“Guys, I’m not in the mood to party!”
I sounded like my mom: always whining and complaining, but the guys weren’t listening. I wasn’t in a party mood for real. I hadn’t played ten games in the last season and the way I was feeling, I didn’t know if I would play again.
I was going to be one of those quarterbacks that retired early. Shit, I was only twenty-eight, yet I felt like an old man. Too scared to run, pass, or do anything in case something else snapped. The guys were acting nice about it. Telling me to get a grip and that it was all about the game, but I was so fucking scared of doing anything, including sex!
“You need to get back out there. What happened to Casanova Sebastian?” Mason said as he passed me another beer.
He fucking died when I spent more time watching the game than actually being part of the action.
I took a swig of the beer, I had kept telling him I didn’t want and would end up drinking all the same. As they say, actions speak louder than words, and I may have been saying no but that didn’t stop me from drinking it. He sat down on the deck next to me while the rest of the guys: Paul, Kent, Lucy, and Mia were partying in my pool.
The music was way too loud, they were drinking too much, and it was still early. It wasn’t even dark yet. I was sure that by the time night fell, one of my neighbors would be banging on the door complaining about the noise and shit.
“Yeah man I would if I could. Watch out Kent, you nearly slipped!” I pointed out as he ran by the side of the pool. That was all I needed: one of them to be injured and out of the season. Coach Thomas had already warned them like he did every year to take it easy out of season. Last year, just at the start of the season they were hardly any fullbacks, running backs or quarterbacks. We were all injured one way or another as soon as we finished the first game.
The guys were on a high. They had nearly made it to the Super Bowl, and I wasn’t part of it. They were happy to have gotten so far in the game, but I just ended up sitting watching them like a frigging chump. There’s nothing worse than being part of a team and never getting to play. Since 2013, I’ve had one injury after another. I know that it won’t be long until that’s it, I’ll have to go into early retirement. The game’s got a lot more competitive. Guys are bumping and thumping us as if we’re boxing bags, just to get a win.
“You can’t give up man; I won’t let you,” Kent screamed over as he grabbed his cheerleading girlfriend, Mia. He had a lot to be happy about. Not only was Mia hot, but she was like the Auntie of the cheers. Mia kept them all in line and always had time for everyone, especially her leading man, Kent. They knew each other from high school. Most guys cheated on their girlfriends or got bored as soon as they hit the big time, but not Kent. He had stayed true to her and even though I didn’t understand the whole relationship thing, I found it kind of neat.
“Yeah, yeah,” I sighed as I sipped on the cool beer, thinking that I needed something stronger just to match their energy levels. It was the end of the season and they were taking a break. Mine had started months ago, after I’d had surgery on my back. As soon as I started physiotherapy I felt as if the problem with my transverse had come back to haunt me, as my knee was giving way when I headed back to the gym. I hadn’t told a soul; I just made out that my back hadn’t completely healed. Maybe Mason was right, and it was all in my mind. So far the doc hadn’t found anything wrong, but I just didn’t feel the same.
“Take a swig of this,” Kent said as he handed me his flask. Shit, he only had his trunks on, but he’d managed to grab a flask out of nowhere.
“Errh, where the fuck had you been keeping that?”
He ignored me and headed back into the pool. It had been a while since I’d touched gin, because my cabinet was like a fucking pharmacy. I had so many damn painkillers and meds in there with the warning, “Not to be taken with alcohol,” that I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had a drink. Even when I came off them, I steered clear of drinking just in case I had a relapse and I had to restart my meds.
I started to think positive thoughts as the burning sensation of the gin passed and happiness took over. Before I knew it, I was jumping in the pool waiting for my other surprise. Mason had said that tonight would entail a few friends and a surprise.
Mason, if anything, was predictable. I knew that by surprise he meant a stripper!
I took a few laps and splashed around joining in the party. The other girls must have had a little too much to drink, because they lost their bikini top as the night progressed. Someone entered from the back of the house.
I saw her in heels walking toward the pool as if she owned the fucking place. She had a Giants baseball cap and a tight black dress with buttons right down the center, that made me just want to pop them open and reveal what was underneath. I could tell her body was hot. That dress was so fucking tight.
Shit, she had curves that all the cheers couldn’t compete with.
Hips like J-Lo.
Breasts like Beyoncé.
And fucking lips that made me want her on her knees sucking my cock until next season.
I couldn’t see her eyes, just a few strands of hair that were loosely hanging from the cap.
She made everyone pay attention as soon as she shouted my name.
Mason didn’t just get me a surprise; he gave me a fucking treat of the century. I shouted at the top of my lungs, “Girl just get over here and get naked!”
Coach Thomas said that he was worried about Sebastian for next season, and he wanted me to do some tests to get him up to scratch over the summer. The last doctor did a half-ass job and players were dropping like flies because he wasn’t revealing the extent of their injuries. He spent most of his time boozing and it had taken the club the whole season to figure this out. It was completely unethical. There was so much political maneuvering and backhanding in medicine that no one wanted to rat him out. I thought that it had been bad in the hospital! I suppose I was naive to think that it would be any different in the sporting industry. Maybe being a sports doctor wasn’t such a good idea, but I had no choice: I needed the money. I was hired last week, and my first assignment was to get their all-star quarterback player back on the field for the whole season. Everyone was cheering for me to get in the damn pool.“Sebastian, it’s me.”Then this blue-eyed guy with really tight swimmers on
“Sebastian is even worse than when he was a kid,” I said to Sophia as we both sat down and grabbed some dinner at the Holiday Cocktail Lounge. I’d been in town for a couple of weeks, and we’d planned to meet up tonight in East Village. It was as if we were reliving our college days. One thing I loved about this place was the cocktails; no place beat them. This place was the reason why I went up a couple of dress sizes. The damn cocktails and food were to die for.“Don’t be like that; it’s been how many years?”I looked up and saw that the same Christmas lights were hung above the bar. It was as if this place was stuck in time: we’d changed, but the place hadn’t one little bit.“Can you believe that they still have that?”I pointed to the lights, thinking about the past.She nodded, “Sure, it’s the bar’s trademark. They’re not going to get rid of that. It would be like if they stopped serving cocktails.”She had a point there.“The atmosphere of the crowd, the music and everything, bri
“Sophia, you were always getting me into trouble,” I said as I was danced with some guy that looked as if he’d had more cocktails then we had. As I got closer toward him, I realized that he was old; he made my dad look youthful. Fuck!“I’m not ready to be any guy’s sugar baby!” I said as I pushed him away and started to scan the bar for someone else. Anyone younger than Grandpa!“Let’s see if we’ve still got it.” Sophia had said when she winked at me earlier. “What do you mean?”“Remember we never had any money, so we used to get all these guys to buy us cocktails? Then by the end of the night, we’d tell them that you and I are more than friends.”“That’s so wrong!”“Emma, remember that guy? The one that told you that his dick was so big, that he could convert you!”I squeal as I remember the guy, the idiot telling me that he converted his last girlfriend!That was when we had started scanning the place for guys to buy us drinks and for some reason she had ended up with a hot guy an
I had held my phone in my hand for the last twenty minutes with only one thing on my mind, and that was to call Emma and apologize for what had happened last night. I had managed to grab her card from Mason. The stripper was good, real good at stripping. But I’d lost track of what she was doing, thinking about Emma in my house. She had really brought it all back home. The girl that I’d met when I dropped my big sister at college—and hadn’t stopped thinking about since then—had walked back into my life. That wasn’t something you forgot about in a heartbeat. My parents used to tease me about wanting to go to see my big sis at college all the time. Sure, Sophia and I were close when she was at home. She used to drop me at practice and all that kind of considerate stuff that a big sister would do. But when I first met Emma, she felt like she had put me under her spell or something. I just wanted to go back to that college every damn weekend. Now I thought about it, Emma was my inspiratio
“Why did I agree to this?” I had asked Mason the same question when we left the house and again as we sat in the car. But I had to ask him one more time as we sat on the plane. I was supposed to be resting before the next season, and so far my best friend had me doing everything but rest.He whispered, as he looked around the plane as though someone might be interested in our conversation, “You know why. You were sitting there this morning, just staring at the doc’s card. And let’s not even get started what happened with the stripper.” He held his head down in shame. “A hot, sexy stripper and you were dead man. You think I didn’t know?” I shook my head. “You’re dead down there and if anything can wake you back up, it’s Vegas.”He patted me on the leg as if it was as simple as that. I didn’t even want to go out of town for a day, let alone a weekend, because on Monday Mom would get the results of her biopsy and I wanted to know once and for all if the cancer was back or not. “Even you
“This is crazy; you know that, right?”Sophia nodded as we stood in line to check into the Wynn. The place was wild; from the number of guests that were checking in to the tiled multi-colored flooring, it was a place to have fun. I just didn’t see why we had to come here and couldn’t just wait until the weekend was over. Why did she insist on us coming to act as her baby brother’s sitter? I was a doctor, not a babysitter!She asked me one question; “You ever been to Vegas?” When I told her that I hadn’t, she’d insisted that we came to rescue her brother. I had never been to Vegas, and I hated to admit how naive I felt coming here. I never expected it to be like this, but then I suppose that’s why everyone gets wild in Vegas. It wasn’t because it was a quiet destination; it was the complete opposite. The lighting in the reception was unreal. I felt like a kid visiting the candy store for the first time. They had lights on the walls which looked as if they were spitting fire. Everythi
I took a deep breath, wondering what I’d got myself into. I should tell Sebastian that this wasn’t going to happen, I hated losing, and most of all I hated casinos. I had a feeling that he knew exactly what was going to happen next; I had been naive thinking that I had the upper hand. As they called for the last bidder I wondered if Sebastian knew that he was about to win. “You’re not tricking me are you?”Sebastian smirked, wordlessly answering my question, which should in itself have made me want to leave the table. But my feet felt as if they were stuck in quicksand as curiosity got the better of me. Sophia’s brother had filled out and was so fucking hot. Like too hot. He was once a spotty little kid that used to hang on to my every word. That was back when we’d first met, when Sophia was my roommate back in college. Since then he’d filled out, and judging by the tight biceps that were holding onto me, in more places than one.I could smell his strong musk, and as I turned to him
“Hey, so what’s up with you and the doc?” Kent said as he tried to snap the chips out of my hand. I avoided his grip. “You want your money back; then you’re going to have to win it. Like winners do, not losers.” He passed me a glass of champagne that the waitress had just given him, along with her number. Yep, the big bad giant boys were in town. “Give that to Paul!” I titled my head disapprovingly. I had admired Mia and Kent for being in a relationship, and now Kent was going to act like some dog and cheat on her. Not cool; not cool at all. Sure, I knew that plenty of players did it, but that was their business; none of them were my close friends. Besides, Paul was single and it didn’t matter if he hooked up with nearly every waitress in Vegas; there wasn’t anyone back home waiting for him.“What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas!” Kent said as he slipped a couple of my chips into his pocket. Now I was acting like my mom as I took my chips out of his greedy hands. I was trying to