Consumed: A MMA Sports Romance (38 page)

The girl I’d sat down next to must have
noticed my staring; I nearly jumped out of my chair when she spoke. “He’s
pretty hot, isn’t he?” I tore my gaze away from Zack. The girl—with
short-cropped blonde hair and gray-green eyes—was looking in Zack’s direction
and then grinned at me.

“Yeah,” I said, feeling my heart pounding.
I had to stop thinking about him—but it was impossible when he kept showing up
like this; first the interview I had to do with him and now him being in the
library while I was. If I were paranoid, I would say that there had to be some
way he was manipulating things—it couldn’t be a coincidence that he kept
getting thrown in my way.

White
van syndrome,
I told myself. Since I had noticed Zack
at the party and had ended up having sex with him—putting him at the forefront
of my mind in spite of all my attempts to stop thinking about him—I was apt to
notice anything having to do with him. I might have even ended up going to the
game even if I didn’t have to cover it for the newspaper.

I was being ridiculous, I thought. Zack
was just another person. He didn’t keep showing up in my life for any
particular reason; there were lots of people at the college with us, but there
weren’t so many people that it was impossible for us to run into each other—we
had gone eight weeks without seeing each other, but that was just a
coincidence, and just because I tended to keep strictly to my dorm, the dining
hall, my classes, and the library. I had to get used to seeing him occasionally
or I’d never get over him.

“He’s in here every day,” the girl was
saying. I shrugged, although that piece of information surprised me more than
seeing Zack in the first place. “Always comes out this time of the afternoon.”

That at least explained why I hadn’t seen
him. Normally I would have gone to the Library in the morning—but after the
late meeting with the campus newspaper, I had slept in a bit. Normally I
reserved a private study cubicle, too; but when I’d come in to reserve after
breakfast, they were taken for the rest of the day until the library closed at
midnight.

I pretended to turn my attention back onto
my book as if Zack’s appearance had nothing to do with me—and I was sure it
didn’t. But if I took too much notice of him being in the library, the girl
might ask if I knew him. It was bad enough to have made a public spectacle of
myself in the dining hall, even if no one had really mentioned it to me in the
days since. If she started asking questions, the whole sordid thing might come
tumbling out of me, and the last thing I wanted or needed was to be the subject
of gossip. I didn’t want to be Zack’s pining ex-girlfriend. I just wanted to
get my work done, make my grades, and move on with my life.

It was strange, though; I thought back to
high school, and I tried to remember if I had ever seen Zack set foot in the
school media center. He must have had to go with his English class when they
were learning how to write a research paper, but I couldn’t think of any point
in time when he had gone of his own volition to study. I think he even managed
to skip study hall. He had never been a dedicated student or even a
particularly good student—so what was he doing in the library now? I couldn’t
imagine anything that would make him decide to do better in his classes. After
all, there was a common piece of gossip that most of the football team was
given a certain amount of leniency in getting their work done, turning it in on
time, and even the quality of their work. The college wanted to make sure to
toe the line between making sure they got an education and making sure they
were still able to qualify to play. No one was blatantly passed if they didn’t
do any work, but Zack was smart enough to manage a C without much effort; why
would he put in extra work if he didn’t have to?

I had to work hard to make myself focus on
the task at hand. It was like an itch in my eyes—the urge to look up and see if
Zack was still in the library, if he was actually studying or just goofing off.
I didn’t care, I told myself. If he had somehow become a better student because
the standards were higher in college, then that was good for him; but I still
couldn’t quite credit the possibility of a guy who belonged to the most
notorious frat on campus being a good student. It just didn’t make any sense.
It wasn’t my problem. I didn’t care. I was just there to study. But the
question still purred away at the back of my mind.

CHAPTER
FOUR

On Saturday, I told Jess that I had to go
to the game; she was immediately interested. “Oh man, that’s right; you have to
talk to douchebag afterwards!” She looked me over from head to toe and shook
her head. “Oh, Evie, this is a mess. You’re not wearing this to the game are
you?”

I looked down at my outfit: a long-sleeved
button-down shirt with a cardigan over it for warmth, a pair of jeans, and some
sneakers.

“What’s wrong with this?” I asked. It
wasn’t as cute as what I had been wearing the previous game, but then, I wasn’t
there to pick up a guy. I was there to watch the game, take notes, and
interview Zack. The last thing I was interested in was looking cute.

“Evie, you need to be looking your
absolute best if you’re going to have to deal with him. Makeup, hair, the whole
nine. But not too obvious, of course. Come on.” She dragged me into my room and
started going through my closet. “It’s too cold to wear a skirt this short by itself,
but these tights should be warm enough…ooh, this sweater is perfect. Just
enough cleavage. You’ll be a little chilly but not too bad.”

I tried to argue—I didn’t want to send any
messages that I had no intention of following up on; not to Zack and certainly
not to whoever we were sitting near in the section I had tickets for. Lisa had
given me the newspaper’s standing tickets—close to the field, so that I had an
excellent view and could keep up with everything.

Jess kept repeating to me that if I was going
to have to talk to Zack, I needed to look my absolute best. “You need to make
sure he knows you’re not even thinking about him,” she told me firmly, coaching
me through my makeup. I had relented on the outfit; it wasn’t worth wasting
time arguing with her on the subject.

“But I am thinking about him. I mean, I
have to interview him. Of course I’m thinking about him.”

Jess groaned in frustration. “Evelyn. You
need to show him that you don’t give a good Goddamn about the fact that he just
had sex with you and then pretended like you were nothing. You need to look
like you might have already decided to go home with someone else after the
game. He needs to look at you and think: oh God, what have I done?”

I laughed and finally relented with my
whole heart. I could see Jess’ point. If I was going to have to interact with
Zack, I might as well go into it feeling confident and looking my best.

I looked at myself in the mirror when Jess
was finished with me; I was in our school’s colors, but it wasn’t a super-obvious,
school spirit outfit. Everything seemed to go together, and I looked as good as
I could without being incredibly dressed up. Jess had managed to do my hair in
such a way that it looked great—but it didn’t look as if I had slaved over it
for an hour. My makeup was just enough to highlight my best features without
being obvious—unless I was going to a club or something, I didn’t like to look
like I was wearing a mask of makeup. Jess was excited at the thought of me
getting some kind of comeuppance—and the idea of going to such an important
game without even having to badger me to go with her. I shook her off and sent
her to her own room to get ready; we were going to have prime seats, and I
pointed out that there could be some cute guys where we were sitting—she might
as well be prepared to flirt. That sent her to her room and I spent the next
thirty minutes fidgeting, trying to compose the notes I had put together about
the game and the stakes. I knew more than a little bit about football from dating
Zack in high school, but I wanted the article to be as good as possible.

We went to the stadium and I showed our
tickets to the person at the entrance. Unlike the last time, Jess hadn’t tried
to bring anyone with us; I only had two tickets, so it wouldn’t have done any
good, anyway. The seats were excellent—and if I were seriously interested in
football they would have been a lot more thrilling. As the stadium filled up
with people, I called all the details to my mind. It was the second to last
game of the regular season and a qualifying game for the bowls. Our team was
number one in our conference and the college we were up against was number two;
they’d only lost one game that season. It was a tense game—the school we were
up against wasn’t our traditional rivals, but they were a good team, with a
solid lineup.

A lot of people on campus were speculating
since the first string quarterback was still out of commission. He’d been
injured badly in the game that Zack had taken over and was still recuperating,
in no shape to play. Zack, I knew, was a good quarterback. I’d watched him play
plenty of times in high school as his girlfriend, and the previous game he had
taken the challenge of leading our team to victory after the shakeup without
hesitating. But some people were saying it was bad luck, no matter what Zack’s
skill level was. They had been saying amongst themselves that it was almost
certain that Zack would end up injured this game—that we’d be doomed. It was
the kind of talk that people use to hype themselves up, to raise the stakes for
the game itself, and I knew it. But in spite of how angry I still was at Zack
for using me the way he had, I couldn’t deny that the thought of him getting
seriously injured worried me at least a little bit.

It was cold out, and I tried not to fidget
in my seat as I waited for the game to start. In spite of myself, I found I was
looking out over the field to try and see if I could see Zack on the sidelines.
Of course, until the team made their big entrance, I wouldn’t see anything at
all. It was stupid, but I was anxious about the situation. I just wanted to get
it over with.

“Stop staring, Evie,” Jess said, elbowing
me in the ribs. “Talk to some people, take a few notes.”

I took her advice and asked people around
me what they thought about the game. The band was playing, readying for the big
event, and I occasionally had to shout to be heard over them; I didn’t want to
feel excited but it was impossible as more and more people got to their seats
and started to cheer our school and exchange insults with the other team’s
fans. I took a few different quotes and wrote a few notes about what the band
was playing for the sake of color in the article; and then there was nothing to
do but wait.

Fortunately, Jess’ suggestion had eaten up
a good bit of time and I wasn’t left waiting for very long. The opposing team
took the field first, making a splashy but not over-the-top entrance and
basking in their fans’ cheers. It was an important game—the other side of the
stands was totally full. Then, after they finished warming up and went to their
sidelines, our marching band started up with our school’s fight song. They
played the big cheer part and then started in at the beginning, and
everyone—including me—was singing along as our team came out on the field. I
was cheering with everyone else, swept up in the fervor of the crowd. I wanted
to just be excited about the team as a whole, but I found myself looking for
Zack amongst his team, finding his jersey and staring intently. If he was
nervous, there was not a single sign of it in his body language or on his face.
The whole team looked confident—but then, I thought, they should. We were
number one in our division. This game would be tough, but I knew Zack was a
capable quarterback.

The game finally began and I started
taking notes in earnest. I listened carefully to the play-by-play through an
earbud in my right ear, not quite blocking out the crowd around me in my
interest in getting as much detail as possible. From the first snap, it was
clear that the stakes were high for both teams. It was a brutal game right
away, both sides pumped up and looking for a prime spot in the bowl games. My
heart was pounding as I watched one play after the other. In the first half,
the teams were almost even—we would score only for the other school to battle
back to a tie. We would try to get our lead back and spend several plays
struggling; and then the situation would be reversed. There were interceptions,
sacks—once, Zack was down on the ground for longer than he should be and
everyone held their breath. When he got up without limping and went back to the
huddle, everyone exhaled in relief.

The halftime show was amazing—all that
tension built up between our school and the other college made for a
spectacular competition between the two bands. I wrote down all of the songs
that were played, took notes on the different formations, and even snapped
pictures. I took pictures all through the first half as well, trying to keep
them evenly distributed between pictures of Zack and pictures of the team as a
whole and pictures of the other team. Even though I knew I’d only get a couple
of shots in the final article, I didn’t want to turn in a dozen pictures and
have eight of them be of Zack.

Then it was the second half of the game.
Both teams came back out looking almost as pumped as they had been to start
with—which, considering how tense and brutal the first half had been was really
saying something. Everyone was full of energy, and I was almost worried that I
would end up going deaf from all of the screaming. Once more in the third
quarter, it was a hotly contested game; both teams threw out their most
challenging plays and both teams worked hard to try and find the weakness in
the other, the one vulnerability that would let them get far enough ahead that
the game would be conclusive before the final quarter. We hadn’t used our time
outs that much in the first half, but the coaches seemed determined to use all
of their allotted time in the second.