Home > Downed (Gridiron #3)(13)

Downed (Gridiron #3)(13)
Author: Jen Frederick

“It’s all good,” Dawn answers, twisting around from the passenger side to look at me. “You tell her about your new project?”

I nod. “Of course.”

“Good. So now you can tell us,” Kayla teases as she starts the car. “You’ve been too secretive about this one and that needs to change.”

I grin. “I haven’t been secretive. I just haven’t quite figured him out yet.”

“It’s not hard,” Dawn says dryly. “From all accounts, he’s a sleaze.”

“Yeah, you picked a tough one,” Kayla agrees. “I was checking out the AO forum last night and there were a ton of posts about Ace from sisters at our Western State chapter.”

I nod again. I looked at those forums, too. I saw a lot of “ASSHOLE! STAY AWAY!” and “This guy fucked me and then never spoke to me again” warnings. But that’s the way it is with these guys, and if no one takes the time to teach them the right way to treat a woman, one day in the future they’ll crush someone like Ginny who won’t be able to recover. So, warnings aside, I’m not giving up on Ace.

And truth be told, I truly didn’t sense a lack of respect when I was with him last night. He was attentive to my needs. He was honest about his intentions. There’s something redeemable about him. I'm sure of it.

“Either way, I call dibs on him when you’re done,” Dawn announces, grinning at me in the rearview mirror.

“What about me?” Kayla interjects. “I’ve dated three duds in a row. If anyone deserves a Bryant reject, it’s me.”

I lean forward and pat her shoulder. “You’ll find the right one.”

“No, you should give me the right one,” she replies. “And I’ll take Ace. It’s unfair that Greg Betton went to that Delta girl! All your boys should end up with one of us AOs.”

“Now, Kayla, you know I can’t control that. Love goes where it needs to go.” I slide back into my seat.

“Why can’t you put a good word in for me while you’re correcting Ace’s behavior?” she asks.

Dawn flicks Kayla’s arm. “Stop whining—I haven’t had a relationship since sophomore year. So if anyone is more deserving, it’s me.” She twists around to look at me. “I wonder if he’s good in bed. He must be or the sisters up in Western State would never have kept sleeping with him. God, he’s hot.” She fans a hand in front of her face

“Truth. I nearly orgasmed when he grabbed Carlene’s asshole ex by the collar,” Kayla says.

“Right? I mean, he can’t be that bad?” Dawn directs this last question toward me.

I shrug. “I know as much as you do. We’ve all read the same stuff and heard the stories. He’s a dog, and he tends to flit from one woman to another without much regard for her feelings, but we also saw him stand up for a stranger. I’m sure there are other hidden depths to him that need teasing to the surface.” I don’t share that I found him unusually perceptive in the bedroom.

Making love with Ace is an extraordinary departure from my usual set of behaviors, and I haven’t quite worked out what it all means. I’m terribly attracted to him, but my program is a catch and release one, not a catch and keep. Until I can figure out my exact path forward, I’m not sharing those particularly intimate details with my sisters—not even Ginny.

Dawn twists to face the front again and rests her head against the back of the seat. “He’s got the biggest hands. His dick must be enormous.”

Kayla nods. “I swear I saw an outline of it the other night and it was fine. And his lips—I wanted to bite them.”

A twinge of pain zips through my arms and I look down to see that I’ve clenched my fingers together so tightly that I’ve hurt myself. Kayla and Dawn can’t stop rhapsodizing about Ace’s physical features, and for some reason, that really bothers me. I mean, it’s not like I plan to keep Ace, but do they need to spend so much time talking about his private parts?

“Hey, what’s our charity goal again?” I ask in an attempt to divert their attention.

“Five thousand,” Kayla says immediately.

“It’s an impossible goal,” Dawn moans.

“We should start charging more for pies. They take a lot of time to make, and since it’s for charity I don’t see why we aren’t jacking the prices up.”

“That’s not a bad idea.” Dawn makes a note in her phone. “Maybe we can charge forty a pie and cake and maybe fifteen or twenty for a dozen cookies.”

I let the rest of the conversation about baked-good pricing swirl around me while I try to figure out why in sweet heaven I felt annoyed by my very best girlfriends talking about one of my projects. Because that’s all Ace is to me—a project. An asshole to be made into a gentleman who won’t drive precious girls to take their own lives out of grief.

Daddy has a ritual. Well, he has lots of rituals. People in sports are unusually superstitious. Whether intentionally or whether it was beaten out of him by his own momma, my daddy’s superstitions don’t have anything to do with not washing your socks or your hat or jersey. Instead, he likes to have the same meal before every game—beef roast, cheesy potatoes, and almond green beans. It has to be prepared by Momma, although since Ginny’s death, I've been doing most of the preparing while Momma sits at the kitchen table directing traffic. She’s never fully recovered from losing her oldest daughter.

   
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