Taken (Dark Desires 1)

“For what I’m doing for you, I should get to see those tits,” she said, separating the cards to make a neat stack. She held out the cards to me and raised one eyebrow. “Or at least touch them for a minute. Those are natural, right?”

“Yes, they are, thank you very much.” I took the stack of perfectly-forged business cards and put my hands on my hips. I stuck out my boobs and sighed.

“Fine, but make it quick. Katie Holmes has things to do.”

Sean

Holy. Fucking. Shit.

I was on my hands and knees on the side of the practice field puking my guts out when Leon trotted over to make sure I was all right. I could hear him coming without looking up. His nearly four-hundred-pound frame seemed to shake the ground beneath my hands, like that T-Rex in Jurassic Park. I was glad he was on my side. I would have hated being on the receiving end of one of Leon Lewis’ hits.

“You all right, man?” he asked. His voice was deep and he always spoke in a lazy rhythm, making him sound like he was speaking in slow motion. “You need a medic? A Gatorade?”

“Naw, I’m fine,” I said, holding up a hand as my stomach finished emptying itself in the grass. I wiped my mouth on the back of my hand and rolled to my back. I put my hands on my stomach and stared up at the clear blue sky above me.

“You drank too much,” Leon said, dropping onto the ground next to me. He tugged the sweat towel from around his neck and tossed it over my face. “You gotta slow down man. You’re gonna burn yourself out.”

“I know,” I said, taking the damp towel that reeked of Leon’s stink and mopping the cold sweat from my face. “I gotta stop partying before a heavy practice week.”

It was just an excuse. Never mind that it was eighty-five degrees in October and the coach was pushing us hard to get ready for our next game with the Tigers. I’d never minded the heat and the tougher the practice, the better. I wasn’t puking because of practice. I was puking because I was still fucked up from the two-day victory party at my house, which broke up just a few hours ago.

“You gotta slow down, man,” Leon said. He put a hand over his eyes to shield them from the sun and nodded at the field, where the players who weren’t puking were going through offensive drills. “Look at Matt Murphy. That motherfucker ain’t even sweating.”

I rolled my head to the side to look at Murphy. We were the same age, both came out of Clemson in the same AFL draft. Matt wasn’t on the sidelines, white as a sheet, sweating like a pig, purging the booze and pot and coke from his system. Matt was the goddamn poster child for clean living, and it showed.

“Remember what a basket case Murphy was before he got married and had kids?” Leon asked. “That dude made you look like a lightweight when it came to drinking and partying.”

“What’s your point?” I asked, covering my face with the towel, ignoring its stench.

“He found a nice girl and settled down, got himself off the booze and coke, had a couple of kids, and look at him. He’ll be the fucking team MVP this year.”

“Clean living will do that to you,” I said, pushing up onto my elbows. “But clean living can also be pretty fucking boring.”

“Maybe boring wouldn’t be so bad if you had the right person to get bored with.” He said it quietly. He was staring at Murphy and slowly nodding his head. I knew something was up.

“Wait a minute,” I said, pushing myself up to face him. I brought up my knees and hugged them to keep from falling over. I leaned my head around to look him in the eye. “Oh shit, man, say it isn’t so.”

He glanced at me from the corner of his eye, then a smile crossed his dark face. “I’m gonna ask Monique to marry me,” he said, referring to his on again, off again, baby mama who he had two small kids with.

“You’re shitting me,” I said, dumbfounded. I didn’t know why the news was hitting me like a ton of bricks, but it was. I felt as if I were being dumped. Leon, my best friend and party-partner for five years, was breaking up with me.

I felt myself getting nauseous again, even though there was nothing left in my stomach to heave. Maybe the news was hitting me so hard because Leon was the hardest partier and biggest groupie fucker on the team. His exploits were legendary. He would sometimes have two, three, four women at a time. And now this. Fuck. It was the end of an era.

I shook my head. “Leon Lewis is going to get married.”

“Yep, I got the ring already. Gonna ask her tonight when we have dinner with the kids.”

“But what about our victory parties?” I asked. I realized I had a little whine in my voice, like a little kid begging his best pal not to move away. “Dude, you can’t stop coming to our victory parties.”

He just gave me a big toothy grin and put a hand the size of a catcher’s mitt on my shoulder. “Sean, dude, you gotta grow up sometime, man.”

“No I don’t,” I said quietly. I glanced at Matt Murphy, all muscles and smiles and MVP awards and trophy wife and perfect kids. Fucker. I hated Matt Murphy. I muttered to myself. “I don’t have to grow up.”

Leon chuckled as he picked up his helmet and got ready to put it on. “You ain’t Peter Pan,” he said, getting to his feet and setting the helmet on top of his head. “We all gotta grow up sometime.”

“Not me,” I scoffed.

“Whatever man,” he said, shaking his large head. He nudged the toe of my cleat with his. “Word of warning. You keep this up and you’ll be watching the game from the bench on Sunday. Coach is thinking about putting Lockett in your spot if you don’t shape up.”