Jock Royal (Jock Hard 4)

“You think I’m ugly, eh?” His question is directed at me, and for a few seconds, I waffle trying to reply.

Stutter as if I’m just learning how to speak.

“N-no! No! I…I was in a rush and w-wanted to get it done and there you were and you…no. No, I don’t, I…we…”

I sound like I’m pandering. So foolish.

So immature.

It does nothing to smooth his ruffled feathers.

He is steaming mad, glaring down at me. “You don’t come into my house and make me look like a cockwomble under my own roof.”

Cockwomble?

He’s so utterly British-sounding—I want to hear him talk more.

“Is this your roof?” I turn my head. “Y’all live here? It’s a mess.”

Why are boys such slobs?

Everyone’s eyes bug out of their skulls at my audacious inquiry.

“Oh my god, Georgia, you can’t just ask someone if they live here.” Ronnie swats at me, sounding thirty shades of embarrassed, her cheeks blazing red. “No, he doesn’t live here. He’s being rhetorical.” Her gaze finds his again. “We’re sorry, Ash. We’ll leave. We’re going.” Her hand grabs me by the wrist. “Come on, Georgie.”

I’m pulled out of the house, down the steps to the lawn, where we congregate on the sidewalk.

“What is going on?” I blurt out. “I did exactly what you wanted me to do—why are y’all acting so mad?”

“Because, Georgia! Do you know who that is? Do you have any idea?” It sounds like she’s accusing me of something.

My eyes roll. “Obviously not.”

“That’s Ashley. Dryden. Jones.”

I’m silent after her stilted pronouncement.

“Am I supposed to know who that is?” Then, “Wait…is his last name hyphenated?”

“Yes it’s hyphenated,” she hisses. “He’s British, for god’s sake. That’s what they do when they’re rich.”

“Okay but…why are you mad at me?” She looks madder than a fox in a henhouse, which is only making me more and more confused. “You told me to go inside and find a guy who’s…who is…” I can’t even say the word ugly.

“Ugly.”

“I know what we told you, but you weren’t supposed to choose him!” She’s hissing again, getting worked up into a snit.

“Ronnie, I don’t know who any of those people are.” I’m using my most placating voice. “How on earth was I supposed to know to not choose him—you didn’t give me pictures to look at of any guys who were off limits.”

I haven’t started my classes yet! I wouldn’t know Ashley Dryden-Jones from a hole in the chemistry classroom wall.

“This isn’t an episode of The Bachelor, Georgia—you don’t get a wall of photographs to study! Ugh!” She throws her arms up and stalks off in the opposite direction from whence we came, her gaggle of followers doing what they do—following her. “This is a nightmare!”

That seems a tad dramatic, but this whole evening has been. And for the record, it was a dumb idea anyway—these are practically grown women. They should know a prank like this was eventually going to backfire.

The good news is, I don’t know that guy inside and will probably never see him again. I may lie in bed tonight hating myself for putting him in that awful position, but at least I won’t have to look him in the eye while I do it.

Ugh, he looked shocked and hurt, kind of.

I trail along behind my teammates, bringing up the rear with my incessant questions.

“Can someone please explain why this is a big deal?”

“Ash is like, blue-blooded or something.”

I’m not sure I’m understanding her. They’re all really overreacting to this. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“We’re never going to be invited back into that house after tonight, no thanks to you!” Tamlin sputters, high heels clicking furiously on the pavement. She trips on a crack and stumbles. “One time, a few years back, the baseball house kicked a girl out for jockblocking, and she was never allowed back inside.”

That sounds extreme.

“Never?”

“Well…maybe not never, but they did ban her for like, a few weeks.”

“For cockblocking.”

“That’s what we said, isn’t it?”

No, they said jockblocking, which I guess must be a made-up word to describe someone who’s preventing you from having sex. Jockblock must be the term they use on Jock Row, egomaniacs that they’re turning out to be.

I don’t like these girls at all. Not a single one of them—they’re acting like mean sorority girls, not Division 1 athletes with a code of conduct and a There is no I in team attitude to uphold.

They’re nothing like the young women on the team where I spent three and a half of the best years of my life, and it makes me homesick being here tonight, standing in the shadows of the trees lining the street.

Listening to them ridicule me.

Without another word, I turn and head the opposite direction, striding on the long legs that brought me here.

Two

Ashley

That pretty girl thinks I’m a munter.

Ugly.

I lie in bed after leaving the party the moment the group of girls walked out the door of the rugby house, barely remembering to grab my jacket from the kitchen before ducking out.