It was fall semester, and I was feeling great. I’d spent the summer at my aunt and uncle’s lake house. My parents weren’t too happy that I didn’t come home, but they spent a couple of weeks up there with me. I’d made some money, and I was ready to settle back into campus life. Football camp had started in mid-August, so Tank and I were well into our routine. Brian “Tank” Emerson and I were unstoppable. He parted the seas for me in large crowds and blocked anyone that could crush me on the field. He was my best friend.
I was tempted to get bored with the same scene—wide-eyed freshman girls looking to lose their virginity, and frat parties right and left. Tank had pledged our freshman year, but even as a Phi Kappa Psi, he opted out of the frat house our sophomore year to room with me in the dorms. We were kings of the castle, the dream team. Tank had privileges at the frat house as a brother, so we never had to worry about a lack of parties or social activities. We never had to worry about that as football players, period.
It was Sunday afternoon, and we were half studying, and half watching the highlights from the pro games on tv with the door to our room open. The top floor was mostly made up of our teammates, with a few exceptions. We had a triple that term, and Tank sat in our giant beanbag chair in front of the tv, while I pretended to work on a paper for statistics class. I’d skated by under the radar with 1- and 200-level classes, but as a business major, shit was getting real this year. I wasn’t sure I could keep up my grades without a lot less partying and a lot more help. I just couldn’t worry about it now. The Vikings were had gotten their asses handed to them by the Saints, and I was trying to see what had gone wrong. That, and Kirby, our roommate cornerback, was giving his own commentary on the game along with the television announcers.
“That’s some bullshit and you know it, ref!” He hollered, as if the referee could hear him from inside the television.
“What are you talking about, man? His left foot was clearly out of bounds!” Shouted Tank from his chair. That earned him a knock on the head from the football in Kirby’s hand. Except Kirby missed and knocked the bottle of beer out of Tank’s hand. The bottle didn’t break, but half of the beer inside splattered everywhere when the bottle fell to the floor.
“What the fuck?” Tank heaved himself up out of the beanbag chair. “You’re gonna pay for that, asshole.” He picked up the bottle off of the floor and downed the rest of the beer out of it as he lumbered toward Kirby.
“Shouldn’t be drinking anyway,” Kirby snickered. “Isn’t this like, your twelfth beer today, man?” He was exaggerating, but it was true, Tank did love his beer on a Sunday afternoon. And evening. And almost every other day. But it was hard for him to overdo it because of his size. He’d had a big dinner too, so it wasn’t like he was about to pass out or anything.
“Jesus, you two, can you knock it off? I’m trying to be academic over here,” I said with mock annoyance.
“Buck, that screen on your laptop has the same pathetic sentence it did two hours ago: ‘Statistics is for Sissies,’” said Tank without even looking at me. He was about to grab Kirby, or sit on him, one or the other.
“Fuck you, man. Just ‘cause I’m trying to make something of myself. And Kirby, clean that shit up, the maid’s on vacation this week.”
“I’m trying, man,” Kirby squeaked. Tank had yanked him down from the top bunk like a sack of potatoes and had him in an effortless one-armed choke hold. I just shook my head and turned back to my laptop to try and accomplish something in the way of homework.
At that moment, I heard group of female voices from the hallway, one of which was the unmistakable cackle of Vanessa Fisher.
I looked up again, and Tank had dragged Kirby to the doorway in his chokehold. “Here comes trouble of the female kind,” he said.
“Fuck, man, let me go,” complained Kirby, and Tank promptly shoved him out into the hallway where he fell at the feet of Vanessa and her two friends just as they approached our room. “Good evening ladies,” he said as he stumbled to his feet. The girls giggled at him.
“Hey, Kirby,” laughed Vanessa. “Is Buck here?” Shit. No red-blooded man in his right mind would have been anything but glad that a hot little thing like Vanessa was sniffing around him. Hell, she was more than sniffing. She’d been after me since the first week of school. And if I was a betting man, I’d say she even had me scoped out before she filled out her application. She was just that determined, and that’s what bothered me. But she did keep things interesting. We’d made out a couple of times, and I finally let her blow me. But so far, I’d kept her out of my bed, and I’d sure as hell stayed out of hers. I intended it keep it that way. With no help from my roommates, I might add.
“He’s right inside,” said Kirby, as he swept his arm dramatically. I wanted to choke him myself.
“Evening, girls. Welcome,” added Tank, as he stepped side to let the girls in. But Vanessa just leaned in and looked at me.
“Hi Buck,” she said and smiled at me. All I could see was her bare legs and her sneakers. Lord only knew what she had on under her coat. And normally, that would be a welcome distraction from everything. But something was different about her, like she was more determined than the average girl to get her hooks into me. Something was different about me too, this year. I was afraid I was going to sink academically. I needed at least a nomination for the Heisman to get the pro recruiters interested in me. I felt a lot of pressure. “The squad’s on their way over to my room. I thought you and some of the guys from the team would like to come too. Listen to some music. Have some brews with us.”
It was one of those moments when you can’t help knowing what you know. And what I knew was that Vanessa was interested in making a good impression with her peers even more than she was getting me into bed. As a matter of fact, they went hand in hand. Looking at my goofy roommates, I also knew I wasn’t going to be able to talk my way out of this one. I guess I had my own reputation to uphold, and upper class stick in the mud wasn’t part of that.
Kirby was making faces behind Vanessa’s shoulder, and Tank was just grinning. Neither of them played the most glamorous positions, and they were always in favor of any opportunity to up their game with girls, especially of the eager freshmen type.
“What do you say, Buck?” Boomed Tank. “Let’s cruise over and hang with the honeys for awhile? Then we can stop by headquarters. They had a barbecue today, bound to be some leftovers for us to scavenge.” By “headquarters” he meant the frat house. I knew I wasn’t going to get any more written on my paper whether I went to Vanessa’s room or not, and the frat boys’ leftover barbecue would still beat whatever lame snacks we had in our room any day.
“Sure, why not?” I tried to be casual about it.
“Yes!” Vanessa looked like she’d just won a game show prize.
“Good man, good man,” said Kirby. He shoved into the room past Vanessa and had his jacket on before I could say another word.
Tank plucked his jacket off the floor by his bed. Vanessa had come all the way inside the room ahead of Tank and launched herself at me before I had a chance to get my jacket off the back of my desk chair. She plucked her bubble gum out of her mouth as she wound her arms around my neck.