Big Shot | ✓

19 | cover 2

I hadn't slept in a bed with someone else in a long time. Even after most hook-ups, I'd find a way to slip away before having to resort to spending the night. I liked my bed, I liked my pillows, and I liked my noise machine.

I liked my bed a lot less when I had to share it with a guy who took up approximately 3/4 of my space, forcing me to sleep practically on top of him. But I found myself at ease watching him sleep, his chest gently rising and falling with his breath.

It always amazed me how much younger people looked when they were sleeping - unhindered and unbothered by the world and everything in it. Early morning sunlight that trickled in through my blinds softened all the rigid edges of him, and there was a peacefulness to him that seemed like such a stark contrast to his intensely competitive persona. Even the wild hurricane of his hair had turned to ripples and waves on my pillow, the way the early morning ocean would hit the shoreline.

At this point, I couldn't deny that I found him attractive, but in this specific moment, there was something beautiful about him that no guy had a right to be. The absolute fucking audacity.

I must have been more at ease than I'd even realized because I'd fallen back asleep, and when I woke up, he was awake. He had one arm draped around me as I rested on his chest, and with his other hand he held his phone sideways, watching game film.

I was unsure if he knew I was awake or was just too focused on watching. I realized the film was on the Georgia defense - the team Clemson was playing on opening weekend. We sat in silence for a while, but it wasn't an awkward silence. Rather, it was almost as if we were just trying to preserve the peace of whatever this intimate moment was between us.

"The way Georgia does a Cover 2 is ridiculous," he eventually muttered, but loud enough for me to understand he was speaking to me.

"They don't play man-to-man or 1-high?" I asked, squinting at the video on the screen.

"Rarely. Their defense is essentially tailor-made for a quarterback like me who relies on the deep ball. Their pass rush tears through any decent offensive line, so there's basically no window for me to throw the ball cleanly, and their safeties are a bunch of ballhawks. I'm gonna get picked off like a fucking cherry tree."

I snickered as I leaned into him a little bit more and it wasn't lost on me how well my body fit into his. "That must be some kind of Southern euphemism. Never heard that before."

"See, see, look at this." He ignored my playful jab completely as he shifted up slightly, pointing at the film still playing on his phone screen. There was almost an excitement to his voice, not in the kid in a toy store way but more of a kid who solves rubix cubes for fun way. "They play this zone high, and then when the ball is snapped, they come down fast on the receivers. And if it's a running play, the cornerbacks are already there by the time the guy breaks through the line. Their entire secondary is big and fast, and they know it."

There wasn't one moment where he hesitated or asked me if I needed clarification. Everything he said was as if he was speaking to a teammate.

"Well, you're big and fast too," I mused.

I felt his chest vibrate as he chuckled. "Are we still talking about football, or...?"

I scowled. "Walked right into that one, didn't I?"

"Couldn't resist," he grinned.

"Point being," I deflected, rolling over so that I could look up at him, my head still resting on his chest. "Looks like you're going to have to do a lot of designed runs. Or run some kind of empty shock fade out."