intently fixed on me. I had the feeling I was being set up, but I couldn’t figure out how. I really did want to be a personal trainer and having someone to practice on sounded kinda cool. The Poin sure as hell needed training. I blinked. It would be nice to have some of Tray’s respect back—but then if I fucked it up, and God knew I was good at that, it would just prove to everybody how dumb I really was.
I flashed on that Poin kid, Sean, flailing around the field like a lost puppy, trying hard to get in there and play, and then running off with his tail between his legs, covered in mud. Could anybody actually train that guy to play flag football? Then a picture of his big brown eyes behind those giant glasses looking all excited for a minute after he caught that ball drifted across my mind. He’d wanted to win, to succeed, and that was half the battle.
I grinned. Besides the guy was freaking adorable. And really funny too. “Um. Sure? I can do that.”
For a minute, I got to feel how cool it was to have the ALAs cheer for me, but then they all went back to what they were doing before, and I got to figure out how to turn the ultimate wimp into a flag-football beast in a matter of weeks.
Fifteen minutes later, I was doing something totally scary I’d never even thought of before. I was walking up the path of the Poin Palace, the Sigma Mu Tau fraternity house. Yes, it was right across the street from where I lived, but I’d never so much as been on their lawn. Well, except for one or two rat fucks, but those didn’t count. The SMTs were not only our bitterest rivals and favorite target of every prank we could think up, which had led to Dean Robberts eventual fedupness, but they were also as different from the ALAs as a group of guys could get. Famous for their freaking brains, the Poins held some of the top GPAs on campus, as well as some of the top pairs of khakis. I snorted. They also boasted a championship Quiz Bowl team, whatever that was. All I knew was Jesse got roped into it by the same fraternity brothers as had put me in charge of Sean—no thank you very much, Rand and Tray.
The ALAs, of course, were the big men on campus, literally and by rep. Our house had the top athletes in most sports and were the favorites of the ladies. Yup, my fraternity brothers got the looks and the sighs. Well, not me so much. I mean I’m on the Badgers’ football team, but second string. Not many people knew about me—no posters or news stories like Jesse and DeWan, and the ladies—well, they seemed to like to fuck me, but when it came to wanting to stick around, they always picked smarter guys than me. Whatever. I didn’t have time for a girlfriend anyway.
Biting my lip, I took a breath and knocked on the door.
Some little skinny biker dude in boots and a black leather jacket opened the door and snapped, “Yeah, whaddya want?” while staring at his phone.
This guy was so wimpy I could have stepped on him and not noticed, but he still made me jump.
It seemed like he hadn’t really looked to see who was there because he turned his head and gazed for a second at my chest, then looked up and up to my six foot five, and his eyes widened just before a crease popped between his eyebrows. “Who the hell are you?”
I kind of wanted to pick him up and toss him in the bush beside the porch—just my natural reaction to Poins—but I figured he might not help me then. So I said, all nice, “I wanna see Sean. I mean Hedgehog. I mean Sean.”
“Why?”
Jeez, people must be wrong about the Poins because this dude had way more balls than brains. “I need to talk to him about flag football.”
He stared at me like I was in a zoo. “Oh right, he volunteered for that trial by stupidity, didn’t he?” He looked me up and down again. “Wait here.”
I would not mention it was freaking February, and I was standing on his freaking porch. As he closed the door, I pulled my letter jacket tighter.
I heard a yell inside and some other voices, and a couple minutes