Consumed: A MMA Sports Romance (40 page)

I shook my head and slipped out of the
passenger seat, taking a deep breath. I had to admit that the choice of a date
that harkened back to our relationship rattled me a bit. What was he up to? I
couldn’t think that Zack didn’t have some kind of bigger game in mind. But if
he had just wanted to get back at me for dumping food on him, why would he pick
somewhere pleasant?

I was fully prepared for Zack to try and
ruin the memories I’d had of our relationship dating each other in high school.
Instead, he insisted on paying the fees—even buying us each a beer to take out
onto the path. I started to relax but never fully let down my guard; it was
hard, because Zack seemed to be determined to be as charming as humanly
possible. He joked and smiled, and I couldn’t quite keep myself from feeling
the little frisson that went through me when he touched my arm, or brushed
against me moving to the tee. I reminded myself that it had just been sex for
him—that there was nothing between us. I also reminded myself to be on the
lookout for any sign that Zack was going to try and get his revenge on me for dumping
food on him.

“You know,” he said, lining up his shot at
the fifth hole, “I have to admit that I was kind of a jerk to you the other
day.”

“You mean yelling at me in front of your
team?” I didn’t bother clarifying that it was only yesterday; there was no
point in it.

“No—although that was kind of an asshole
thing to do, too. I mean, not talking to you after we had sex. It was just a
one-off thing but I shouldn’t have just totally gone off the radar.”

“Well I didn’t really call you either,” I
admitted, watching his golf ball hit the bumpers and end up a few feet away
from the hole.

“Yeah, but I should have at least checked
to make sure that we were okay—like, we have history.”

“Oh, is this suddenly the kinder, gentler
Zack?” I rolled my eyes and watched him sink the putt.

Zack grinned. “You used to think I was
charming.”

“You used to
be
charming.”

Zack laughed and gestured for me to take
my turn. I looked over the course. If I could hit the bumper just right, I
could sink the ball in one—putting me just slightly ahead of Zack. I lined up
my shot and got into position, looking from the ball to the part of the bumper
I wanted to hit. It wasn’t impossible. I went to hit the ball, bringing the
club back carefully.

“You know, you were actually kind of hot
when you were angry that day.” Zack’s comment interrupted my putt and my ball
bounced, not rolling into the hole but instead veering just beyond it.

“You’re cheating!” Zack grinned and
followed me to where my ball came to rest. “Jerk.” I was trying not to smile—it
was difficult to really be angry at someone for a no-stakes putt-putt game,
even if they were cheating.

“You used to cheat all the time back in
the day. You tickled me once!”

I sank my putt and shook my head at Zack
with a grin, reaching in and taking out my ball. “I never had a need to cheat.
I have always been the better putt-putt player.”

Zack snorted. “So then why do I have a
ribbon that you made proclaiming me the putt-putt champion of the world?”

I laughed. “Because you insisted I make it
the one time you beat me fair and square—and even then I’m not sure you didn’t
find some way to cheat.”

“Aw come on, Evie. You and I both know
that if I had cheated you’d have figured it out. You’re the smarter one of the
two of us.”

I couldn’t help but feel a little warmer
at the compliment—even if it was nothing but the truth. Zack wasn’t stupid; he
was smart himself, but even in high school he’d gotten himself into scrapes
that I’d predicted long before would get him into trouble.

“You’re right about that,” I said, letting
myself get a little cocky.

I went first at the next hole and managed
to get it in two—but I was still one point away from Zack. It was strange how
easily we’d fallen into old habits, and how easy it was to imagine it was just
like high school again; I was almost tempted to ask Zack if he was planning to
take me out to Dairy Queen after—but there was no DQ nearby.

We kept up our good-natured argument about
which of us cheated more in our previous rounds of putt-putt, and which of us
was actually the better player naturally; eventually, Zack stopped me at the 10
^th
hole. “I have an idea.”

“That’s the signal of a disaster coming,”
I joked.

Zack grinned and tousled my hair
playfully. “You say you’re naturally better than me at putt-putt. Well, prove
it. If you win this game, I won’t make you go out on another date with me—I
won’t have anything to do with you anymore.”

I smiled. “I kind of like the sound of
that.” I wasn’t sure how I felt about it in truth; part of me was relieved that
I wouldn’t have to deal with the jumble of my feelings—but part of me had
actually liked spending time with Zack. Then I remembered the altercation in
the dining hall and then the more recent embarrassment of his yelling at me in
front of his teammates. Even if he had apologized for both, they didn’t point
to a guy I wanted to spend a lot of time with.

“But if I win, you let me come back to
your place after.” I considered it. Even if my feelings toward him had warmed a
little bit, I had no intention of sleeping with Zack again any time soon,
especially after hearing around campus—discreetly—that he was a player. It was
clear to me that he didn’t take any of it seriously, and I had to wonder why
he’d even bothered with the date at all. I knew I was better at the game than
he was. I could win. I was only one point behind—and we had another 8 holes to
go.

“Okay. Deal.” I extended my hand and he
shook it. “You agree, though: no cheating. If you cheat, the deal goes out the
window.”

“No cheating, just pure athletic skill.”

I nodded again. We played in earnest,
still talking and chatting, but seriously competing at the same time. It wasn’t
so much that I wanted to never have Zack see me again, but I certainly wanted
to prove myself against him, I wanted the advantage. And it was clear that all
he was interested in was another easy lay; why else would he have made the
conditions for his win that he could come back to my dorm? I was going to show
him that I was no easy lay—he’d already burned that bridge. Even though I was
good, Zack was legitimately good as well, and each of us got ahead and then
behind through the next eight holes, until we came to the last one—where we
were tied.

“Feeling the pressure, Evie?” Zack asked
me.

“Nope, I’m just trying to decide if I
should delete your number from my phone completely since you won’t be calling
me anymore.” I grinned as I said it; if I hadn’t deleted his phone number when
we broke up in high school, or after the spectacle in the dining hall, I
certainly wasn’t going to delete it now.

“Big talk from someone who’s destined to
lose.”

Zack lined up his putt. It was a windmill
obstacle—the most difficult kind. Zack had never managed to get the ball
through the windmill in the first attempt when we’d been dating before, so I
had a certain amount of freedom, I thought. Normally I could get through the
windmill, but it took me a stroke or two to get the actual putt sunk.

“What happens if we tie?”

Zack shrugged. “We go back to your place,
and after that you never have to speak to me again.”

I laughed and shook my head. Zack took his
shot; somehow, and I will never know how, he managed to get it through the hole
in the windmill just short of being knocked aside. I groaned.

“Oh come on, if you’re going to lose, lose
gracefully,” Zack said, leaning in and giving me a quick kiss on the lips. I
tingled all over and told myself firmly that it was not the time to get all
distracted by Zack’s charms. It was time to hope against hope that he would
flub the shot into the hole and that I might have some chance at winning the
game yet.

Of course, he shot from the other side of
the windmill and managed to get his shot in two strokes. I took a deep breath.
If I timed it just right, and got just the right speed, I could
possibly—maybe—manage to get a hole in one. I put my ball on the tee and
watched the windmill for a moment. The windmill holes were always tricky; the
speed of the windmill’s arms was just slow enough to be deceptive, and just
fast enough to swoop down on a ball right as it got to the hole in the windmill
itself. Zack was standing behind me and I could feel his presence, feel him
watching me intently to see if I would actually make it. I took another deep
breath and swung.

The ball canted on its way towards the
windmill, and it hit the corner of the hole—to be knocked aside by one of the
arms. “Son of a bitch!” I gripped the club hard and wanted to throw it down,
not because I wanted to cut Zack out of my life, but because I hated to lose. I
closed my eyes. I couldn’t win, but I could, at least—as Zack said—lose
gracefully. I took two more strokes to get the ball through the windmill, and
then another stroke to get it into the final hole. Zack somehow managed not to
gloat; I could see it hovering in the back of his eyes, the urge to flaunt his
victory over me.

“Want to grab another beer and watch the
batting cages before we go back?” he asked.

It would give me a little bit of time to
get over it, at least. I agreed.

CHAPTER
SIX

“So, this is the living room,” I said,
throwing myself onto the comfortable old couch as we came into the dorm room.

Zack looked around and smiled faintly at
the pictures that Jess and I had plastered on the walls. We technically had two
other roommates, but they were never around; they practically lived with their
boyfriends off campus.

“Did you bring in your own furniture?”

I shook my head. Jess and I had agreed in
the first week that while the couch was comfortable, it was hideous; we spent
the first weekend of classes shopping around for a good cover. Zack threw
himself down next to me and put his arm over the back of the couch, dropping
his hand on my shoulder casually. I started to move away, but made myself stay;
he wasn’t trying anything too aggressive.

We started talking; it felt awkward—I
didn’t know what to talk to Zack about that wouldn’t steer us in the direction
of the drama surrounding our reunion. He asked about the newspaper, and how I’d
managed to get signed on and I told him about Professor Grant and the
assignment. He laughed as I rehashed the first meeting I’d been to, mimicking
some of the more contentious people on the newspaper staff. I asked him
tentatively about the frat—what they did when they weren’t partying, trying to
figure out just what kind of person Zack had become as a college student. He
seemed the same as I remembered him in high school, but different at the same
time, and it was impossible for me to figure out whether or not I actually
liked him.

“Hey! Can you guys be quiet out here? Alex
has an early class.” Jess’ voice came from the direction of her room and I
shook my head. Another guy? I wondered if Jess had some kind of secret pact
with herself to sleep with someone in every major the college offered. Zack
raised an eyebrow.

“I have no idea who that is,” I whispered.
“But I assume he was decent if she’s letting him sleep here.”

Zack grinned. “You ever bring a guy up to
your room before?” he whispered back.

I shook my head. “You’re…you’re my first
in that, too.” My cheeks burned with a blush and I looked down at my lap as I
started picking at imaginary lint on my skirt.

“That’s definitely an honor—though I don’t
think I’ll share it with anyone.”

I looked up, confused; why would he share
it with anyone, anyway? Zack took advantage of my shock to lean in. He brushed
his lips against mine lightly—feather-soft at first. I was too shocked to
react, though I shouldn’t have been; I found myself kissing back for a moment,
letting Zack press up against me, allowing him to start to guide me onto my
back on the couch. It was when his hand started to trail up from my knee that I
came to my senses. I pulled back and broke the kiss, sitting up quickly and
then standing.

“What’s wrong?” Zack barely kept his voice
to a whisper and I looked anxiously in the direction of Jess’ room.

“I didn’t agree to that.”

Zack’s look of concern dissolved into
confusion and he stared at me. “What do you mean?”

I shook my head, smoothing my skirt
against my legs. My heart was pounding, my body was tingling all over from
nothing more than the kiss. I was already starting to get turned on, and my
cheeks were burning. I couldn’t let him stay. I couldn’t be in the same room as
him for any longer. I’d give in and then it would be the same mess all over
again.

“I’m not interested in being your fuck
buddy,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest. I swallowed, realizing that I
had broken a whisper. “I’m not…that’s not the kind of person I am.” I managed
to keep my voice low.

“You agreed. You said I could come back to
your place if I won, and I won.” Zack’s confusion was turning into frustration,
his brow wrinkling as he looked at me—almost looking hurt. I set my jaw.