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9
Taylor
“You should have been there,” I told Eric that night. “He was such a jerk! Smiling and acting like the whole thing was my fault.”
“I told you not to go to tryouts,” Eric said absently while grading papers from his dining room table.
“It makes me so mad.” I continued pacing back and forth. “A guy like him fooling around with people, pretending he isn’t some famous athlete. He told me he worked in receiving. And today, he was proud of that lie!”
Eric looked up at me and frowned. “I find that strange. Wouldn’t someone of his fame want to use it to sleep with women? What did he have to gain by not mentioning it?”
“I don’t know,” I grumbled. He was right: it would have been a bigger jerk move to gloat about his status as a famous athlete. By not telling me, he had allowed me to be myself that night at the trivia bar.
But I wanted to be mad at him for not calling me, so I didn’t dwell on it.
“And of course he’s dating Isabella, the head cheerleader,” I ranted. “She looked annoyed that we knew each other. I’m glad she announced the final roster before that, or else she might have cut me because of it.”
“You made the team?” Eric asked, surprised.
“I did. Crap. Did I forget to mention that?”
Eric got up from the table and wrapped me in his arms. For a moment, I thought he was going to congratulate me.
“It’s not too late to put it behind you,” he said gently.
“What?”
“You proved to yourself that you are good enough,” he said. “Now that you have such validation, you can quit the team and focus on your academic career.”
I pulled away and said, “I didn’t try out because I need validation. I like doing it, Eric.”
“But perhaps it would be best if you did not proceed,” he replied. “Your academic reputation is still intact. And now there is the complication with Cody being there…”
“Brody,” I corrected. Then I softened my tone. “I’m sorry. I’ve been ranting about Brody since I got home. You must think I’m still interested in him or something. I promise I don’t have feelings. I wouldn’t want to date someone like him.”
Eric chuckled. “It would be quite ridiculous for the two of you to date.”
I gave a start. “Why do you say that?”
He adjusted his glasses. “You are an associate professor at a prestigious university, on an accelerated track toward tenureship. He’s just an athlete.” He said the word like it was an insult. “He is paid to run into other players over and over. He probably has brain damage from repetitive injuries. Not that he was smart to begin with. He sounds like a Texas bumpkin.”
“That’s not quite fair,” I replied. “He’s an athlete, sure, but he’s not an idiot.”
I stopped myself when I realized I was defending him. That wouldn’t help my case when trying to prove to Eric that I wasn’t interested in this guy.
“Besides,” Eric added, “he’s probably used to sleeping with supermodels. You did say he was dating the head cheerleader.”
I raised an eyebrow at my boyfriend. “Are you implying I’m not attractive enough to date him?”
Eric sat back down at the table. “I am not insulting your appearance. I am simply being logical about his standards.”
“His standards,” I repeated deadpan. “Which I apparently do not meet.”
Eric flipped to the next paper on his stack. “Precisely.”
I went to the kitchen to keep myself from arguing with him further. Eric could be infuriatingly logical about things like this, to the point of being oblivious to my feelings.
The fact that he was right only annoyed me further. Brody was almost certainly used to dating the upper-tier of women in the city. That was true of even the dullest, most average-looking athletes. For someone who was as sexy as Brody, with his easy smile and infectious charm…
