Other football players— all clearly the upperclassmen— were lingering near the couch arms or standing in the open doorways, laughing at jokes I couldn’t hear and more or less blocking my view of the center of the couch.
“Which one is he?” I whispered to the bartender.
“You’ll know. Wait till they move,” the bartender said a little hungrily. A few breaths later, one of the largest of the players finally shifted and stepped to the side and yes, the bartender was right— I knew immediately who Jacob Everett was. Sitting in the center of the couch as if it were a throne, he forced me to take him in piece by piece.
I noticed first that he was tall— or at least, I figured he was tall, because it looked like he could barely sit comfortably on the couch, his knees were bent so high. His t-shirt hugged the muscles of his shoulders and neck, soft material against hard, toned skin. He had full, dark hair that looked flawlessly tousled, and angled eyebrows that turned up the volume on each and every expression.
Then I noticed his eyes— gray-blue and deep-set, gems in the center of his carved face. They were eyes that made my stomach twist, that made something between my legs clench and my tongue press to my teeth.
And they were on me.
I jumped, realizing this— I’d been so busy watching him that I hadn’t noticed he was watching me until I’d probably been staring for a ridiculous amount of time. The bartender laughed nervously under his breath and waved at Jacob Everett, who raised a hand back. I attempted to dissolve into the floor, and when that didn’t work, spun away from Jacob and pretended to meticulously study the label on my beer.
“Relax, honey. That’s everyone’s reaction to him,” the bartender said as he prepared a drink for a nearby freshman player. “He’s basically the reason I work these parties. I mean, can you blame me?”
“Yeah, he’s good looking. And he’s the one Piper is really interested in?” I asked.
“Well, he’s the one they’re all really interested in, but Piper especially. She’s worked her way up from the lowly freshmen, and now with Adams, she’s one step away from Jacob Everett’s nine-inch cock.”
I nearly choked on my beer. “What?”
The bartender grinned impishly. “He chooses a different girl every week to suck him off before games. You know, to get the nerves out before he plays. He’s the star quarterback, so he can’t just change the tradition.”
“And girls…want to do this?” I asked.
“People want to do this. But so far he’s only let girls. Pity. I’m damn good at sucking cock,” the bartender said, pouting. “Piper’s never been chosen, but she’s sworn for years that once he’s got her lips on his dick, the whole new-girl-every-week thing will be done for. She wants to be the girl on his arm, not just the one on her knees.”
“Well. Um. Good luck to her,” I said, unsure what else I was supposed to say. I threw back the beer and, to my relief, the bartender handed me another one. I dared to glance back toward the couch; Jacob Everett’s eyes were elsewhere, now, specifically on a pretty black girl with legs for days. A moment later he was chatting with an ice blonde pixie queen.
It was actually amazing, now that Jacob’s looks weren’t totally disarming me, to watch the way girls zipped in and out of his circle. One would instantly replace another, so that it looked almost like a conveyer belt of girls being funneled toward him. Other football players—without Jacob Everett’s charisma (or, to be fair, his smile)—chatted with girls as they arrived or departed, clearly content to be members of the court even if they couldn’t be royalty in their own right.
“So. What’s your name, honey?” the bartender asked.
“Sasha. I’m the New Lily,” I said.
“Oh!” the bartender said, looking alarmed.
“What?” I asked, going still.
“New Lily!” Piper’s voice broke into the conversation. She was clearly a little tipsy, as she linked her arm through mine. “You can’t just hang out at the bar all night,” she told me. Come on!”
I shrugged at the bartender, who had a cautious look on his face now— but there was no time for me to ask what that was all about, because Piper was dragging me to the other room, toward Jacob Everett’s couch.
Jacob Everett was something of a lightening rod; all energy and light and power shooting toward him. Piper pulled me along behind her; Kiersten was nowhere to be seen. It wasn’t until Piper had wrestled me over to the edge of the couch that I realized we’d taken the place of the girls I’d been watching adore and admire Jacob Everett just a few moments before. And so the scholar becomes the subject, I thought, wanting to roll my eyes at myself for becoming one of the many conveyor belt girls.