second week of class, but she’s been really nice. Do you know her?”

Boring, never. Hard? Always, and in more ways than one. “We went to high school together. She was my chemistry tutor.” Sonny stared ahead. It looked like more people were poised to join the parade. Thanks to the Internet, everybody on the planet was going to know that the love of his life was geeky, goofy Mandy Daws. What if she kept rejecting him? Then he’d be humiliated for all time. It would become a gif like that fumbled snap. However, no pain, no gain. “We dated.”

The girl sighed. “And you came to look her up again? How sweet. Why did you break up?”

Who was this chick? Perez Hilton in disguise? “High school ended. We went our separate ways.”
After I told the guys on the team that I was having sex with her in return for tutoring. That really was a world-class slime ball move. I am such a jackass.

“So are you going to get back together with her?”

Sonny flashed her his patented grin. “If she’ll have me.” Which she nearly had, right there on her desk. “You don’t happen to know where she lives, do you?”

“No, but I’ve got her cell number.” The girl started digging through her backpack.

Mandy would just hang up on him, but the girl had a tablet computer in her hand already.

“Why don’t you write that down for me? Thanks.”

One of the hangers-on rushed ahead to open a door. The original kid started peppering him with questions about plays and routines, which was a much more comfortable topic of conversation. Pink Parka Girl pressed a scrap of paper into his hands so he stuffed it in his pocket. Now he didn’t so much want to hit something as go back to his hotel for a little manual relief and then hunt down Mandy’s home address.

“I saw the pictures, but I didn’t believe it.” The coach was a little round man with an alarming comb over wearing a tweed jacket like he hadn’t transitioned completely from liberal arts to athletics. “Coach Vlasic, just like the pickles. Honored to meet you Mr. Black. I could have gone pro but I blew out my knee in college.” Vlasic patted his leg for emphasis.

“Call me Sonny.” Sonny shook the coach’s hand.

“What brings you to our little university?”

“He’s dating Dr. Daws,” Pink Parka Girl said.

The coach’s face held that same shocked disbelief as Sonny’s buddies’ faces had in high school when he’d let slip that he’d been with Mandy the night before. Been with in a perfectly innocent way. Watching her favorite movie,
Casablanca,
in her parent’s basement. Play it again, Sam. “Amanda Daws from the chemistry department? She never mentioned you.”

“We’re not dating right now. We dated in high school.”

“Oh, and you’re trying to renew the acquaintance.” Vlasic winked. “I’ll be happy to concede to the better man.”

Now it was Sonny’s turn to gape. Mandy was seeing Coach Vlasic of the bad comb over?

“We only went out on a couple of dates. I guess now I know why she knows so much about football. So what did you want to do this afternoon? Hit the weight room, run a few plays?”

Sonny looked around at the eager faces jockeying for position in the hall. If he got hurt, the entire coaching staff would gang up to murder him and cover it up, but getting in a few plays, even with a lousy college team, could be the goodwill gesture that might soften Mandy up. It also might loosen Vlasic’s tongue on Mandy’s address. “Why don’t we run some plays?”

Mandy dragged herself to the door. She’d come home, taken a hot bath with wine and
Casablanca,
and slipped into her favorite leopard print nightgown. Only rayon, but it was comfortable. Now, wrapped in her black velveteen bathrobe, she was waiting for pizza and the bell had tolled.
Hmm,
For Whom the Bell Tolls
wouldn’t be a bad follow-up movie
. She was looking over her shoulder at her DVD collection when she opened the door.