Second Chance: A Military Football Romance

Chapter One

Roman

I grabbed my phone, checking the time before sliding it into my pocket. It was only about twenty minutes past eight; class didn't start till nine and the walk there from my apartment would take me fifteen minutes, tops. I could drive; that would make the trip even shorter. It was early in the morning, too, which meant I wouldn't have a problem finding a parking spot. Why not?

I grabbed my keys, chugging down the last of my protein shake and filling the blender with water. Ronnie had been right about that making it easier to wash after. I had to hit the gym every morning, whether I had early classes or not. I liked it, but even if I didn't, I had to because of football, even though finals meant I hadn't really been playing as much.

Athletes got a bad rep. Yeah, a lot of guys were only in college because they wanted to get into the draft and be able to go pro without working up through the minors. And, I'd be a liar if I said that wasn't me, too. A lot of people didn't realize just how fucking hard that was, though. College ball was the peak for most of the guys playing. We only needed like a 2.0 GPA to stay on the team, so if the football thing didn't pan out, you could hardly do anything else anyway.

I didn't want to have to use my degree, I wanted to play football. But if I did need it, I wanted to have graduated with something higher than a fucking 2.0. I grabbed my backpack and walked out the door. Living in a college town, there were tons of affordable apartments close to school, so the drive only took about five minutes.

Ronnie was already in the classroom when I walked in, head down, reading a textbook. Nobody else was in there with her. That was the thing with early morning classes – you could be a little late and people wouldn't get on your ass for it, but she was still early as fuck. She took this stuff seriously. She sat all the way up at the front of the classroom and went for all the tutorials, too, the stuff you would tease kids for doing back in middle and high school. It was paying off, though, because she had kept up her 3.8 GPA since her first semester.

She was wrapping her sophomore year, too, and the only reason we were in this class together was we had both ended up picking Western Civilization II as an elective. She was a Psych major because she was smart. I was a business major because I needed a degree in something and when playing football, the less involved your course load was, the easier it was to keep your GPA high enough to stay on the team.

Her hair was tied up in a bun and she was in a hoodie and jeans. Two tall coffee cups were sitting on the desk next to her textbook. "One of those for me?" I asked, walking up to her. She jumped at my voice, but smiled when she saw me.

"Hi, baby," she said, holding a cup out. I leaned down to kiss her.

"Hey, were you waiting for me?" I asked. I took the cup and drank deeply from it; it had been standing there long enough to not be too hot anymore. It was just your standard coffee, no sugar, but made with almond milk instead of cow milk. Ron would just get us the same order when she bought coffee. I wasn't even sure I could tell the difference, but it was supposed to be better for you. I just took her word for it.

"I was just thinking about calling you."

"When did you get here?" I asked. The sun was out and the light that was filtering into the room was catching the gold in her blonde hair. It was long and curly when she wore it down. She wore makeup most days, but not today; it would cover the light freckles on the tops of her cheeks when she did. Her eyes were the kind of green that made me think of spring, everything coming up fresh and new after months of freezing temperatures.

"Only about ten minutes ago," she said.

"You drove?" I asked.

"Car refused to start this morning. I walked,” she said as she shook her head. She had gotten her car at seventeen; it had been a piece of shit then and still was now. It practically stopped working during winter and when it did work, it would break down on her constantly. She liked it because she had gotten it herself as her first car, but I wished she wouldn't drive it. Acuras was supposed to be safe, but when they were that beat up, the safety measure had to go down some.

"Why didn't you call me? I would have picked you up."

"It's out of your way," she said, shrugging. "It's not that far walking."

"I'll take you home after class," I said. "I need to use the library anyway."

"Are you gonna be there till late like last night?"

"No. This close to finals, it's going to be packed."

"Good thing finals only last a week."