WREN

My jaw drops to the rubber mats as the bar goes nuts with laughter and cheering, everyone craning to get a good look at my reaction. I’m pouring an Orpheus draft into a recently washed pint glass. We’re so busy we keep running out of glasses. As the golden lager streams its overflow down my stunned fingers, I hit the faucet and jump back. I never spill.

More laughter.

Rolling my eyes I call out, “Okay, so now you know what these red patches on my face are!”

Applause breaks out in the funniest way, southerners cupping their hands and hooting all kinds of lewd things. “He scratch that itch, Wren?” “Tell us where it aches?” “Hurts so good, though, huh?!”

If I were a fragile flower I’d wilt.

I’m not feeling fragile anymore.

I feel kind of like a superhero now that I told Peter to shove it.

So with a proud grin I call back, “Just watch the damn screen and pray he takes the game back from those bastards!”

Next to me, Mike hollers, “Damn straight! Cocker get us the fuck out of this mess, would ya?!”

Everyone cheers their agreement, hopeful and emboldened by their star player going in there with a wounded hand and promising he’s going to make it right.

The commercials end, half time show over, and the bar gets so quiet you’d think someone died. My heart is pounding, but not for them to win, although of course I want that.

He just said my name into the camera. He just claimed me, didn’t he? It sure felt like that. We haven’t talked about what we are to each other, but my blood is racing with the belief that something special really has happened. And that it’s not just me. He’s emotionally here, too. He dedicated this projected win to me and seeing him run onto the field and huddle, camera getting as close as it can to his famous face, my heart expands to the size of that stadium.

Everyone chemically reacts to Poison Ivy differently. Eric got the worst of it. I have some splotches, but no blisters. And my pussy feels like she’s on fire, but it was worth it. I almost didn’t come in to work since my face, where he touched it so often, is patches of hot pink. But Mike told me to be here. “We’re not a bunch of sissies in the South, nobody will care!” he’d said.

I land fists on my hips and watch with everyone else. Even Mike stops making drinks. Nobody cares about one right now, happy to wait until we can all breathe again. The Falcons have the ball and the offensive line on the field, a close up of Eric behind Mott, waiting for the pass. My chest kicks, and our crowd breaks into, “Come on Number Three! Show ‘em what you’re workin’ with!”

“He’s workin’ with a bad case of poison ivy,” someone jokes, but nobody laughs. He shuts up, comedian career put on hold, hopefully for good.

Mott throws to Eric who catches it, jogs back as the Patriot’s linebackers lunge for him. Our running backs take off and Eric spots the rookie, Sooks, open, running sideways, hoping for a chance. Eric pitches the ball at him, a perfect throw. Sooks catches, cuddles it like it’s his own child he’s gotta save from a bomb about to detonate. The bar gasps as the rookie almost gets taken down by one Patriot. Immediately after he narrowly escapes, another one is hot on his tail. Tony Sanchez grabs the second Patriot’s legs and the guy goes down. Sooks keeps running, running, and he crosses the touchdown line!

The stadium goes wild.

But the bar roars ballistic.

Maybe it’s because we can hear our screaming up close, or maybe because the Falcons come here after every home game, or maybe because Eric just singled me out and everyone here felt like they were a part of that, making this victory more personal than it would normally have been. Whatever the reason, joy clamors through our veins and we are all shouting our asses off. Mike runs over, picks me up, spins me around, sets me down and fist pumps the air. “Yeah! That’s. How. We. Motherfucking. DO IT!”

Not only did Eric follow through with what he said, even with that hand, he took a chance on a rookie everyone knows has been hungering for a chance. It’s one thing to try to run the ball himself, or pass it to a veteran he could rely on when the stakes were this high, but Eric took a chance on Sooks and that made this all the more legendary.

And the game just gets better from there.

The reception our players get when they walk into O’Neal’s is pure jubilation. Everyone high fives or pats them on the back. Most of the team showed up tonight since the game was so epic. All the Falcons have huge grins on their faces, just like the ones they had when they lifted Sooks and Eric above their heads in a cheering stadium at the end of the winning game.

Since everyone’s distracted, Mike walks up and whispers in my ear, “Bet your mind’s off scratchin’ those itches now, huh?”

I’ve been miserable for hours, keeping my fucked-up face as friendly as I could and he knows it. “What itch?”

He laughs and I glance over to Eric who looks so handsome, cracking up with a bunch of familiar fans giving him shit for being a pussy and sitting out the first half.

Mott says over the din, “Yeah, Cocker, what took you so long to grow some balls? Or are they too blistered they crawled back up in ya?”

Everyone guffaws!

Eric glances to the bar, searching for and finding me. As our eyes lock he lights up and gives me a wink. I swear to God I’ve never felt so special, so happy, in my whole life.

But people need drinks and I’m on the clock. While he makes the rounds of stardom I go back to working, my hands moving fast and light.

When he left my apartment yesterday morning after two days in my bed, kitchen sink filled with delivery cartons and plastic silverware, his hand was a disaster, not to mention the rest of him. We took what felt like twenty-baths filled with chamomile tea we boiled on my stove. Swathed ourselves in numbing cream he had delivered from a physical therapist the team employs for player’s injuries. And while we tried not to have sex we didn’t always succeed in abstinence despite the fact that the redness stopped us mid-coitus more than once. I think if it had been a romantic few days, that might have been fun. But the laughter and the agony we shared trying to combat his foible of handing me a grouping of poisonous leaves to blow my nose with, then rubbing it all over his pants which then rubbed all over me, was way more bonding than some sweet words and heavy petting could ever have accomplished.

From virtual strangers to his human compassion forcing him to tell me the truth, to our attraction losing the leash that held it at bay, to lovers, and finally to something even more concrete than that…to friends.

Eric Cocker no longer feels like an abstract idea of a jock stereotype to me. He’s tangible—kind and thoughtful, sidesplittingly funny, incredibly protective, masculine and cocky as hell, panty-meltingly sexy, and maybe a little sweeter than he’d like to admit.

“What’re you thinking about, Wren?” Eleanor asks as she loads her tray with the drinks I just made. “Or do I even have to ask?”

With a private smile I tell her, “It’s not what you think.”

“Oh?” Her eyebrows lift.

“I was wrong about jocks. They’re more complicated than they first seem.”

Rolling her eyes yet happy for me, she heads into the crowd, throwing, “Duh!” over her naked shoulder, tank top tight in the hopes of alluring Dion Lewis to her bed again. She didn’t tell me that, but I know that lipstick is her come-and-get-it shade.

“Were you watching,” I hear from my left.

Turning at his familiar voice, I see Eric on the other side of the counter, in a v-neck T that fits him to perfection. His hazel eyes are on fire, lopsided grin adorable.

Feigning boredom I ask, “Who are you?”

He roars with laughter and jumps mermaid-style on the bar, his torso stretching across and knocking over empty glasses. I grab his face and kiss him, making out like this in front of everyone as word spreads, applause following.

Eric grins and presses one last hard kiss on me, dropping back to his side of the bar. He glances around, nods to the masses, then cocks an eyebrow my way. “Can I get a beer or what? Fuck, the service in this place sucks!”

With a lift of my eyebrow I dryly say, “Drop your pants and see if you can say that.”

He whoops along with all those close enough to have heard.