Hook Up (A Bad Boy Sports Romance) (7 page)

“
G
et
your sorry Texas ass in the car,” Slade barked when he stopped by my off-campus apartment to pick me up for the pub crawl. “We’re late as fuck.”

“Can’t be late for a pub crawl, dumbass,” I yelled. “And didn’t you say the party don’t start till you show up?”

“If the squad ain’t there, it ain’t no party, son,” Tre piped up from the backseat behind Slade. Evan was riding shotgun so I jumped in beside Tre, who had his hand held out waiting for a fist bump to greet me.

I was ready to head out with the boys even though I hadn’t been away from them long enough to miss their ugly mugs. We’d all been at summer school, which was customary for members of the football team member, to make sure we kept our grades up and our bodies in shape all year long. A few hours earlier I had stopped by the frat house to hang with him, Tre and Evan, who had all made it to campus before me. Slade and Tre were local. Evan was from somewhere up north, and as we were always battling, I didn’t give a crap where he was from. That guy had a mouth on him that was probably worse than Jo’s.

I wondered what she was up to right about now.

Mo and Chad were the only two from our more senior bunch who weren’t back yet. Had I known the whole squad wasn’t here yet, I’d probably not have rushed to leave that little Beaumont hotel so fast.

I was having a sweet flashback of Jo and me getting busy when Evan started his usual crap.

“Let me be the first to say, I don’t give two fucks what any of you did over the past week. We all did the same fucking shit. We saw our folks. We drank like fish. We ate disgusting unhealthy food. We didn’t keep up with workouts. And we fucked some girls. The only difference between me and you losers is I got to tie some of them up and give one or two a nice little spanking. Did I mention it was topless tassel and ball gag night at the karaoke place up the street from my house?”

“Too much fucking information,” Tre shouted. “Keep that freaky shit to your damn self.”

“And the fact that you spent your whole week off inside a strip club isn’t freaky?”

“No, it ain’t. It’s quality time with my hoes and bitches. The lap dances were off the chain!”

“Here we go again.” Evan shook his head and turned back to face forward.

“I’m telling y’all that’s what we need up in the frat house.”

“A strip club?”

“I’ll settle for two stripper poles in my room. Our usual groupies would be all over that shit.”

“I’d like to be there when you pitch it to the landlord.”

Slade, quarterback and team captain, raised a hand to get everyone’s attention. “Listen up, sons. I got an announcement to make.” He waited until we all simmered down before he continued. “I’m about to make a bold prediction. Who’s ready to hear it?” We all nodded in his direction. “We are going to
win
the SEC Southeast Conference championship this December, and then we’ll move on to
scoop up
the playoff semifinals. After that, we’re gonna break some skulls and
take home the Nationals
. Who the fuck’s with me?!”

“Fuck yeah!” we all shouted, barking out our usual loud chanting, which was twice as loud in the car with the windows up on account of the heat and humidity.

“And every one of us graduating this year is getting into the NFL. That’s me, Chris and Evan. Tre, you’ll have to hang on until you’re juvenile ass is old enough to graduate.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know.”

“What are you, eighteen?”

“Nineteen, motherfucker.”

“You’re still too young for strip clubs.”

“That’s not what your momma told me.”

Slade grumbled, then he continued. “Who else? Chad’s got a shot too. Mo, well, he has to get his grades in order. I ain’t too sure he can pull it off this year, but he will for sure by next season…Getting back to the point. This. Is. Our. Fucking. Year!”

“Woot!”

“We’re gonna bring it like we own it, because no one can take us on.”

“Hell yeah!”

After a while we got into the Baton Rouge pub district near River Road. He parked near the meeting spot for the first spot on the pub crawl. “We’re here. Let’s drink our faces off until we pass the fuck out.”

* * *

A
fter our first
stop on the pub crawl, the rest of the evening was a bit of a blur. I should have paced myself, but then again, who can really do that on a night like this? First of all, someone had let Tre do the organizing of the route. Bad fucking idea. Tre may have been a local, but he was not the right guy to pick if you had a simple set of tasks needing to be done.

Tre was the walking reincarnation of Chuck Sherman from
American Pie
, except all anyone needed to do was replace the Sherminator’s fascination with robots to an unhealthy preoccupation with strip clubs. Tre even looked like Chris Owen—well, an African-American, wealthy Chris Owen, with an athletic build and dark curly hair. Tre was probably just as uber-rich as our buddy Chad. His parents were both very successful entrepreneurs. Tre had this thing about lists. A five-item list of things to do would get deconstructed, morphed and expanded to the two hundred and seventy-six component parts, usually involving one or more stops to nearby strip clubs. If his parents had ever found out Tre spent a solid third of his time in college at those places, they were sure to get him into long-term weekly counseling.

What was worse about Tre was his best friend, Pappa Thumbs. Pappa Thumbs—also known as Franko Salvatore, which was his real name—was a sophomore here at college, and a born and bred third generation Italian. He told us that was what friends called him in his hometown because his father really did have two thumbs on one hand. Dude even had a picture of it in his phone. One thumb was normal sized, and the other was a small, almost boneless looking version of a thumb, just dangling from a spot close to his wrist. I thought the picture was photoshopped for sure. Someone at the frat house got so tired of calling the kid Pappa Thumbs, our new nickname for him was Pat, which was nowhere near as menacing. Pat said he was next in line to take over the Syndicate, which he said was code for the mafia unit that ran all organized crime on the Southeastern seaboard. Most of us thought he was just another shit-talking rich kid.

Pat was not on the college football team. Thank fuck for that, because whenever Tre brought Pat out to hang with us, everything all went to shit. That was a match made in hell. Tre, his list and strip club fetish, and Pat. We met up with Pat at the first stop. He was standing there with eight drop dead gorgeous women around him, all waiting to kick off the night in style with us. Christ, the man was out here in the Louisiana heat wearing an all-white three-piece suit to go with his mafia image, a white wide-brim fedora hat, and a Cuban cigar hanging out of his mouth.

“Gentlemen,” he greeted us. “I’ve set up the finest set of drinks for us inside with my guy. He’s the best bartender in all of Baton Rouge…a mixologist.”

Slade stopped him right there. “Dude. We didn’t come down her for girly neon colored drinks. Fuck the mixologist. We want what’s on tap, or the hard stuff to get you and Tre shit-faced quick enough to do stupid shit and make tonight interesting.” He eyed two of the ladies. “On another note, who are these fine young things you brought along, Pat? Are these for us?”

Pat took a long drag on his cigar and nodded. “Uh-huh. Take your pick.”

The ladies gathered around us and with Pat leading the way, we made one hell of an entrance. We must have had enough booze in that first stop to make the entire college campus drunk as skunks. That was our second mistake after letting Tre set up the itinerary. Things took a nose dive when the pub crawl turned into a pub drive—in the limo Pat had hired for the evening. At least none of us were getting slammed with a DWI tonight. That may have been the only upside.

We rolled up to the second stop, and the minute we got there everyone in the limo but Tre and Pat did a collective eye-roll. It was the Blue Bayou Gentleman’s Club. A strip club.

“We’re not going in there,” Slade announced. “Pat, get your driver to find us a pub, not a fucking peep show.

“This is a fine drinking establishment, gentlemen. Anything you order inside is on me. I’ve got a tab. Tre does too.”

For whatever reason, that got Slade interested. “Fifteen minutes and we’re outta there, got it? If any of you buy me a lap dance you’re getting your teeth knocked out.”

We didn’t even make it to the table when shit went down. Four mean-looking men with grimaces on their faces took one look at us and got up in our space. Every one of them was dodgy, angry and so fucking shady I thought it might have been a prank. Credit where it’s due, I may have slapped one of them in the face to see if they were serious.

He was one mad-looking motherfucker.

And no, he wasn’t part of the night’s plan.

All I remember after that was crash landing into two tables where patrons were having drinks and taking in the show.

I believe it was Evan and Slade who helped me to my feet, but the damage was done. The women with us scattered off, more grumpy men joined the drunken brawl, and that was that. It was not pretty. Drunk men fighting never is, not where half the alcohol-driven fisticuffs ended up missing and sending men spiraling clumsily into shit. Add the puking and beatdowns, and we were in a sorry state for stop three, which I have no recollection about.

There may have been a waterfront. Maybe a patio. Someone was dancing on me for sure, but hell if I remember anymore with the whoopass I got at the Blue Bayou. I woke up with a nasty hangover at the frat house about noon the next day, smelling like puke, booze and ass. Maybe drunken amnesia was a good thing. When I could finally open my eyes halfway and walk in more or less a straight line, I took a cab home.

I plugged in my phone and unlocked it to set the alarm when I noticed a text came in from Jo that said, ‘
I’m kinda jealous.
’

Wow.

Awww hell no.

I checked my text log between us. It appeared that at every stop on the pub crawl after the Blue Bayou, I’d snapped a selfie outside the bar or pub we’d visited—and I’d sent them all to Jo. Pat was in every shot, standing there in the background with mafia hat, his bevy of girls and his cigar, cool as punch with his suit still perfectly white and untouched. How the fuck did he pull that off? How in hell were these pictures so clear when I probably could barely stand up? There was even a shot of me with three of the ladies behind me who had all raised their shirts and exposed their breasts just in time.

Naked boob chicks in my selfies.

I’d texted them all to Jo.

And her only reply was, ‘
I’m kinda jealous.
’

I replied with, ‘
no need to be,
’ and decided I’d phone her later on to hear what she really thought, but not now when my head was still pounding and I was unlikely able to string together full sentences. So I went back to bed.