“Who do you play for?” the faceless reporter asks, before shoving a microphone in his face. It’s the same question she’s asked all the others, and most of them have answered with some variation of family, God, or teammates.
Finn looks at the camera; when he smiles, I know what’s coming— or at least, I’ve got an idea. “Today I’m playing for a girl.”
The reporter laughs off camera. “What girl is this?”
“I don’t really do names,” Finn says, wolfishly and there’s a howl of laughter from the rest of the team, who must also be just off camera. The stadium laughs as well— except for my mom.
“Seems just like Adams, if you ask me,” my mom says crossly. “Seems just like every other privileged man I’ve ever come across. Does he talk to you this way, Kenley? You know better than to allow that, right?”
I grimace. “I think he’s just— it’s just a show for the cameras.” Right? Yes, of course, don’t be stupid, Kenley. You know Finn. You know he’s just avoiding the name and keeping up his football rep. Plus you’re the one who wants to keep your relationship a secret, and he’s just respecting that.
But why couldn’t he have just said “I’d rather not say” and been polite about it all, instead of making it look like he’s fucking some faceless vagina for kicks. Which is not what I am. Right?
Right.
Right.
But for the rest of the game, my stomach is uneasy.
Chapter 11
We have to delay our next tutoring session— Finn played so well during the game on Sunday that he’s been having to spend almost all of his time outside of class on the field practicing or with his coaches, catching up on learning all the plays.
I miss him, but hearing him on the big screen at the game has made me feel a little…weird. Like I’m his Thursday afternoon booty call. The more I think on it, the more frustrated I am. Yes, I want our relationship to stay secret, but that doesn’t mean he has to put on a womanizing, asshole sort of front. Those are two totally different things.
It’s Friday around lunch when we finally manage to carve out time for a session. We meet in his dorm room rather than the Ansley Park house, since neither of us has time to get off campus.
I know that it’s technically against the rules, me tutoring him in his dorm room, but I want to see him so badly that I can’t resist.
I arrive before him, and linger in the lobby, which is a shrine to all things football. Alumni renting the expensive hotel rooms on the top floors rustle through, on their way to local restaurants or meetings or speaking engagements or whatever else has brought them to town. At a quarter to twelve, Finn appears, pushing through the doors and dwarfing the small crew of suit-wearing men scurrying past. Finn smiles the moment he sees me, and even though I’m feeling weird about everything to do with him, I feel myself smiling back.
“Have you been here long?” he asks as he walks up.
“Ten minutes.”
“I have Etruscans in the morning. It’s the only class I can actually go to regularly so…I go.”
“Uh…” I’m not familiar with the word “Etruscans”, but it sounds like a disease, or a therapy to fix a disease.
“It’s one of the classes for my major,” he says, sending my confusion. “Major in classical culture and you have to take a whole mess of ancient Greece and Rome classes. It’s interesting. I like it. If I could just take my major classes, I’d be solid academically.”
“Wouldn’t we all,” I say, remembering how annoyed I was to discover that as a math major, I’d still have to take a gym class. He motions to the elevator with his head, and I follow him into it.
Once the doors slide shut and we’re enclosed in the stainless steel box, he reaches for me. He wraps me in his arms before I know it, and my chin instinctively tips back so his lips can meet mine. He kisses me gently for a moment, then lets a hand slide down my back, onto my ass—
I pull away, the action jarring me— and, from the looks of it, him. “Sorry,” I say. “I— sorry.”
“Everything okay?” Finn asks carefully. We arrive at his floor and get off, me hurrying ahead so I don’t have to make eye contact. Even as annoyed and self-righteous as I was feeling before he arrived, I feel cowardly and stupid now. A little girl complaining that her boyfriend said something mean. That wasn’t even that mean. And he might not even technically be her boyfriend, since they don’t really use those words all that often. Finn frowns as he unlocks his door and lets me in.