Page 24 of Studs Up
“Be careful with him,” she said, and the glint dropped. “He’s a tortured soul.”
I sat back and crossed my arms.
“How do you know that?”
“You didn’t get your observation skills from your father,” she said with a half-shrug. “If he had, I wouldn’t have had to chase him down. Silly man.” She smiled affectionately. “You think I spent all those hours watching you play? I didn’t start to notice who you noticed?” Jesus, had I been that obvious?
She gave me a squeeze and a pat, then cleared the table.
My mind wandered as I helped her with the dishes, and she sat down to have her nightly cider with some reality show with a ridiculous premise I didn’t care about.
Instead, I went upstairs to my bedroom.
It looked exactly like I had the day I left for college. She hadn’t altered a thing, and I was rarely here long enough to make any changes.
Ma came in and dusted regularly but otherwise left things undisturbed. My walls had been covered with posters, stat sheets, and play diagrams.
And fucking hell, the hit wall.
The wall without windows, doors, or closets was covered from ceiling to floor with pictures of players I picked as the next greats or my biggest competitions.
Every player was there. I pegged the top fifty players as the most dangerous up and coming stars. Most of them had made it in the US or gone to Europe. Three had been wiped out by career ending injuries. Two had drug issues, and another one just decided it wasn’t what he wanted to be and had a major falling out with his dad. But the remaining forty-four players were active in one pro league or another.
Each player had a list of weaknesses and strengths.
Holden Monroe was in the very center of the wall. I had placed him there with an aggressive pin after the final match and our loss.
He was going to be the man to beat. It hadn’t quite worked out for him like I thought it would. He had been on fire in the academy, and when he got signed. Then, something stunted him about a year after he signed with the Portland Rovers.
Last season, he seemed to have found some momentum, but it wasn’t enough. Not for me.
He looked much like he did now. Maybe a little more sun-kissed, but he was fit, smiling, and beautiful. I pinned up several pictures. All angles and actions. But the one I stared at was the one in the middle. Under his pictures, his strengths were listed in red and his weaknesses in green. Ego was at the top and circled on both sides. That hadn’t changed.
I had stood exactly where I was, staring at my wall, staring at him, for hours. The carpet still had the dents from my feet. I had been obsessed. I watched hours of footage of him playing, learning every part about him, dissecting his choices, and memorizing his moves. It occurred to me for the first time that it might not have been all about the competition.
I remember jerking off from this spot. I clocked it as horny teenager shit. But as I stood there in the middle of my room and felt the swell of my cock tighten in my pants, I realized that I was jerking off to Holden. That’s where my gaze had been. It’s why I put him in the center. He was my biggest threat, but he was also my sole focus.
I adjusted, and that was a fucking mistake because the mere friction of shifting my pants made my cock angry, and it throbbed painfully in the tight space.
“Fuck,” I hissed.
Like I had done all those years ago, I locked my door and returned to the spot. Was I really going to do this? Yeah. I was too horny to care. I was an adult in my childhood bedroom, about to jerk off to my rival again.
This time, I had actual physical memories to blend with the picture of him getting ready to kick the ball. The athleticism of his body then was exactly the same now. Tight, lean, and fucking hot.
Heat rippled through my body, and I had to do something about it. Unzipping my pants, I pulled my cock out and gave myself a hard stroke. Unlike teenage Nolan. I had years of experience, hours of porn, and the very real feel of Holden’s lips.
God, I wanted that again. I wanted to feel his body, and I wanted to know what he looked like on his knees with his mouth open, waiting for my cock.
I groaned. I could almost see it. Gray eyes looking up at me, and fuck, the heat that rushed through my cock burned my veins. My strokes sped up, and my breathing labored.
I only had the briefest clarity to grab the tissue from the box on my nightstand before I came into it, grunting and gasping. His smiling face stared back at me as my body returned to normal.
So now what?
After tossing the tissue, I pulled up my pants and grabbed my phone to send a text.
Holden
