Page 5

Hartley

I f I could shoot the feeling of summer training camp in my veins, I would.

The residue of freshly-mowed grass living permanently on my ankles.

The rough leather football when it hits my gloves for a catch.

The sweat dripping down my overgrown hair.

And most importantly, the tired groans of teammates who didn’t take conditioning seriously.

Sucks for them. The first few weeks of camp have gone smoothly.

In college football, you need to make a name for yourself.

You have to find a niche for scouts and coaches to notice your existence.

Besides the fact that I’m the most skilled receiver on the field, I’m also the loudest. If you fumble the ball, you’ll hear it from me.

If you slack on a tackle, I’ll question why you’re being so lazy.

And if I beat you out on a route, best believe you’ll hear me in your ear the whole way back to the line.

My mouth sets me apart, but it also earns me laps.

Give and take. ADHD has kicked my butt in academics, but in football, I use it to kick drive my work ethic. It’s a gift.

With the loud screech of Coach’s whistle, we huddle up before being dismissed to the locker room.

I jog up behind the broody running back who cringes at my existence.

We came in together as freshman, and I’m determined to either become his best friend or get under his skin so much that he can’t ignore me.

As much as his attitude is in the gutter, he makes up for it on the field.

The dude’s a beast, and I wouldn’t mind getting extra reps in with him.

“Study the playbook last night, Shane?” I slap my hand down on his shoulder with a crazy smile on my face. Most guys are bone tired and on the verge of puking after a grueling practice like this, but it fuels me.

“Sure did,” he grunts out as he shakes my hand off his shoulder.

“Geniuses like me don’t need to do all that.” I wink as we pass into the cool locker room.

“Idiots like you will find yourself off the team in a year.”

I’m so distracted by the monster tattoo crawling up his arm that the insult doesn’t register. “Dude! That tat is sick. Where’d you get it?” I poke the tribal swirl that snakes up and down his arm. I don’t have any, but I want one.

“Huh?” he asks as he, once again, jolts his arm out of reach with a disgusted look.

“Your tattoo. I want one. Let’s go.”

“Something is seriously off with you, Knox.”

“Not the first nor the last time I’ll hear that. So, do you want to go with me to lose my tattoo virginity?” Mock sweetness laces my tone. I’m nothing if not relentless and annoying to a fault.

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t want to spend more time with you than I have to.”

I clutch my chest, feigning offense. “I’m starting to get the impression that I annoy you.”

“Bingo.”

“If you don’t, I won’t let you forget. I’ll bring it up every single day until we’re seniors. Then, after we graduate, I’ll move closer and bring it up more.”

He grunts. “If I go, will you shut up and leave me alone for the rest of the week?” Ryan Shane rushes ahead of me to his assigned locker and rips it open in annoyance.

“Sure, but I have a feeling we’re going to be friends by the end of the season.” I strip down and grab my towel for the showers. “So you might as well accept it now.”

“I don’t do friends.”

“We’ll see about that.”

After showering and changing, Ryan reluctantly drives us both to the tattoo shop downtown. I’m wired with excitement as the adrenaline of doing this pulses through my skin.

I reach for the volume to turn the sound on the radio up, but Ryan swats my hand away. “Does it hurt?”

“Nope.”

“Are you sure about that? It looks like it hurts.”

He sighs and stretches his neck to flick his eyes my way. “You’re a football player who takes hits daily. I think you can handle it.”

“Will you hold my hand?”

“Don’t be a baby. You’re a grown man.”

I reach for the volume once more, hoping this time he doesn’t see me. “I’m serious.”

Instead of swatting my hand away, Ryan turns off the radio. “Cut it.”

I raise my hands in innocence. “Shutting up.”

The shop is empty, so it isn’t a long wait before a needle drives into my arm. I’m not a psychopath like my new friend, so I keep it simple for my first tat: my number thirteen on the inside of my bicep. It’s everything that’s saved me. Without football, I’m nothing.

My body winces at the pain of the recurring jab into my arm. “Ow!”

“Stay still or the lines will be crooked,” the tattoo artist scoffs as he continues to torture me.

“Classic.” Ryan huffs with his arm crossed over his chest, leaned against the wall.

“Have something to share, Shane?”

“Nope. It’s what I expected.”

“And what did you expect?” Annoyed with his judgmental aura, I push.

“My number?” Keeping my arm still so my ink doesn’t get messed up, I stretch my neck to look his way.

“I’m more than just a pretty face, Shane.

” The corners of my eyes burn as heat rushes through my body as I’m transported back to the reason football means everything to me.

“There’s a lot you don’t know about me.”

He grins with understanding. “Likewise, but that’s not what I meant.” He laughs as he leans up against the wall. “I meant how you’re crying like a child for a fine line tattoo.”

“It hurts,” I whine in mock agony.

He shakes his head back and forth before whipping his phone out from his pocket. “Smile.”

I flash my pearly whites his way. “Send it to me so I can send it to Violet.”

“Who’s Violet?” he asks.

“Little sister and best friend.”

“Odd,” he shares as his jaw tightens in confusion.

“She’ll be at Springs U next year, but don’t get any ideas.”

Huffing out a breath and plastering on a hardened look, he continues, “I can get girls on my own, thanks.”

“Not this girl. She’s off limits.”

“Why? She’s yours or something?”

I make a vomit noise and point my finger down my throat. “Ew. No. I’ve never seen Violet like that. I just have a hard enough time fending off all the guys who aren’t good enough for her.”

“Almost done,” the tattoo artist mumbles as he puts the finishing touches on my number. He wipes it off a few times, removing the excess ink from my light pink skin. “Check it out.”

I get up from the black leather chair and get a closer look in the mirror. The black fine line letters jump from my pale skin and I can’t stop admiring the work. “It’s sick.”

The nagging sound of my alarm jolts my exhausted, numb body out of bed.

I flip around, tossing my sheet off the bed to reach for the buzzing phone on the nightstand.

The screen glows too bright for my sleepy eyes adjusting to the dark room.

What scares me more is the fact that layered in front of a picture of Vi and I at my last high school football game, is the time: 7:00 in the morning.

I have fifteen minutes to kick myself into high gear and head to the field in order to make it for our 7:30 a.m. report time.

Shoot. I know I set my alarm earlier than that. Or did I?

Stumbling frantically out of bed, I throw on the nearest pair of shorts, a team shirt, and a pair of questionably stained socks.

I jog into the bathroom to brush my teeth before bolting out the door and into my car.

Breaking traffic rules is my specialty, and I don’t need Coach’s red flag radar on me during the first few weeks of camp.

I’m talented, but being a liability is a quick and easy way to find myself off the team before the season starts.

Screeching into the parking lot, I tap my phone to do a quick time check: 7:21 a.m. Awesome.

I have time to get to the locker room, throw my stuff down, and make it with minutes to spare before the team huddles up.

I speed-walk into the facility, turning a corner before slamming into a beast at the locker room door.

“Seriously? What the…” Before he could finish his sentence, Ryan registers that it’s me that ran clean into him hustling into the locker room.

“Hartley. Report time is—” He checks his Apple watch before scolding me.

“In less than five minutes. You better have a good reason for barely making it.” He scoots to the side so I can gather my equipment.

If he keeps up this lecture, he’ll be the reason we’re both late.

I don’t have time to plead my case to daddy dearest at the moment.

“I’d love to chat, Shane, but as you can see,” I flail my hands around erratically while slipping my pads and cleats on, “I don’t have time for chit-chatting.” Jogging back to the locker room door I almost bulldoze him, but he stops me in my tracks.

Ryan meets me with a wary look, arms crossed over his chest, judging me, hard. “Gloves.” His lips curve into the smallest smirk I can barely tell is there.

“Huh?”

“Where are your gloves? You know how serious Coach is about showing up prepared with our equipment.”

“Shoot,” I mutter under my breath, mentally kicking myself for rushing out the house without my football bag.

I elect to leave most of the important stuff in my locker to avoid inevitable situations like these, but I forgot to take my gloves off at the facility yesterday.

I stuffed them in my bag when I jumped in my car.

Grabbing my unruly hair, I run my hands through repeatedly, trying to muster up a plan to play this off to Coach without drawing too much attention to myself this early in the season.

Ryan juts his chin out toward his locker with that cocky grin plastered across his face. “Check my locker.”

Busting open his locker, I’m greeted with extra socks, pads, tape, gloves, and Band-Aids. I’ve never seen a locker stocked with extras of all the essentials a football player could need. I grab the gloves and turn to him, a questioning look in my eyes, and he nods in permission.

“Who is this prepared? Now that I know you’ve got the goods, I can sleep in later and later.”

“My preparedness saved you today, so watch the smart mouth.”

I laugh, quickly grab what I need, and we jog onto the field together just in time for Coach’s piercing whistle.

Ryan may act tough, but this proved what kind of person he is.

After our conversation at the tattoo shop, we understand each other better.

He harbors the same hurt in his eyes that are reflected in mine.

He could have easily walked past me, writing me off as a screw-up who doesn’t take college ball seriously.

Instead, he helped me, and something tells me his past isn’t as polished as his present.

After practice wrapped and I basked in a long, hot shower, I’m still wired.

Practice helps the physical adrenaline that I experience on a daily basis, but not so much the mental.

Sauntering to Ryan in a towel wrapped around my waist, I pat him on the shoulder and he greets me with the same annoyed look he always does.

“We’re going out tonight,” I say to Ryan as my way of thanking him for what he did earlier.

He shakes his head back and forth, slings his equipment bag over one shoulder, and begins to leave.

But before he can, I stop him. “Wait. It’s Friday, and we don’t have practice tomorrow.

” I pat his shoulder and run through a mental list of reasons he should come out to decide which one would work the best. “I heard some of the older guys say Downtown Tap is laxed on carding.”

“I don’t drink in bars,” he mumbles under his breath.

“Looks like I have a built-in designated driver.” My laugh vibrates through the almost-empty locker room, but the joke didn’t land.

“Are you done?” He cracks his neck side-to-side and grips the strap of his bag tighter.

“Look, what you did for me earlier proves you don’t hate me as much as you’d like me to think,” I admit.

Why can’t I just say thank you and move on?

“My. . .uhh. . . ADHD gets the best of me sometimes.” Grabbing the back of my neck with one hand, I squeeze the muscles, lowering my eyes to the cement floor.

As if my admission unlocks an internal understanding within him, Ryan says, “One night.” He sticks the number one up to my face. “I won’t make this a habit.”

“Meet me at my apartment at ten. I’ll text you the address.

” I squeeze past him, throw on a t-shirt and shorts, and try to leave the locker room, but before I do, I add, “Leave your ego at the door. You’re about to witness the Hartley Knox experience.

” His eyes roll to the back of his head before I sprint out to the car, eager for my first night out as a college football star.