JAX (The Beckett Boys #2) - Olivia Chase Page 0,100

get in or couldn’t pay tuition?” he asked.

I felt my brow furrow. “That’s different. I knew I could work to pay tuition— it wasn’t up for chance like an NFL draft is.”

“Of course it was. Everything is up for chance. If you’d gotten hit by a car driving to work, you think you’d have been able to bounce back and enroll? No way. Look, I’m just saying: Backup plans are fine and good, but you and I have more in common than you think. We’re both all-in for our goals. We just have very different goals.”

“But Jacob, the NFL is a big deal. And now with this injury—“

Jacob looked away, jaw tight, and I stopped speaking. He already knew what I was thinking, clearly: That his injury might mean the years of training, of work, of abandoning all other goals, might all be for nothing.

“I’m still gunning for the NFL until the day they refuse me,” Jacob said firmly. “And if they do, on that day I guess I’ll be forced to come up with a backup plan.”

I nodded faintly. “I just…it seems really risky, Jacob.” I meant professionally, sure, but also, personally. Football was so tied to who Jacob was— it made him the king, the champion, the Harton hero. It was the reason he had his swagger and his body, the reason he had so much experience with women and had leaned to be a great leader. I supposed he’d still be Jacob Everett without the sport, but it felt like we were talking about cutting out a part of him rather than what might happen if he couldn’t play a sport anymore.

Whoa, I thought to myself. Piper was right. You really do learn that football is life when you go to school here.

“Look,” Jacob said. “Let’s order something to eat. I don’t want to go out, not when there’s still a good chance someone will spot me. We can chill here all day. I’ll send one of the freshmen by your apartment to pick up some stuff for you, if you want.”

“I can’t,” I said.

“Why?” Jacob asked, looking almost offended.

“Because I have another class today, Jacob,” I said.

Jacob sighed heavily. “It’s one day, Sasha.”

“It’s my NFL, Jacob.”

Jacob was quiet for a moment, then smiled at me— a frustrated smile, but a smile all the same. “Fine, fine. Take the car. Go to class.”

I nodded, wondering if Greene would be thrilled to know Jacob had lent out his car. “Before I go though, I need something.”

“What?”

I grinned. “Your phone number. And I’ll trade you for mine.”

Chapter 13

Jacob was out for four weeks.

I was pretty certain watching the team go on without him— lead by Adams, who was now even more widely considered the upcoming Harton hero— had to sting, but Jacob never wanted to talk about it. I couldn’t blame him; he spent more or less every second of his life focused on football. Now that he was out for four weeks, why spend this painfully stolen time with me discussing it?

And that was very much what our time together was— stolen. We didn’t go on dates or appear in public or sit on the quad together. Jacob would simply pick me up, occasionally, and we’d slip away to his apartment or another alumni condo or, once, to the “Emerald Room” at the alumni resort. It was fun, in some ways, sneaking around— though Piper and Kiersten were impossible to hide from. That was why I was so surprised when they invited me along to a party at Football House one Thursday night.

“Seriously?” I asked, perplexed. I put my textbook down.

Piper shrugged. “I mean, didn’t your fuck buddy invite you anyhow?”

I didn’t take the bait— I would neither confirm nor deny my relationship with Jacob, thank you very much, and he didn’t invite me because I’d made it very clear that Football House just really wasn’t my thing. “Why are you inviting me, though?” I asked instead.

Things had gotten chilly again between us, and I trusted Piper about as far as I could throw her…with a linebacker on her shoulders for good measure.

Piper sighed dramatically. “I don’t know. Kiersten said we should. Mend fences or whatever. So do you want to come?”

No, not really— but Piper had a point. Maybe going to the party could mend some fences, especially now that Piper and Kiersten, like many of the women on campus, had become focused on Adams (who Jacob reported did have a different girl suck him off before