"What the fuck are the chances that this will ever happen again? If she was out of the picture, just think. After a whole year not playing, a team picks you out of hundreds of guys and offers you a spot. How often do you think that happens? How many guys would murder you to take your spot?"
"I can’t make this decision like I don't have other things that matter to me. If you asked me a year or two ago, I would have said yes and been in Miami tomorrow – no hesitation. This is different, Don. Football's not the most important thing to me."
"But the girl you just got back together with is?" he asked.
I shrugged. "I know I don't want to leave her."
"You did it before and look what happened. When you got back, she was still in one piece."
"You can't compare this to that time."
"Why not? You had to go then, and you have to go now. You had to leave her then, and you have to do it now. Talk to her, whatever you need to do, but fuck it, man, you have to take this deal. "
Why did it feel like this meant more to him than it did to me? I knew he was my friend and supported me, but what was the big deal? He had backed out of his own sports career, maybe it would make him feel better somehow if I went through with it?
I didn't get it, though; he had quit. He had loved baseball, too, and he had still hung up his mitt to work here every day. He had chosen what mattered more to him and it hadn’t been baseball, so why couldn’t he see that I felt the same way?
"I have till Friday to tell them. I'll wait till then," I said, sipping some of the beer. How long had it taken him to make h
is decision? Had he just been so worn down by his dad that he'd thrown his hands up and quit, just like that?
I knew I had asked for more time and things could change over a couple days, but far as I could tell, I had to pick. Ron or football. Right now, it wasn't looking that good for Miami. Right now, if someone asked me straight up to pick, I was picking her. I didn't want football if it meant she and I would have to split up again.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Veronica
Roman didn't sleep in. He had sort of been like that before, but it had never been this severe. My alarm hadn't rung yet, but I was awake. He was next to me, looking at his phone. The light was illuminating his face ghostly white.
That hadn't been what had woken me up, though. That had been him getting up a little while ago to go to the bathroom. He was back in bed, but I hadn't managed to fall back asleep yet. Part of me didn't really want to.
It was Wednesday, which meant class, which I wasn't looking forward to. Not when I could just lay here with Roman. He wasn't even sleeping, but it didn't matter. I was warm and comfy, and I liked being close to him. It hadn't gotten hot enough outside to not need to use covers anymore.
We were in my bed. The night before, we had had dinner together, watching TV shows, and I had ended up passing out on the couch. He must have carried me back here. I was glad that he didn't end up leaving back to his place after making sure I was back in bed, even though the chances that he would do that were pretty slim with the record we had been keeping up. My apartment was starting to feel like something was missing when he wasn't here with me.
If I woke up – well, I was already awake – but if I got up, I'd have to start getting ready to leave, and I didn't want that. Cognitively, I knew the way that sounded. I felt like a thirteen-year-old girl dating her first boyfriend, who she couldn’t be separated from for even a minute. I wanted to stay with him, but I was paying back the full cost of my tuition no matter how many classes I missed.
Attending class was literally the easiest part of college unless you had a disability or were sick. I wasn't either – I was just hung up on the man beside me who I'd see again anyway. It wasn't that serious needing to leave for a few hours.
That didn't mean the idea stopped appealing to me. We were both dressed under the covers since nothing had happened last night, but that could change. I put my hand over his body, feeling the warm, tight skin on his abs. He didn't move. I peered up at him, checking to see whether he had noticed. He hadn't. I started moving it deliberately down to the waistband of his underwear.
"Ron?" he said.
"Good morning," I said, looking up at him.
"I thought you were still asleep," he said. I straddled him, throwing the covers off.
"Hm, but you're not," I said, grinding my hips into his crotch. I could feel him growing stiff and long. My alarm finally rang when I had my legs spread on either side of Roman's face, and his cock in my mouth.
"You sure I can't get you to stay?" he asked from the bed. I looked over my shoulder at him. He was still naked and hadn't bothered to cover himself up. His cock was already soft again, but I looked away. I couldn't let him distract me.
"I have to go to class, Roman," I said, pulling my jeans up over my ass.
"That's the thing. No, you don't."
"Yes, I do," I said, piling my hair up on my head and tying it into a bun.
"Not every single one. They give us a number we can get away with not attending because they get that, too. Come back to bed."