Schooling the Jock (Nerds Vs Jocks #1) - - Eli Easton Page 0,12

them sometimes, but being in charge of Quiz Bowl put me off the option list, thank fuck. If we couldn’t coerce any of them into it, Jorge Martinez was a plump math major who liked to play hoops at the net we had in the side yard. He looked a little awkward doing it, but he was dedicated and actually a pretty good shot. He could play flag football. How hard could it be? He’d be a harder loss on the Quiz Bowl team, but that was a cross I’d have to bear.

The one person who never occurred to us was the guy holding up his hand now. Hedgehog. Well, we called him Hedgehog, though not often to his face. His real name was Sean McKinney. He had bristly red hair that stuck up all over, freckles, and was of average height, maybe five-ten. He wasn’t fat, but he had the soft, limp frame of a couch cushion. He was a physics major. Athletic, he was not.

I looked at him, then at Jax.

“Um…,” I said.

Jax pursed his lips, his gaze on Sean. “Thanks for volunteering. I didn’t think you were into, uh, sports.”

Sean pushed up his thick tortoiseshell glasses. “I made a New Year’s resolution to get into shape. This would provide motivation.”

“Motivation,” Jax said flatly.

Sean nodded. “Yes. I find it helpful to set myself a goal. If the offer for a comped room applies to the second volunteer, I’ll do it. Obviously, the savings would be beneficial as well. I need a new laptop.”

“Wait,” I said. “Wait, wait, wait. Sean, I need you on Quiz Bowl. You’re our sciences guy.”

Sean blinked at me like a myopic…well, hedgehog. “I’m sorry, Dobbs, but I don’t think I’ll be able to participate in Quiz Bowl and flag football and maintain my GPA. But thank you for wanting me on the team.”

“Yeah, but—"

“So we have two volunteers. Done! Thanks, Sean,” Billings rang in.

“Yeah, thanks, Sean!” said Johnson.

Congratulations went all around. The relief in the room from those who’d been spared the dreaded assignment was so thick you could smell it—the stench of twenty guys’ worth of flop sweat.

There was no good moment for me to break in and yell, Abort! Abort! Disaster ahead! But I wanted to. Because if there was one guy in Sigma Mu Tau who was a quintessential ’80s movie nerd—who would embarrass the hell out of us on the football field—that guy was Sean McKinney.

I flopped down on a chair and put my head in my hands.

Holy crap. This year was going to suck.

Why had Jax and I not planned out what to do if the wrong person volunteered? We’d been too fixated on trying to manipulate the guys we wanted to do it.

And if having Sean freaking McKinney repping SMT on the flag-football field wasn’t bad enough, I still had to look forward to the two prize beauties the A-hoes would assign to my team. No doubt they’d both be mental giants.

I only had one possible sliver of daylight left, one blessing I could pray for.

Please God, don’t let one of them be Jesse Knox.

Chapter Five

Jesse

The knock on the door made me look up from my book. “Yeah?”

The door opened, and Tray stuck his head in. “Meeting.”

I sat back in my desk chair and sighed. “Not me, man. I got shit to do.”

“Nope. Rand says all-hands-on-deck. Everybody’s got a stake in the dean’s ultimatum.” He lowered his voice. “Come on, bro. You gotta back me up. We’ve got too much to lose.”

I wanted to say maybe they should have thought of that before they bet away $10K, but I kept my mouth shut. Tray loved football. He’d never been quite strong enough to make the Badgers, but flag football only needed speed and strategy, not so much strength. In fact, half the intermural flag teams at the college had girls on them. The ALA team didn’t since we were in the Wisconsin Collegiate Tournament that was a big deal in flag football world and was all guys.

I glanced at the empty bed across the room from me. “Is PJ already down there?”

PJ Roark was my roommate in the frat house. Even though Tray and I were best friends, we didn’t room together since we were both juniors and considered role models for the younger guys. We were supposed to exert a good influence. PJ was a sophomore and needed more than his share of role modeling. He was on the water polo team and supposedly good at it,