Take Me To Bed: Bedtime Quickies Collection

“My boyfriend is not one of those meatheads out there on the field,” I point at the players out there. Not all of them are meatheads either. Some, yes. But not all.

“Let me guess, he’s on the basketball team? Soccer? Hockey? Tennis? A jock of some sort?” I don’t know why he makes it seem like being part of a sports team is a bad thing, but that’s what I sense with every word he speaks.

“He’s not…,” I pause. “I don’t have a boy—,” I start to correct myself then shake my head. I don’t have to give a stranger so much information. What does it matter if I have a boyfriend or not? “Not all the guys on the field are meatheads,” I say instead.

“Really?” he says in disbelief.

“Yes, really,” I respond and imagine what my brothers would do if they learned some random guy called them meatheads. At the thought, I just start laughing.

He looks at me the entire time I laugh. “Sorry, I was just thinking something,” I tell him.

“What?” he asks, tilting his head slightly. I wonder what his hair looks like. Military haircut maybe?

“Both of my brothers play football. I was thinking about what they’d do to a random guy for calling them meatheads.”

“I’m not afraid. Are they meatheads?” he asks, cracking the slightest of smiles, a sexy, confident one, and for some reason that makes me feel triumphant. Like getting him to crack even the smallest bit is a success. I wonder if he ever smiles. He doesn’t look like the type to go around grinning at everything. At the thought, I find myself wanting to get him to smile fully or at least smirk; I love smirks.

You should be,” I tell him. My brothers aren’t the nicest kids around. They can be trouble. “One of them is definitely a meathead though. The other has a brain, top student actually.”

“I guess I did have you all wrong,” he admits.

I nod. “Why are you here?” I ask and feel a drop of water land on my cheek. That on

and off again rain is about to be on.

I watch as he takes his hands out of his pockets and places them on his knees. “How do you

know I’m not a student here?” he asks.

“I would know if you were a student here, trust me.”

“Really? How so?”

“Well, for starters, you’d know not to mess with the football team. You also seem like the kind of guy who would stand out.”

“Stand out?” he asks, lingering on the second half of my statement.

“Well, you seem all dark and mysterious. So, if you were a student here, I would’ve heard about you already from my friends. Then, I would’ve looked for you so I could judge for myself. This school isn’t too big, I would’ve run in to you eventually.”

“Dark and mysterious, huh,” he says, leaning back on his elbows as he takes a more relaxed pose. Is he getting comfortable? Am I making him feel comfortable? I move my eyes from his bruised knuckles to his face, surprised he hasn’t closed me out again.

I nod. “It took forever for me to get you to talk back to me. And even now that you’re finally saying words, you still haven’t answered any of my questions.”

“Why am I here?”

I nod. “Why are you standing outside in the cold watching a bunch of meatheads play football?”

“I?

??m thinking about playing,” he replies.

“Playing football?” I eye him up and down. “With the meatheads?” I add. He looks like the kind of guy who could take someone down with barely any effort. He’d probably make a good wrestler or boxer even. I look down at his bruised knuckles, he definitely seems like the guy who would win in a fight. Maybe football is the right sport for him.

He laughs, catching me off guard. “Yeah, with the meatheads.”

Seems a little too late to pick up football. All the guys in this school have basically been playing since they were little kids. That’s how they got so good. Years of practice. “You thinking about playing here? Have you played before?” I ask, unable to hide the surprise in my voice.

The drizzle picks up and more drops of water begin to fall on us. I curse under my breath. “What was that?” he asks.