I Hate Football Players 3 | 18+

Chapter 8: Logan

As a person, Ellie had a lot of admirable qualities, but her weak poker face wasn't one of them. Although, the moment we saw each other again, I'd never been more thankful for that part of her. Every blush of her cheeks, aversion of her beautiful doe-shaped eyes, shy smile, and flustered word she said stroked my ego and encouraged me further that she still had feelings for me.

Being a college football player, at least at UCD, was similar to when I played in high school. Even with the smaller scale, homegrown-feeling to the Aggies' program, the amount of attention I received as a byproduct from football was the same. My records, my wins, and my performance measures all spoke for themselves and definitely attracted attention to me.

Once I transferred to UW, a new spotlight shone on me. Harper herself alluded to this in her brief phone conversation. Sports Illustrated listed me within the top ten, number four to be exact, college football players to keep an eye on this season. Number one, not coincidentally, was Ellie's brother Jake Harrision because this year he was USC's starting quarterback but SI labelled me as the 'wild card player.'

Better than the Seventeen's list.

In a weird and embarrassing attention-grabber, last year Seventeen magazine ranked me at number one in their article, 'Top Ten Hottest College Football Players.' I had no idea how she'd come across this list but I found out from, of all people, Mom. Even worse, she'd called me while I dressed in the locker room right after the first week of the Aggies' camp had ended.

"Logan, you're a hottie-patottie!" She'd exclaimed loudly into the phone.

"I'm what, Mom?" I switched down my phone volume because knowing Mom, this inevitably embarrassed me.

"You made a top ten list of Hottest College Football players!"

"Uhh, okay?" My eyebrows lifted and I sat down on the nearest bench. "From EPSN or something?"

"No!" She chirped loudly. "Seventeen Magazine!"

My eyes scanned around the locker room for any sign that this was a prank.

What the fuck?

As if Mom's announcement wasn't enough, she was determined to further gouge into my torment. "I'm going to send it to everyone I know! Oh, it's not a very flattering picture... You're making a weird face. But I'll send it anyway."

Great. This is completely embarrassing.

"Mom, please don't," I groaned right when her notification hit my phone.

Curiosity won me over and I opened her link, then quickly closed my eyes. Of all possibilities, the magazine had used a photo that I recognized immediately and still hoped hadn't followed me from UCD to UW. The accompanied text was mortifying on its own.

'Hottie Logan Hightower at UC-Davis gives us a peak at why he's No. 1! LT won the Big Sky title his freshman year and campus rumors say that there's a brain under number ten's helmet! With his piercing blue eyes, stick a fork in us, we're done for!'

The more I reread the article, the more a sense of dread grew inside me until my index finger and thumb pinched the bridge of my nose.

I'm going to get so much shit for this.

The accompanying picture had been taken by and posted in The Aggie, UCD's student newspaper, for a post-game recap during my sophomore year. At one point during the annual 'Battle for the Golden Horseshoe' game against Cal Poly, which was a big deal to UCD, a piece of field grass had gotten smashed into my helmet's cage. Dirt rained into my left eye when I removed the helmet and, for lack of anything better, I'd grabbed the inside edge of my Aggies' uniform shirt and wiped at it.