Page 11 of Playing to Win
Kyle: Well, I guess I’m a loser then, because that’s when I always did my best studying. I’ve got my glasses. I’ve got pizza. I’ve got, I would say beer, because pizza and beer and collegiate studying seem to go hand in hand. But I hate beer, so I brought sweet tea.
Callie: I don’t drink. What kind of sweet tea?
Kyle: Gold Peak.
Callie: Pizza. Are you trying to make me fat? I won’t be able to fit in my uniform.
Kyle: Good. That means no other guys will look at you.
Callie: #sigh. Flattery will get you nowhere. Too bad I’m a sucker for pizza. You may enter. Apt 3C.
Kyle grabbed the pizza and tea off the sidewalk and headed in the direction of her apartment with a smile on his face. The first stage of “Win Curly Over,” as he had deemed it, had begun. He climbed the stairs and was about to knock, but before he could get the tea changed over to his pizza hand to free his other hand to knock, the door was already opening.
“Hey, Cur—not Curly,” Kyle stuttered. “Do I have the right apartment? Is this Callie Thompson’s apartment? I swear she told me 3C. I’m really sorry if it isn’t. Hang on, I’ll check my phone. Can you hold this?”
He handed the pizza and tea to the knockout who answered the door and reached in his pocket to grab his phone, but Knockout pushed them right back into his hands.
“What, just because you’re Kyle Kelly you think you can just come into any girl’s apartment with pizza and tea and expect our panties to just fall off? Of all the nerve! I can’t believe you! Some women have morals, stupid head. All you professional football players are all alike—”
“What? I don’t play foo—”
“Basketball, you dummy. He plays basketball,” Kyle heard someone whisper fiercely from behind the door.
“Like I said,” Knockout continued, trying not to look flustered, “All you basketball players are all alike—”
As politely as Kyle could, he pushed his way past knockout and peered around the door, pretty sure he knew who he would find. His guess was right on the money. Curly was hiding in the corner between the wall and the door.
“Well, hello,” he said, keeping the door open and effectively trapping her between the door and the wall. “Imagine my surprise when you told me Apartment 3C and Knockout over here answered the door instead of you. Then she accused me of wanting her to drop her panties and was blasphemous enough to call me a football player. That was low, Curly, even for you.”
“She put me up to it!” Curly said, her hands up in an innocent, who me, gesture.
“What? Callie Elizabeth Thompson, you are a liar! Back away from the lady before you get struck by lightning from God, Mr. Kelly. I’m Cassie, by the way,” Knockout held out her hand for him to shake. Unfortunately, they were still full of pizza and tea.
“Oh, I’m sorry. I don’t have any hands.” Callie’s roommate took the food and drink and set it on their breakfast bar about three steps in front of Kyle. Keeping his hostage strategically trapped behind the door, he glanced around her place. Small kitchen on the left with the breakfast bar separating it from the equally small living room on the right. A comfy looking tan couch and well-worn recliner faced a TV stand and were both covered with throw pillows in shades of orange, turquoise, and green. A variety of photographs in a rainbow of shades dotted the walls. Cassie and Callie in bathing suits posing in front of some sort of waterfall. Callie in a Thunder uniform with another dancer with auburn hair. Callie in a basketball jersey holding a gold ball and posing with a man who he assumed was her dad. A door between the breakfast bar and couch opened into a small hallway where Kyle figured he would find the bathroom and bedrooms. It was a small place, but really homey.
“Nice place you’ve got here, Curly.”
“It’s actually a lot nicer when you’re not stuck in a makeshift prison,” she remarked, pinching his leg hair.
“Ouch! You heifer!” he said, jumping away from the door.
“Excuse me? Did you just call me a heifer?” Curly’s voice rose up a notch and came out as a squeak on the word heifer.
Oh, boy, Kyle thought. This was not going at all how he planned.
Callie’s roommate, however, found it remarkably funny. A moment ago she had been perched on the arm of the couch. At his heifer comment, however, she fell onto her back on the couch, laughing so hard she was clutching her stomach and snorting.
“Yes, he did,” she said in between laughs. “And you should have seen your face when he said it.”
“Out!” Callie told him, pointing her finger to the door. “You. You take your pizza. You take your tea. You take your study glasses and your attractive little butt out of my apartment. Deal’s over. Actually, leave the pizza. But you go.”
Kyle planted his feet firmly on the carpet. “Nope.”
“What? I just told you to get out. So leave. Vamanos. Go. Jet. Skedaddle.”
“I’m not leaving. We’re going to eat pizza. We’re going to study.”
“You just called me a heifer!”
