Jock Royal (Jock Hard 4)

It’s still considered early—just eleven o’clock—students getting dressed to go out and party.

We approach campus, coming to a crossroads at the next stoplight.

“Uh…now which way?” I ask, glancing left then right.

“Straight. I’m up another five blocks.”

“Five blocks? Did you walk all this way?” I look down at her feet. “In those shoes?”

She looks down too. “What’s wrong with my shoes?”

Nothing is wrong with them. They’re just…high. Who the hell wants to walk all that way in blasted heels?

Women.

I’ll never understand them.

It would have helped if Mum had had a girl and I hadn’t just been stuck with Jack and Dad—little more estrogen in the house would have served us all well.

Georgia sighs, probably out of boredom because we’ve barely spoken and now I’m ridiculing her choice in footwear, one city block behind us and four more to go.

My lips part, and I let slip a somewhat personal question. “How do you like it here so far?”

“It’s fine—not what I was expecting.”

“How so?”

“Well…” She pauses. “For starters, I didn’t think the girls on the track team would haze an upperclassman. I’m not a rookie, and it was uncalled for.”

I laugh at how ridiculous she sounds. How disgruntled.

“Didn’t you ever haze anyone?”

Her sharp look answers the question before she does. “No, Ashley, I didn’t. It’s against the honor code.”

Ha.

The honor code is a joke and everyone knows it. Everyone breaks it at some point, especially the second they step into an off-campus house party.

Duh.

“Where did you come from, the land of make-believe? This isn’t a fairy tale—you don’t think athletes at your old uni were initiating teammates? C’mon now.” My snort punctuates the sentence.

“I’m not an idiot—I know they were, but as far as the track and field team went…no. Not that I saw, thank god. It makes me sick.”

Pfft.

“Not sick enough,” I mutter under my breath, just loud enough for her to catch.

She halts in the middle of the sidewalk to face me, hands on her hips.

“Good. I’m glad you’re bringing this up, because it’s the only thing I can think about. I’m sorry, okay? I was just trying to…get it over with that night so they’d leave me alone. It had nothing to do with you—it wasn’t personal.”

Nothing to do with me? Is she delusional?

When a pretty girl walks up to you at a party and asks you on a date as a dare because she’s been told to find the ugliest bloke at a party—it’s personal.

“But that’s where you’re wrong.” I continue walking, hands still jammed into my jeans. “Think a bloke isn’t going to take offense to your little prank? I’ve seen it done before, and it’s not fucking funny.”

She hurries to catch up to me, hand pulling at my arm, latched onto my bicep. “You were the first guy I saw standing in that room! You’re like, three feet taller than every last one of those guys, okay?”

I roll my eyes. “Don’t be so dramatic.”

But I’d be lying if I said her observation isn’t oddly satisfying and doesn’t stroke my ego, even just a little bit.

“Ashley, stop.”

I stop.

Face her.

Hands out, beseeching, she’s in the middle of the sidewalk again, staring at me, defeated look on her face.

“I don’t know what else to say—I don’t know how to apologize. I don’t think you’re ugly, and I don’t think you’re stupid.”

Stupid.

Wait, what?

“Who the hell said anything about stupid? Was that part of the bet, too? Am I missing something?”

She facepalms herself.

“No one said anything about you being—” She inhales a deep breath. “It was a figure of speech. I’m nervous. I’m frustrated I put you in this situation, and I wish I could go back and do it all over again.”

Do it all over again.

Now there’s an idea.

I look back down the road toward where we came from, eyeing the path we just walked. Past the administration building on campus, up toward the ramshackle rugby house.

What would she do differently if we could go back—if it hadn’t played out this way? What would she have said to me, if anything at all?

“Alright.” I nod.

Georgia looks confused. “Alright what?”

“Let’s do it over again.” I have to know what would change if we had a redo, because the truth is…

I like Georgia.

“Like—go back right now?”

I pull my left hand from my pocket and check the gold watch—a family heirloom—encircling my wrist for the time.

“It’s still early.”

Her brows shoot up. “You want to go back and…role-play?”

I shrug. “Sure. Why not?”

She bites her lower lip, thinking. We both know if she truly wants to make this right, she has to walk back to the rugby house with me tonight and do it all over again.

“Sans your bitchy friends from the track team, of course.” I smirk. “You game?”

Her spine straightens. “Lead the way.”

Seven

Georgia

This time when I spot Ashley in the living room of the party house, I have a chance to really study him, in no hurry to rush over and pantomime my way through this charade he’s asked me to play.