Bubba put his arm around my waist and helped me limp off the field. At the far end, I could swear he gave me a little pat on the rump as he shooed me off toward home like a child. “See ya, Sean,” he said, a little downheartedly.
“It’s not your fault,” I said. It absolutely was his fault, but he’d been trying to be helpful, which was more than I could say for anyone else on the team. But he was already jogging away, back toward the game.
I managed to get upstairs at the Sigma Mu Tau house without encountering anyone or having to explain why I was covered in mud. I took a shower, using soap to clean a scraped area on my knee and palm, applied antibiotic from my first aid kit, and put on some comfy PJs.
Then I sat on my bed. My roommate, Dobbs, was out. I should study, but I didn’t.
It had started to rain again, and I stared out the window, unable to get certain words out of my head.
“Well, I sure as hell hope not. Because if you were stupid on top of that, you sure would have been dealt a raw deal in life.”
That being my body, which was woefully pale, weak, and pathetic, like the guy who gets sand kicked in his face in those famous old Jack LaLane ads. That was the objective truth, so why should Bubba’s words hurt me? He hadn’t even been mean. He’d been nice to me, in fact.
Did that make it worse? Possibly.
Well, of course I was out of shape! Why did he think I volunteered to play ridiculous flag football in the first place? Yes, I wanted to help my fraternity meet Dean Robberts requirements so our house didn’t get closed. The dean told my frat, the Sigma Mu Taus, that we had to have two of our guys on the Alpha Lambda Alpha flag-football team to prove we could all work together or he’d shut us down. Of course, I wasn’t going to let that happen. But mostly, I volunteered because it gave me a chance to get in shape. I mean, those ALAs were buff. They were gorgeous, and I figured some of that could rub off on me.
I was a senior. It was February. I only had a few months left of my undergrad years. And I was still a virgin. I’d spent my high school years taking advanced classes and having no social life. My social life now consisted of role-playing games, video games, and watching TV with my SMT housemates.
I knew where I was going in life. My parents were both geneticists. They worked for the same company—that was how they met. Genome sequencing. They were bright and dedicated. They worked long hours at their research. That would be my life too. But before that, until then, I wanted to… to….
To live a little. I wanted to step outside the box, do something un-Sean McKinney-like. I wanted to party, to ride in fast cars, to have wild-and-crazy sex.
Or any sex!
And to achieve that goal, I needed to be more attractive. Hell, I wouldn’t want to have sex with the limp noddle physique I saw in the bathroom mirror. I desperately wanted to increase my hotness factor. That’s why I’d made it my one and only New Year’s resolution to get fit.
My palm stung. I pulled back the dressing to peek at it, and my stubborn streak kicked in.
Screw you, Alpha Lambda Alpha, you A-hoes. If you think a little scrape is going to discourage me, you’ve got another thing coming. I will play flag football. And I’ll get in shape, too, because I am going to get laid!
Chapter Two
Bubba
I sat on my bed and rotated each foot. Size fifteen, so there was a lot to move. Ankle mobility was really important and strengthened the peroneus, brevis, longus, and tertius muscles of the calf. Still, probably not the best way to spend my time when I was supposed to be downstairs talking to Tray, but I couldn’t get my legs to move. I usually loved hanging with my Alpha Lambda Alpha frat bros, but my whole brain was stuck on Tray’s face when I jogged across the field after screwing up with that Poin. Like he had more respect for dog poop on his shoe. Right. He could get rid of dog shit. Me, he was stuck with.
I should have known better. The Poin—they called him Hedgehog. I guess because of his spiky red hair, but his real name was Sean—had even tried to tell me he was on Tray’s team, but oh no, Mr. Micro-Brain has to say, You’ll be on my team. And the poor guy catches the ball, maybe the first one in his life, smashes his puny chest in the process probably, runs the whole length of the MFing field, and all he gets for it is crushed in the mud and made fun of. Because of me.
Of course, I got my share of crap slung at me. Tray never stopped calling me wrong-way Bubba the whole rest of the game.
And now here I sat. I could say I felt humiliated, but fuck, if I checked out every time somebody called me dumb, I’d be dead about a thousand times. Still, Tray wasn’t usually the one doing the razzing. I liked him and thought he liked me, but nobody got between Tray and his flag football. Hell, when he told everybody in the house we had to have two of those Poins on our team or the dean might close us down, I thought the man was gonna cry.
“Mrowr.” The sound came from outside my bedroom door, a furry paw slipped under it and felt around, claws extended.
That got me off my ass. Brett the cat didn’t come looking for me every day. Usually, he hung on Jesse Knox’s bed, partly because Brett liked Jesse and partly because Jesse was the neatest guy in the house and always made his bed.
I swung the door open, and the big beige fuzzy guy stared up at me like move your ass, buddy. Maybe Jesse sent him to get me. Messenger cat. I leaned down, scooped him up, and flopped him over my shoulder the way Jesse did. He even let me. Time to face it.
Carrying Brett, I jogged down the stairs of our big frat house. Most of the ALA flag players were gathered in the living room already, about twelve guys. Our frat house flag team was one of the best in the whole country. And flag football was a big fucking deal. There were even NFL pro flag teams. So being the best was no small thing. I was as proud to get to play on it as I was to be a linebacker on the Madison Badger’s football team. Well, second-string linebacker, but still.
At that moment, all the ALA flag players looked like somebody stole their pizza. Tray must have told them about what happened at practice.
Tray glanced up. “Hey, Wrong-Way, join the party.”
I felt my own frown but flipped it over fast. “That’s me, man.” I grinned. Teasing wasn’t so bad if you just agreed with whatever they said.
DeWan slid over closer to Rex on the couch and made room for me, which was nice. I flopped down and put Brett on my lap, but he instantly jumped down and ran upstairs.
Rand, the stupidly perfect, blond president of the chapter sat on a chair he’d pulled from the dining room and looked around like he was about to call the meeting to order. He leaned forward, shook his head, and said, “At least we know that we’re going to win the ten-thousand-dollar bet.”
“Yes!” I shoved my fist in the air and then stopped. Everyone was gawking at me like I was nuts—again. I let my arm drop slowly.
Rand gave me a weird look. “I’m talking about the side bet we made with the Poins—that our guys would do better at Quiz Bowl than their guys would at flag.”
“We made that bet because they pissed us off so bad,” Tray groused. “Talking smack about how stupid we are and how lame we’d be at Quiz Bowl. But I don’t care about that bet. I care about winning the flag nationals this year. And with that loser, Hedgehog, on the team, we’re hosed.” Tray jumped up from where he was sitting on a chair next to Rand and stalked toward me, waving his arms. Man, he was really upset. “I mean, how could anyone be that bad? And why did they pick the guy?” Rand nodded in agreement. “The other dude they sent, Dustin, is pretty decent. He’s a competitive diver. But this Hedgehog has to be the ass-end of that pathetic bunch.” He sneered. “Even Jax would be better.”