Hard Stick Read online

  “No, not all of us,” I mumble, face now so hot it hurts. “Just me.”

  He studies me. “So, you never just let loose? Let it slip out? Because I thought you might’ve been pretty close a little while ago, with my tongue inside you.”

  I flush from head to toe. I’ll never admit how close I was, and how right he is.

  He leans over and gives me a kiss that makes my pulse skyrocket. “Welcome to Boston, Savannah,” he says with a grin. “You’ve got a lot to learn.”

  After he leaves, my heart pounds in my chest for hours afterwards. Because I think he’s the only one I want to teach me.

  But he’s gone.

  Chapter 3

  The alarm on my phone goes off at five, waking me from a deep slumber, filled with kinky dreams, unlike I’d ever had before. My bed is weirdly lumpy, my skin drenched with sweat. Did our central air break? I wrestle my eyes open and suddenly, it hits me.

  I’m not in Ohio anymore, and, last night I. . .

  God, last night.

  Suddenly Bourneville, Ohio feels a million miles away from here.

  I scramble out of bed, my vision bending in the sunlight streaming through the blinds, trying to get myself together. On the flight, I’d told myself that the moment I moved into my new apartment, I’d find a store, stock the fridge, unpack, have a light dinner, and get to bed at a reasonable hour so I wouldn’t be a mess today.

  Now, I realize as I look at my naked body, veiled in a healthy post-sex glow, I’ve done none of those things. That afterglow is seriously the only thing I have going for me right now.

  All my stuff is still packed in my suitcase, which I haven’t opened. My clothes are probably all wrinkles. I have absolutely no food in the fridge. Heck, I didn’t even brush my teeth last night before crashing, because whatever Flynn did to me . . . it made things like my normal pre-bed routine seem positively unnecessary. I hate to admit that a virtual stranger can have such an effect on me, but there’s no doubt about it; his effect on me was profound. It’s like he sent my whole world on end.

  I find my shampoo and soap in my travel bag, then climb into a shower that isn’t as hot or relaxing as I’d like. This building is old, the pipes moan, and it makes me think of how loudly I’d moaned last night, even with my fist buried in my mouth. In fact, my mind is so muddled it seems to be able to think of nothing but his tongue and the way it had worked magic circles on me. How am I going to carry on a normal conversation with Dr. Morgan? All I can think about right now is sex!

  When I turn off the water, I realize I forgot my towel out in my suitcase.

  Oh, yes, this is going to be a stellar day.

  Luckily, it’s so hot today that I’m practically dry by the time I step out of the tub.

  Calm, I tell myself, wiping the veil of steam from the mirror and checking my reflection. Get yourself under control. You can do this.

  I put on a hopelessly wrinkled blouse and skirt, items I’d been so careful selecting to make sure I presented just the right image for my first day. My fingers shake as I apply my eyeliner, so much that I nearly stab myself in the eye. As I stand there, trying to collect myself, I think about all the hours of blood, sweat, and tears I poured into getting this opportunity. I’d always dreamed about getting a degree in psychology and combining that with my love of all-things sports related. When I saw the advertisement for a research assistant for a sports study on the web, I knew I had to apply, because it sounded written in the stars. It’s been brewing in the front of my mind, every day for the past six months. And now?

  Now I can barely remember who I’m going to meet.

  Oh, right. Dr. Morgan.

  I am so, so screwed, I think, then shush myself and try to change the script in my head. A little Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is what I need right now. You are fine. You’re just nervous.

  And a little freaked out that one stranger could make everything so topsy-turvy. How had he managed that?

  For the thousandth time that morning, I think of him, and that tongue. Oh. That’s how.

  Then I remember how he’d just kind of stopped in the middle of things, and left. I scared him away, somehow. Maybe I did something wrong?

  Likely, yes. I’m just a country bumpkin from Bourneville, after all.

  I shiver with embarrassment as I grab my backpack and head downstairs. I stop halfway down when I see a duffel bag that doesn’t belong to me sitting in the foyer. “Hey, you Savannah?” a voice asks.

  I turn to see a girl in a lot of black eyeliner, her hair tied up in a ponytail, wearing a University of Connecticut sweatshirt. She’s holding a giant box full of Munchkins. On cue, my stomach starts to rumble and I realize I have absolutely no food in the house, thanks to an incredibly hot distraction. “Jen?”

  She nods and offers the box to me. Eureka. I don’t want to be a hog, but I’m starving, so I grab four chocolate ones and one jelly. I get the feeling she and I are going to be the best of friends, already. “Wow, you’re dressed up,” she says to me. “Are you headed somewhere special?”

  “It’s my first day on the job with Professor Morgan, and I haven’t actually met him in person. I want to make a good impression,” I tell her, popping a donut hole into my mouth.

  “Then you’ll want to fix that.” She points at my front. I realize I’d completely mismatched the buttons with the right hole.

  I am such a complete mess, it’s a wonder I can still put one foot in front of the other. Maybe I can’t. I’ll be lucky if the first thing Professor Morgan sees me do isn’t a face plant.

  “Oh, thanks.” I quickly re-button, checking to make sure that at least my shoes are matching. “Well, it’s nice to meet you. I’d better go or I’ll be late, but can we talk later, maybe? I want to get an OJ before I meet my professor.”

  “That’s not your juice in the fridge?” she asks.

  I shake my head. I left nothing in the fridge. But I go in the kitchen anyway. When I get there, I see a box of Cheerios on the counter. I pull open the refrigerator door to see a six-pack of Tropicanas, and a quart of milk. I look at Jen. “You didn’t—“

  “I just came up today,” she says. “What is it, gremlins?”

  No, I think, pulling a post-it note off the quart. It says, Not fresh from the cow, country girl, but you’ll get used to it.

  A heck of a lot hotter than gremlins. And . . . for a bad boy, that sure was a sweet thing to do. My entire body floods with goose bumps and memories of the night before.

  He came back. Flynn actually came back!

  Which means I might actually see him again…

  I am in so much trouble for today.

  On the walk to Cambridge, I check my phone, hoping a nice, encouraging message from my mom will put me back in the right frame of mind. But, no. Instead, Brandon’s sent me twelve more messages, the latest one from this morning: How’s my favorite scholar today?

  I groan inwardly. I don’t know why I feel guilty. We’re not together anymore. It’s almost like even though he told me he was happy for me, he’d prefer for me to sit home, under his thumb, for the rest of my life. He wants me to feel guilty for making this choice, even though he was the one who went away to college first.

  Even though Brandon and I never had even a tiny fraction of the chemistry I had with a stranger my first night in Boston.

  I delete the texts and remind myself how much trouble guys are. You didn’t move all the way out here to meet men, I tell myself, navigating through the unfamiliar streets.

  But then again, Flynn wasn’t just an ordinary guy.

  Flynn knew how to take control in a way I’d never known possible. It was hot, miles more intense than what Brandon could even dream of doing.

  And all I know is that I want it to happen again. Soon.

  No, I tell myself. No. I’m here to get an education, and not a sexual one.

  Gulping OJ and a handful of Cheerios, I make my way down Massachusetts Avenue and find number 1001 easily—it’s the modern brick buil
ding that I’ve seen in all the Cambridge College brochures. In the vestibule, I find the listing for Dr. Morgan’s office on the directory and find my way there without too much trouble. All the doors I pass are covered in cheerful vacation pictures, cat posters, you name it, but his door alone is stark and intimidating. I’d applied for this position before I knew Dr. Morgan’s reputation, but after I was accepted and saw the reviews online, it’d almost made me reconsider. Most of his former students said he was the hardest, strictest professor they’d ever had . . . and those were the nice reviews.

  I take a deep breath and knock, and a gruff voice answers, “Come in.”

  I open the door. Dr. Morgan is sitting in an old wooden roller chair, wearing a rust-colored Mr. Rogers sweater. He has abundant, crazy gray hair, sort of like Einstein. This doesn’t surprise me; I’ve seen his picture a thousand times. All you have to do is input Lance Morgan into Google and a thousand likenesses of him will pop up. If he looked intimidating in the picture, that’s nothing compared to when he pushes away from his desk, whirls around, and inspects me from head to toe with his watery gray eyes, like I’m a car he’s thinking of buying. “Miss Shaw, I presume?”

  I nod.

  I hurry inside and plant my skirted backside on a small folding chair in the corner. I’d been nervous before, but now I might puke orange juice all over the professor. He turns his back to me and starts working again as I watch the seconds tick by on the clock overhead. It’s a full five minutes before he turns around again and gives me a level, appraising gaze. “This is not an easy assignment, Miss Shaw. We are going to be dealing with athletes. And not just any old athletes but AHL hockey players. Hockey players are rough, tough, and not ones for examining their softer sides. You will be having a substantial amount of interaction with the players, both in and out of the arena. Therefore, you’re going to have to change before you meet the players.”

  I look down at my outfit. And here I thought I looked so professional. “Um. Why?”

  “I’m sure you know that as researchers, our job is to not interfere with the study’s outcome. Even the smallest of distractions can skew the results of our work,” he says, gesturing to my legs. “And I’m afraid that you may prove to be one, dressed like that.”

  I squeeze my arms over my chest, feeling about two feet tall. “Okay, so you want me to . . .”

  “Downplay your appearance, yes, as best you can.” He taps on his chin. “A sweat suit is good. No make-up. I don’t want the men to see you as anything other than a study facilitator.”

  So basically he wants me to try to look as butt-ugly as possible. I guess that’s okay. The young me always spent way too much time on my appearance before school. Like I’ve been reminding myself, I’m not here to be social. I can save oodles of time if I don’t have to worry about those kinds of things, time that will be better spent on the study. This will be good for me. I nod.

  “Where do they practice?” I ask.

  “Chambers Arena,” he says. “East Boston. You know where that is?”

  I don’t know East Boston from North or South or West. In fact, I’m scared of taking public transportation for the first time, which was why I made sure my apartment was so close to the college. Come on, Savannah, you’re not a child anymore. “I can find it.”

  “Good. And you must listen to everything I say. I can’t possibly risk the validity of the study by having researchers that could influence the data in any way, which is why I always choose assistants who will not bring bias to the outcome. And your application was chosen because you passed the ethics screening with flying colors. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  I nod.

  “It’s imperative that you don’t interfere in any way. There is to be no personal bias at all. You are to have absolutely no informal relationship with any team members. No casual chitchat, no friendly banter, nothing beyond the professional questions and surveys that will be administered as part of the study. I don’t even want you to take a stick of gum if they offer it. Understand?”

  Gosh, beat it into me, why don’t you?

  I nod again, feeling like a child being berated by its mother. I mean, I knew he was serious, but suddenly graduation seems decades away. “You mentioned in our phone interview that this study is being commissioned by the AHL?”

  “Correct. It’s only a very small part of the endeavor to create a comprehensive test that institutions will use to evaluate players. A test like this can predict a number of things. It will be used by coaches to screen potential players before signing them, to determine their viability as well as how they will interact with current members of the team. You will be administering these psychological tests, asking the questions that will give us insight into what makes them tick.”

  Mustering up my courage, I give him a confident smile. “I’m ready for it.”

  “Good,” he says. “Now go home, get changed, and let’s get you over to meet the team. Their first practice is at one today, so I’ll meet you in the lobby of the arena then.”

  I nod and head to the door, starting to feel better about everything. When I open the door and step out into the hall, I turn around to say thank you, but he slams it in my face.

  That’s okay, though, I tell myself. Professor Morgan’s all business, and that’s what I need to be, in order to impress him. I just need a few sessions in the trenches with him, and what happened last night will fade into the background.

  At least, I hope.

  Chapter 4

  Luckily, as someone who loves to veg at home on the couch, I have a lot of shapeless, butt-ugly ensembles. Since I figure the ice hockey arena will be cold, I wear baggy Cincinnati Bengals sweatpants that once belonged to my dad and an old t-shirt I wouldn’t normally go anywhere in, and I scrape my hair into a high ponytail. I pop out my contacts and put on my thick-rimmed Harry Potter glasses. Looking at myself in the mirror, I declare myself sufficiently boring and unobtrusive before grabbing my bag and heading out the door.

  I somehow manage to find the nearest T station and purchase my very own Charlie Card at one of the kiosks. The map isn’t the easiest thing to figure out. I Google hockey on my phone during the ride and get so busy studying the ins and outs of the game that I end up missing my stop, and by the time I get on the right train, I’m already ten minutes late. When I get off in East Boston, I find myself in an area of the city that seems even worse than where I live. I sprint to the arena, and when I get there, Professor Morgan is standing outside, tapping his foot. “I’m sorry,” I say breathlessly, ready to launch into an explanation, but he cuts me off.

  “Come on, Shaw. The practice has already started.”

  He walks briskly ahead of me toward the arena doors, as I trail behind him, barely able to keep up. He opens the door to the darkened arena, and already I hear the swoosh of ice skates, the clatter of hockey sticks, the low rumble of men speaking. Professor Morgan leads me down to the row of seats directly behind the bench. “Sit here,” he instructs.

  I dutifully squeeze into the row next to him, watching the players loop around the ice. “They practice every afternoon,” he tells me, setting his briefcase and sweater on the row in front of us. “I expect you to be here, too.”

  I nod.

  “Also . . .” He pauses, peering at me over his bifocals like I’m a piece of gum on his shoe. “You’re going to want to write this in your notebook.”

  I freeze. Do I have a notebook? Oh, god, I don’t. All my newly purchased school supplies are still in my suitcase. What kind of idiot college student goes anywhere without a notebook?

  The answer: This one.

  Maybe I can just write on the back of one of my mom’s tissues. I fish one out of my pocket, crumpled though it is, and reach for the trusty pen I always keep in my backpack. It’s missing. Suddenly, my mind flashes to the last time I’d seen it—in Flynn’s magic hands, as he used it to jimmy the lock. After that, he never gave it back to me. Who knows where it is, now?

  Ga
h.

  I rummage around in my backpack aimlessly, cursing the extra bottle of Tropicana, dog-eared copy of Emma, and the How to Do Boston Like a Local book I’d packed in there, little good they’re doing me now. It doesn’t take long for Dr. Morgan to get the hint. He tsks at me, then reaches into his briefcase and pulls out a clean notebook and a heavy, expensive looking pen. I bet he never travels anywhere without them. “Thanks,” I say, opening it to the first crisp page and getting the pen at the ready.

  “Practices are one to four,” he says. “Except Fridays. Saturdays are eight to noon. After each practice, you’ll be expected to take a handful of the players into a conference room and conduct your interviews. The players you’ll be interviewing have been pre-selected for each day this week and are listed on this schedule.”

  He shoves a very elaborate spreadsheet into my hands, but continues before I have a chance to digest it.

  “Now, these are professional athletes but they are playing for the Boston Bobcat’s farm team, which means every single one of them ultimately has the goal of moving up from this team and onto the Bobcat’s main roster. Understand?”

  I’m getting a little peeved that he has to punctuate every sentence with “Understand?” I’m not some dummy, I think, then at the same time realize that forgetting to bring a pad and pen doesn’t exactly ooze intelligence. Fueled by the desire to prove myself to him, I nod and say, “Perfectly” in my most self-assured voice.

  “Good.” He reaches into his briefcase again and pulls out a large stack of manila folders. “These are dossiers on all the players you’ll be meeting with. I expect you to be fully versed in each player’s history before you begin interviews.”

  I open my mouth to ask how many players there are, but he says, “There are forty-five players.”

  “Oh.” I open my mouth to ask when I’ll be conducting the first interviews and he says, “The interviews commence tomorrow.” Can he read my mind? “We need to get as much out of the way as possible before the season starts and they start traveling for their away games.”