“I thought you had a brother named Eliot,” Jesse calls.
“Nah, my sister’s name is Eliot because my dad had naming rights.”
Tall and athletic with a right knee injury, and a boy’s name? She said it was different. It has to be her.
“Yeah, bring your sister to dinner.” The smile I turn on Campbell is so big he stumbles back. “It’s good for the team that we get to know your family.”
“Since when?” Hammer stands, buck ass naked. “I asked if you wanted to have dinner with me and my sister this summer, and you said no.”
“Your sister tried to molest me under the table during the family dinner at the Spring game,” I remind him.
“Someone’s got to punch your V-card, man. Might as well be my sister.”
“You know the rules,” Matty, another lineman, interrupts. He’s got dark eyebrows from his mother’s Columbian side that always makes him look serious. “No girlfriends. No sisters.”
“That’s a stupid ass rule. My sister is high quality WAG material,” Hammer protests. Hammer’s tried to get one of us to take his sister off his hands ever since he found out she was dating a twenty-five-year-old.
“Your sister is also underage.” I tighten my grip on the towel. I’d sat across from Hammer’s then seventeen-year-old sister, who had rubbed her foot against my dick the entire three-hour dinner. I ended up leaving my seat and standing for the last hour, citing a slight groin pull.
“You’re a virgin?”
We all swivel back to Campbell, who appears rooted to the spot.
“Yeah, man, but don’t bring that up at any parties.” Hammer rushes over and Campbell backs up so Hammer’s free-swinging dick doesn’t slap Campbell in the balls.
“You’re serious.”
“As a heart attack.” It’s not a secret and I’m certainly not ashamed.
Hammer puts his arm around Campbell. “Jack Flash, you were fly out there today, but let me tell you a secret. You will get no pussy at a party this year if you bring up Masters’ V-card. All those sweet honeys rubbing against you on the dance floor will get it into their heads that we all want virtuous chicks. We don’t. We want to get laid.”
I roll my eyes. These guys haven’t spent a night without company since they stepped foot on campus.
“Don’t forget the line of girls who want to be the one to convince Masters to give it up,” Matty chirps.
“Yeah, man, it poisons the well. Don’t do it.” Hammer makes a gun with his fingers and points it at Jack, who appears dumbfounded by this information. Newbies. What can you do?
Laughing, I leave to take a shower while Campbell deals with the truth laid on him by the team.
When I get out, the reason for the new towel rule is standing in the hallway with her eyes pinned to the floor—Stella, one of the team managers, who happens to be the coach’s daughter.
“Coach wants you and Ace in his office now.”
“What for?” Ace comes up.
“Don’t know.” She doesn’t look at Ace and he pretends he’s not eating her up with his eyes. The whole situation between the two is pretty damn amusing, and as long as it doesn’t fuck up the season, that’s how it will remain.
I throw on a pair of cargo shorts and a Warriors T-shirt and shove my feet into a pair of flips. Ace leads the way into Coach’s office.
“Shut the door and sit down,” Coach orders.
As soon as our asses hit the hard plastic, he hands us each a sheet of paper.
“Here’s the list of the new guys. Twenty-six of them. Andersen, you’re in charge of the offense. Masters, the defense list is yours.”
I have ten guys on my list. These are mini leadership tests from Coach. He likes to see what we’re made of off the field. We’re set on defense, having lost only two senior starters last year.
Ace has the bigger task. Some of his guys, like Campbell, are expected to start and make an immediate impact. However, since they haven’t played together before, things like timing and chemistry, knowing what the other player is thinking about before he opens his mouth, will take work.
But they don’t have time. In college, we have very little room for error. One loss and we could be out of the national championship hunt before the season is even underway. Last year we lost in the first round of the playoffs because we couldn’t score. Ace needs to turn that around, like yesterday.
“Any issues we should know about?” I ask, tucking the list away. I already know my guys. I met them at spring camp and again when they arrived for summer term in June. For the most part they were good guys—young, eager, and hiding their homesickness under a thin sheen of bravado.
“Maurice Kim, Kaleb Shannon, and Jack Campbell all have academic issues. Make sure Campbell stays academically eligible. The other two we are redshirting, so spend less time on them. Andre Getty is already making noise about quitting. He could be a solid backup. If we can keep him, that’d be good for the team.”
“There are sixteen players on my list and a quarter of them are already problems?” Ace frowns and shakes his list a little.
Before Coach can tell him to nut up, I snatch a marker off the desk and rip Ace’s sheet from his hand. “I’ll take this one.”
I draw a heavy line through Campbell’s name and toss the marker on the table. “We done here?”
Coach nods. “Make sure they know to stay away from my daughter.”