Chapter 1
Shawn
I woke up the morning after the game with a throbbing headache. I tried to swallow, but there was no moisture in my mouth. Without opening my eyes and exposing my brain to painful sunlight, I felt around until my hand hit a bottle of sports drink. It was warm and there were only a few small sips left, but it would do.
My eyes snapped open when I settled back into my bed and heard someone stirring beside me. Some blonde chick, dressed in one of my shirts, was softly snoring next to me. I opened my mouth to call her name to wake her up, but I stopped. I didn’t have a single guess what her name could be.
Thinking hurt too much. I thought back to last night, scanning my memory for any name I might have heard or said. Nothing.
“Uh, hey,” I said, poking the girl on her bony shoulder. She rolled toward me, smiling. She had dried drool around her mouth, and her smudged eye makeup around her deep-set eyes made her resemble a raccoon. Her long, straight hair was matted in the back and frizzy on the sides. She definitely didn’t look like that when she entered my bedroom.
“Good morning,” she said in a scratchy voice. “I had the best time last night.”
She put her hand on my chest and grazed my bare torso with her fake fingernails until she found what she wanted. She grabbed my erection.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“I get horny in the morning, too,” she cooed. She moved closer to me. I could smell the staleness of cigarettes and vodka on her breath. It made my queasy stomach turn.
“You should go.”
She blinked, and her spidery eyelashes released tiny black flakes.
“Let me give you my number,” she said, searching my messy room for her things. “Maybe we can hang out after the game next weekend. Even better, I know a really great place we can go for brunch tomorrow.”
“No,” I said flatly.
She gave me a quizzical look. She really wasn’t getting it. After slipping on her impossibly high heels, she grabbed a scrap piece of paper from my desk and wrote her digits on it.
“See you later, Shawn,” she said, handing me the slip of paper.
“Bye, Brittany.” I gave a half-hearted wave.
“It’s Stephanie.” She looked hurt.
“Whatever,” I mumbled.
The second she was out the door, I crumpled up the paper and tossed it toward the trash can. It bounced off the rim and landed amongst a pile of discarded papers.
I had been told by a few people that I was starting to get a reputation around school, but I didn’t care. I didn’t really care for much besides football and girls. Football was always my top priority though. The girls came hand in hand with the sport. The closest thing to celebrity status that a college student could experience was to be an athlete.
Football players were at the top of the totem pole, as far as my school was concerned. Everything was free for us—school, housing, food, and all the team-branded swag we could ever want. My closet was filled with school apparel. I had brand new pairs of sneakers gathering dust.
And those were just the benefits that the school could legally offer. The boosters were skilled at giving the football players everything we could possibly need. Guys were given easy summer jobs for great pay and invited over to their mansions for fancy meals and parties. I had heard rumors that a few years back, someone even provided the team with drugs and prostitutes after a championship run. Whether the story was true, it just goes to show the lengths people will go to please us.
That’s why the fact that I’m beginning to get the reputation of football team playboy does little to stop the attraction that the girls on campus have toward me. Every girl thinks that she’s different. They think they can be the one who can break me of my partying ways and be devoted to them.
But, each girl who believes that is the same and the next. They’re passed around from player to player until they find one stupid enough to commit. Then, they ride out the relationship until they get the secondhand fame they desire. Guys like me are the goal. The starters and star players always get the most girls because we’re the most likely to make it to the pros. If you’re the girlfriend or wife of a professional player, your life it set. You get to go to all the celebrity parties, ride on the yachts, and live in the mansions. If the guy is good enough, she’ll never have to work a day in her life.
There’s only so many of us, though, and a lot of girls to go around. That’s where I come in. I can show up at a party, pick the hottest girl in the room, and make her think that she’s the one. I’ll bring her back to my room, have a little fun, and the next morning, I’ll kick her out of my bed. Then it’s on to the next one.
Occasionally, the girls will be upset with me for never calling them back, but then again, they know there’s always that risk when hooking up with an athlete. I think the hardest part for them is learning that they’re not special after all. It sounds harsh, but it’s true. They’re just one out of a few hundred party girls on campus who think their good looks can buy them the celebrity future they desire.
Just as I started dozing off again, my friend, Jack, barged in. There was no privacy when you lived in the fraternity house.
“Dude,” he said. “Just saw the smoke show that left your room. She seemed pretty pissed. What did you do to her?”
“Nothing,” I groaned. “So maybe I got her name wrong. Big whoop.”
Jack laughed. “It happens to the best of us. I guess you won’t be seeing her again.”
“Like I care. There’s plenty more where that came from. Did you pull last night?”
“Did I ever!” Jack said. “Do you remember that one cheerleader? The senior with the curly red hair?”
“No way,” I said. “I thought she was dating that guy on the swim team.”
“She was,” Jack said with a twinkle in his eye. “Now she’s free and looking for some fun. Oh, Shawn, it was indeed fun.”
“Ugh, I’m too hung over for your enthusiasm this morning.”
“I’ve already taken care of it. As we speak, there’s a pledge running to get us fried chicken breakfast sandwiches, hash browns, and soda.”
I sighed with relief. “I love having pledges to do our bidding.”
Jack nodded. “This new group is particularly attentive to our needs. They’re smart to do what we say—they know that the bottom feeders pick up some chum left over from the big fish.”
“Do you think she’ll hook up with me again?” Jack asked.
“Who?” I said absentmindedly.
“Julia, the cheerleader.”
“Why, do you like her? Do you want her to be your girlfriend?” I teased.
Jack’s cheeks turned pink. “Nah, man. She was a good time, that’s all.”
“Do you ever get tired of doing this?”
“Girls?” Jack asked. “You can pull any chick you want. How can you possibly get tired of it?”
I yawned. “I don’t know. It’s just too easy. I kind of miss how things were freshman year.”
“Why? Do you remember how hard it was to pick up girls before we started playing?”
“Yeah, that’s the point I’m trying to make. It was fun then. Sure, we got rejected by some super-hot girls, and that sucked, but there was the thrill of the chase. I don’t feel that anymore.”
“I don’t think you can ever go back to that. You’re too well known around this place.”
“There’s always a few who don’t know or don’t care about football,” I said.
“Yeah, but those girls are weird and rarely hot.”
“I’ll prove you wrong.”
“How?” he scoffed
“Forget bagging the hottest girl or increasing our count. I’ve got a better game. I bet you that I can sleep with an impossible catch before you.”
“What makes a girl impossible?”
I thought for a minute, collecting my criteria. “She can’t approach us first. She has to be genuinely disinterested. And not playing hard to get either. I can see through that shit so quickly.”
“So we do what? Find a girl who doesn’t want us and try to get her to change her mind?”
“Essentially. I’m just so bored with girls who practically beg to sleep with us. It’s getting a little pathetic.”
“If only you spent this much care and interest in your school work.” Jack laughed.
“It’s an art,” I said, rubbing my eyes. A freshman walked into my room and handed us our bags of food without saying a word.
“Good doggie,” Jack said quietly after the kid left.
I ate slowly. I was ravenous, but I wanted to make sure the greasy mess of carbs would agree with my delicate insides.
“Is it a deal?” I asked, wiping crumbs onto my comforter.
“I guess,” Jack said. “Although I don’t really care for the idea that I’ll be wasting my efforts on pursuits that will probably turn me down. It doesn’t seem like an efficient way to get laid.”
“It’s going to be worth it. Trust me. I hardly get off with these girls anymore. There’s just no excitement.”
“You’d better keep it down,” Jack whispered jokingly. “You don’t want a rumor out there that Shawn Rider’s got problems down there.” He gestured at his shorts.
“I’ve got plenty of evidence to prove otherwise, my friend.”
“Fine. If you’re so sure of yourself, then let’s put this little game into action tonight. The freshman mixer is tonight.”
“That stupid school sponsored party? The one at the student union with snacks and soda? Why would we want to go there again?”
“No, you idiot,” Jack said exasperatedly. “The unofficial freshman mixer. The one that’s at that abandoned warehouse where freshmen get their first taste of college parties.”
My eyes lit up. “Oh, that one. I don’t remember it, but I was told that I had a great time.”
“Exactly. It’s going to be a bunch of new students wanting to prove themselves now that they’re away from home, and all the returning students will be there, waiting to watch the spectacle.”
“This is going to be simple,” I said. “I just need to find a clueless girl or maybe one who’s still in love with her high school boyfriend but too drunk to care.”
“Sorority girls work too,” Jack added.
“Maybe the bookish type who is just there because her mom wants her to have fun and make new friends.”
“The women’s studies major.” Jack laughed.
“Then I turn on the charm after she says she’s not looking for a hookup. We talk, we laugh, and at the end of the night, I’ll ask if she wants to come back to my place and she’ll say yes.”
“If you’re really good, you’d find an empty bathroom or closet.”
“Oh, I’m good,” I said. “You’re better off just surrendering now and observing how it’s done.”
“I’ll believe it when I see it. A year being the big time football star has you out of practice.”
“You’re on,” I said, finding a pink thong under my sheets and tossing it in his face. “Now get out of here so I can get some sleep.”
He dutifully shut the door, and I pulled my sheets up over my head. My eyelids felt heavy, but I was too excited to sleep. Besides football, there was little for me to look forward to. School hardly mattered because all I had to do was show up for class, have the tutor “help” me with my homework, and go to practice. I put in very little effort and got the grades I needed to continue playing.
The party scene was my lecture hall. Flirting was homework, and hooking up with an easy chick was like a quiz to me. Finding a truly hard to get woman would be the ultimate test—a test I would pass with flying colors.
I fell asleep while rehearsing different pick-up lines in my head. When I awoke three hours later, my headache was magically gone. I was ready to start drinking again.
Things were picking up at the fraternity house. The guys were talking about their adventures from the night before and bragging about their hookups. The guys that went home alone observed these conversations sheepishly.
I rarely had to recount my stories because there were always girls coming and going from my bedroom. I felt a little bad for them. There was no way to retain dignity when walking home from a fraternity house in the morning.
Living in a fraternity house as a football player had its perks. Most athletes were too busy to join, but the few who did reaped the benefits. I always had insight to where the best parties were and first dibs on the hottest chicks. I was a legend in my house, so they made special arrangements to get me my own bedroom. Very few students on campus had that privilege.
I was part of the two most privileged groups on campus. I had all the connections. It was sometimes difficult to keep up with two social groups, but since I did little studying, I managed.
Before anyone could ask about my conquests, I ducked into the bathroom and took a hot shower. I could smell the booze exiting my pores. I scrubbed pink lipstick off my abs. With a little soap, I’d be as good as new and ready to take part in the night’s festivities.
I loved college. Everything I could want was within arm’s reach for me. I laughed when my mom told me to behave myself as I left home for the new semester. I only had four years here. There would be time to behave once I graduated.
We hope you are enjoying the book so far. To continue reading...
Copyright © 2024 All Rights Reserved
Please log in to recommend or discuss...
