Page 16 of Unexpected Prejudice

“Yeah, well. No, thank you.” I hated sports. I only did the bare minimum to maintain a healthy lifestyle and hated every minute of it.

“We can toss a ball or something sometime.”

We can what now?

“Sure, I’m good with balls.” Jessie nudged my shoulder, and I wanted to smack him.

Sometimes, his jokes were too much and completely inappropriate. I knew this joke was way out of line by how red Jordan’s cheeks turned. It also made me wonder about Jordan’s intentions. Was this just an awkward reaction to a bad joke, or did he just blush because of Jessie?

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” Jessie grinned. “But yeah, I would love to try. Maybe I’ll even convince Levi to join. Who knows?”

Suddenly, the two of them looked at me, and the only thing my brain came up with was, “Sure.”

“Really?” Jessie wrapped an arm around me and kissed my cheek. “You’re awesome, Babydoll.”

I didn’t want to push him away from me because nothing felt better than his hands around my body, but not when we were around people. I didn’t appreciate PDA since I was too aware of our surroundings to feel comfortable. Even more so when our surroundings were right in front of us, trying to pretend he missed the kiss.

“So, yeah,” Jordan said awkwardly. “We’ll catch up later or something.”

“Sure,” I said quickly before Jessie could. “See you later.”

Jordan

Just before practice, I met with the school treasurer about pulling out my tuition fee for the second semester so I would have the money to pay off Mike. Mom had no idea, of course, she didn’t, but I thought that if I did that, I’d still have the first semester to play football and get the scouts to notice me. The regular season would probably end around October unless our team reached the state championships in November. What that meant for me was that I could go to school and play until winter break, and then? Who knows. All I needed was a scholarship.

Apparently, however, my plan wasn’t going to happen because I found out there were no refunds after the school year had started. I was so screwed. I had less than a week to come up with the money and no idea how to do that. What I made on my lousy job was barely enough for one month’s pay, so for two? Yeah, I was in deep shit, and if that wasn’t enough, I also sucked at practice today. I missed easy passes and was even tackled by Don, who was nowhere near as fast as me. Today’s practice was an endless parade of rookie mistakes because I was distracted.

My shift started in less than an hour, and I still had to catch the bus, but skipping a shower wasn’t a possibility with the way I smelled, so I took one as fast as possible while ignoring the casual talk the guys had while washing myself. With a towel around my waist, I pulled my clothes out of my locker while my mind was lost in thoughts about Mike and the money I didn’t have.

“Hey, Keller. What’s up?” Shay-Lee’s voice snapped me back, and I turned my head to find his half-naked body leaning against his locker next to mine.

I tried to force my eyes away from the water dripping down his smooth chest, leaving a trail all the way down to his parts covered with the white towel. Fuck.

“Hey,” I shot back as I darted my eyes away from him and back to my locker.

“You sucked today,” he said in a friendly voice that made me feel like more of an idiot.

“Y-yeah, I’m sorry.” I slid my boxer briefs underneath my towel before I put it aside and moved on to my jeans.

“Oh, don’t apologize for that. We all have bad days. I just wanted to check to see if you’re okay. You seemed distracted.” His concern surprised me and made me feel a little bit better. Most of all, I was happy he wasn’t mad.

With my shirt in my hand, I looked at him and was met with his stunning baby blues. I also noticed he had a black eye and bruises similar to mine. I wondered how he got them but remembered he’d said something about a bar fight during practice.

“That’s nice of you. I mean, for asking… I appreciate it.” I stumbled over my own words.

“Of course, man. We’re friends. Anyway, want to grab something to eat? I’m starved,” he said as he opened his locker and pulled out his clothes.

It wasn’t unusual for the guys to strip naked in front of each other in the locker room, but this was Shay-Lee we were talking about. As soon as his towel dropped, I was met with his naked body. He quickly slid on his boxer briefs, but I still caught a glimpse of his perfect ass and the base of his cock, which was smooth like the rest of him. My heart beat a little faster, and I tried to control my rapid breathing so he wouldn’t notice how he affected me while wishing I got to see more because now, I was really curious about his pubes. Knowing that he was hairless down there turned me on and my mouth went dry, thinking about him waxing himself or perhaps shaving. I quickly shut down those thoughts before he really saw how my body reacted to him.

“Eh?” he asked, an amused smile on his face.

Did he catch me staring?

“What?” I asked.

“I asked if you wanna go eat, and all you said was, Eh.”

Seriously Jordan? “Eh” wasn’t even a word. It was a sound and definitely not a response to someone asking you to grab a bite.