“It’s the bomb, Lucy girl. All the chicks I want. Everyone bends over backward to give me a pass. Even my professors give me a high five and the TAs suggest that I can take it easy. It’s nothing like high school, that’s for sure.” He stretches his legs out and folds his arms behind his head. His smug look reminds me again of what he was doing before I arrived. Or should I say as I was arriving?
Which reminds me, “Am I going to need a set of sheets for the sofa?”
“Take the bed. Marissa and I didn’t make it to the bed.” His words hold about as much emotion as a stone. Poor Marissa. As if to emphasize his disinterest in the topic of Marissa and their hookup, he flicks on Family Feud. Steve Harvey asks what the top five answers are for the question “something people do when they are tired.”
“Drink caffeine,” I guess.
“Take a nap,” is Ace’s answer, then he asks off-handedly, “Want to come to the Gas Station with us tonight?”
“No.” I kick my backpack. “I’m working on some things for the mock trial team.”
“I can go and beat her up,” he suggests.
“You really can’t because I’m sure that would be grounds for suspension. I can see the headlines now. ‘National Championship quarterback arrested for assault and battery.’” But I’m touched by his instant defense.
Ace tips his head back and drains his bottle. He has the next one open and poured down his throat before he responds. “Better than ‘former National Championship player demoted in favor of true freshman recruit,’” he says bitterly.
I blink in surprise at his quick change in mood. A moment ago, he was complacent and self-satisfied and now he’s pissed off? What’d I miss? “What are you talking about?”
Ace’s face darkens. He finishes the second bottle and opens a third. “Nothing. It’s nothing.”
Every once in a while, he gets in these I hate everyone so I guess I’ll go eat worms moods. Privately I refer to it as male PMS, but I shouldn’t be surprised because Ace’s bad moods usually occur in the off-season.
During the season, he’s focused and determined and he rarely sulks. These small snippets of time when he can generally ignore school and focus on drinking and screwing girls all day is when he becomes maudlin and unbearable.
You’d think he’d be the most upset during the season. I read the sports blogs, sometimes. I can’t spend too much time on there because I get angry on Ace’s behalf, but no one talks about him being an NFL quarterback. In fact, no one really talks about him playing beyond college. When they talk about him, it’s almost as if he’s a liability to the team—one that the vaunted defense manages to overcome game after game after game.
But no, it’s the downtime that gets to him. Ironically, that’s when I get to spend the most time with him because he isn’t up at the crack of dawn for practice and going to bed early because of curfew. And in this mood, he’s not going to share anything unless he’s ready, so I try changing the subject, but he beats me to it.
“You see Matt Iverson again?” Ace’s tone is nonchalant, but I don’t miss the slight edge to it.
“No. Why?”
He shrugs, not taking his eyes off the game show. “Just wondering if he’s still bothering you.”
“He was never bothering me to begin with. I told you, he was nice.” This new topic is just as bad as the old one.
“And I told you, he’s a dog. You’re not in the locker room, Lucy. They’re all dogs. Or maybe they wish they were, because if they could lick their own balls like a dog, they’d never leave their rooms.”
Matt Iverson is a foot taller than me, ripped like a stone statue, and big enough to break me in half. I nearly swallow my tongue at the image of the big guy bent over, sucking his own dick because that is kind of hot. Wisely, I don’t share this thought with Ace.
“Guys like Ives spend hours on Instagram before away games, looking up sorority pictures or local ‘talent,’ as they call it. Then they private message these girls and set up hookup dates. On every single away game,” he stresses.
Okay, that is skeevy and gross when Ace puts it that way, but something impels me to pony up yet another defense of Matt. “They’re young and single, right? And as long as they aren’t hurting anyone, then it’s none of my business.”
“Hammer, Ives’s best friend, nearly sat a game last year because he’d been injured by his girlfriend. He went to an away game, hooked up with a local. His girlfriend drove up to surprise him.”
I grimace. “I can guess what happens next.”
“Not really. He convinces his side piece to hide in his gym bag. Girlfriend comes in, starts making out with Hammer, his dick still wet from his previous go around.” I hate it when Ace gets like this, but I started it, so I have to sit back and let whatever is bugging him eat its way out of his system. “But it’s hot in the gym bag, so the side piece pops out and tries to leave. Almost makes it out before the girlfriend sees something move out of the periphery of her eye. The two get into a big fight. Hammer gets bashed on the forehead with a lamp. That’s Ives’s best friend.”
I don’t point out that the story is about the best friend and not Matt but I get Ace’s point. Matt is exactly that expensive purse. I give up on offering up excuses for him and instead, pat myself on the back for relegating him to the bad for me column along with carbs and too much liquor.