Page 28 of Necessary Roughness

Logan

“Fuck!” Knox shouted from his bedroom.

I went down the hall and poked my head in. “You okay?”

“No,” he replied, staring at his phone. “You’re not gonna be okay, either.”

My phone buzzed in my pocket. We had different phone carriers, and for some reason mine was always slower to receive texts.

I groaned when I read it.

Sloane: You guys aren’t going to believe this, but I have some bad news about tonight… my mom just paid a surprise visit. She’s taking me out to dinner.

Knox: Shit.

Me: Tell her you have plans. We’re taking you to pound town tonight.

Knox: Pound town? Come on, dude.

Me: Is that not where we’re going? Because I already bought three tickets, one-way.

Sloane: I want to go to pound town with you. But she drove two hours to meet me, and I told her this morning that I didn’t have plans.

Sloane: How late will you two be up?

I lowered my phone to look at Knox. “Think she’s telling the truth? Or is she chickening out like the first time?”

Knox slowly shook his head. “I don’t see why she would lie, now that we’ve all hooked up. I trust her.”

“We can stay up late, right? Just this once?”

He grimaced. “I was hoping to take our time tonight. Not rush things.”

“Easy for you to say. You got to have a quickie with her after class this week.”

“Kinda regretting telling you about that,” Knox muttered. “Shit. I don’t know, man. Let’s say we finish by eleven. That’s five hours of sleep since we have an early practice tomorrow. I always play like shit when I don’t sleep enough the two days before a game.”

“You could take a nap?” I suggested.

“When?” he replied. “My schedule is tighter than… well…”

I grinned. “Than the woman we want to come over?”

“You’re making me want to agree to this.”

“Then agree to it!” I said. “We’re playing Gulf College on Saturday. They’re a breeze.”

But my roommate was shaking his head. “It’s a bad idea. Curfew is at ten. Remember what happened two years ago when Zane saw Sandy leaving your place?” Zane was the assistant coach who periodically checked-in on us to make sure we were behaving.

“Oh yeah. Sandy.” I smiled at the memory. “She was a lot of fun. Not my girlfriend, though. Just a fling.”

“Not the part I wanted you to focus on,” Knox insisted. “You were suspended a game for breaking curfew. Roman and I were given warnings for allowing it to happen. They want us to hold each other accountable.”

“Those rules are meant for the under classmen,” I argued. “They won’t care what we do. And they definitely won’t suspend the star freaking quarterback. We’re seniors now. We’re veterans!”

“All the more reason to set an example for the rest of the team.” Knox put down his phone, his face hardening in a way that meant he wasn’t going to budge.

“Look. I want this just as much as you do. I’ve been looking forward to tonight for days.

But the NFL draft is in April. Right now, I’m estimated to get drafted in the second round.

Maybe the first round if I continue putting up big numbers this season.

That has to be my top priority, Logan. The draft will decide how the rest of my life goes. ”

I sighed. “Goddamnit. I hate how much sense you make.”

“So you agree with me?”

“Yeah. But I’m not happy about it.”

He picked up his phone and started texting. “Trust me. I’m not happy about it either. But this is for the best. We can wait until Saturday night.”

Knox: Curfew is 10:00pm. We can’t risk violating it.

Sloane: Noooooooo. Mom’s taking me to a nice restaurant. There’s a 45 minute wait right now, plus time to eat… I won’t be home in time.

Sloane: What about tomorrow night?

Knox: Not with the game on Saturday. Can’t risk it.

Sloane: Fuck!

Me: No. It’s actually the OPPOSITE of fuck. Negative fuck.

Sloane: Rain check?

Knox: Saturday night? No curfew, and we get to sleep in on Sundays.

Sloane: Yes! Saturday night is perfect. I promise not to get drunk at the game. I’ll save all my drunk for you two.

Me: But not TOO drunk. Don’t want a repeat of the first night we met you. I’ll clean up a girl’s vomit once, but twice is crossing a line.

Sloane: Ugh. Please don’t remind me about that night.

Knox: More importantly, we want you to remember every filthy second :-)

Me: Yeah, that too.

Sloane: Yes please. Saturday night. It’s a date.

Me: Sex date.

Knox: Sex date

Me: JINX!

Me: You know what really sucks about all this? You can’t even send us a sexy photo to tide us over, because your phone is from the bronze age.

Sloane: That does suck. To make up for it, when we hook up on Saturday, I’ll let you snap a few photos of the action.

Knox: Oh.

Me: Ohhhh damn

Sloane: I do wish you could see me right now. I’m wearing some new lingerie, with the lace sticking out of the dress. I can’t believe my mom is the first person who gets a peek. I had to tell her it was the only bra I had left because I need to do laundry.

Me: DUDE STOP IT. Now that’s all I can think about.

Knox: You’re killing us, Sloane.

Sloane: Ahh! Sorry! Go back to thinking about my vomit.

Me: Have fun with your mom. I would tell you to say hi for me, but I’m not sure you want to explain how you know us.

Sloane: Why do you assume I haven’t told her about our physical arrangement? ;-)

Sloane: Ugh. I regret typing those words. If my mom knew what I was doing, I’d walk into the ocean and never look back.

Knox: That would suck.

Me: Yeah, definitely don’t do that. We’re not done with you, yet.

Sloane: You’d better not be :-)

I sighed, then got a beer out of the kitchen. Roman was laid out in the recliner with a textbook in his lap.

“Date canceled on you?” he asked.

“How’d you know?”

“These walls are thinner than you think,” he replied. “I heard every word you two said. And for the record, I agree that it would be a bad idea to break curfew. I don’t want to get busted just so you can get your dicks wet.”

“Thanks for your concern,” I said dryly. I was in a shitty mood, now.

I tried watching TV in my room, but nothing interested me. I was too goddamn horny. I opened an Incognito browser on my laptop and decided to jack off to let out some stress. Threesome porn wasn’t my usual preference, but now all I could think about was two men sharing one willing woman.

That helped relieve some of the pressure, but I still had emotional blue balls. Porn wasn’t the same. It was a pale comparison to what we should have been doing at that very moment.

I desperately wanted her .

Friday classes were a breeze. At least I didn’t have Creative Writing today; I almost felt bad for Knox since he had to see Sloane in class.

We had team meetings that afternoon to review Saturday’s game.

That helped take my mind off things, but it gave me new worries.

Gulf College was usually a pushover for us, but apparently they had a new defensive player that was crushing wide receivers.

Much of our team meeting was about how to neutralize this guy, utilizing our run game and planning new routes that would hopefully fool him.

When I got home, all I could think about was Sloane.

I tried studying.

Sloane .

I switched over to the football playbooks and reviewed them again.

Sloane .

I even watched YouTube videos for a while.

Sloane, Sloane, Sloane .

This girl was stuck in my head like a bad idea.

And in my experience, there was only one way to get rid of a bad idea.

Me: What are you up to, beautiful?

I was happy to see her immediately respond.

Sloane: Not much, handsome. Studying for my Educational Technology exam.

Me: I’m just a big dumb football player caveman, so I have no idea what that means.

Sloane: LOL, you’re not dumb.

Me: So I’m just a football playing caveman?

Sloane: Kinda, yeah ;-) Educational Technology is all about using technology to help students learn. Which mostly means simultaneously utilizing AND combating AI use.

Me: Sick. You’re going to be a teacher when you graduate?

Sloane: That’s the plan! I’d like to teach high school, but from everything I’ve read I’m going to have to cut my teeth in middle school first.

Me: Damn. Middle school fucking SUCKS.

Sloane: I know. Thankfully I won’t have to worry about that for two more years. What about you?

Me: I’m not teaching middle school any time soon. Hopefully never.

Sloane : Haha, I meant what are you doing when you graduate?

Me: I’m hoping to get drafted into the NFL.

Sloane : Hoping to? You don’t know yet?

Me: Nope. Knox is definitely getting drafted, probably in the first two rounds. Roman still has another year to play, but he has a solid chance, depending on the class of linebackers next year. But me? Fifty-fifty chance. Probably less than that.

Sloane: Whaaat? But you’re so good!

Me: So are a hundred other wide receivers at bigger schools around the country. I need to put up some BIG numbers this year if I’m going to have a chance.

Sloane: You already have four touchdowns in two games. That’s pretty good.

Me: Did you just Google my stats?

Sloane: Actually I asked ChatGPT for your stats. But yeah, I looked them up.

Me: Damn. AI really is taking over.

Sloane: Tell me about it. Teachers might be obsolete in two years. So if you don’t get drafted, what will you do?

Sloane: Sorry if that’s an intense question. Not trying to interrogate you or anything.

Me: It’s all good. I don’t know what I’ll do, honestly. I’ve kind of been having an existential crisis about it.

Sloane: Existential crisis? Big phrase for a caveman :-)

It was insane how quickly chatting with Sloane improved my mood. All the stress, all the pressure, all the uncertainty in my life faded away.

Maybe that’s why my fingers sent the next message.

Me: Want to take a break from Educational AI Dread or whatever your class is called?

Sloane: Depends on what you have in mind.

Me: What I have in mind is going over to your place, tearing off your clothes, and fucking you until neither of us can breathe.

Sloane: What a coincidence. I was just fantasizing about that too. But don’t you have a game tomorrow?

Me: I don’t care. I’m not going to be able to sleep until I see you.

There was a long pause before she replied. It made me second-guess my suggestion. The clock ticked by. Three minutes was a long time to wait for a response from someone who was just texting you rapid-fire.

Sloane: Well then what are you waiting for?

I quickly changed clothes and threw on some shoes.

Time to see just how bad this idea was.