Red Zone Read online

  “Your family brought you some more clothes and are waiting outside. Get dressed and go through your personal belongings to ensure everything’s there. You’ll have to sign for it before you leave. If anything’s missing, tell the next officer. You have ten minutes to get dressed before they’ll be in to escort you out.” He stuck out his hand. “Good luck, Bentley. I’m sorry this happened.”

  Sorry this happened? I had a feeling an apology was probably going to be the only thing I’d receive before the end of this shitshow. What did it matter anyway? For the first time in my life, I felt like someone had dumped disgrace, shame and me all into a blender and turned it up on high. I hadn’t always been the golden child—that had been my late brother—but after his death, I tried so hard to never get in any trouble or break any rules, because my parents had been grieving so much. I didn’t want to add to their heartache.

  I began trying hard to make the best grades I could and be the best at everything I did. Especially sports, because that’s where Eric had excelled. Trying to do anything I could to make up for the fact that I was still alive and my brother Eric wasn’t. When my coaches, or classmates looked at me, it had always been with awe and a tad of envy. My father wasn’t always on board. He had always pushed me to be better, score more, and be…more. But that just pushed me to try harder.

  Well, I was no longer the golden boy now, that was for sure, and I couldn’t help but wonder how my parents, especially my dad, would look at me now. It wouldn’t matter that I was innocent and that the girl had lied—they’d only worry about the damage to our reputations and my place on the team.

  The paperwork for my release took much longer than necessary, but the moment I’d walked outside the doors and sunlight blasted my face, causing me to blink several times to try and adjust my eyes, one look at my father’s scowling face told me all I needed to know.

  He was angry and even worse, he was ashamed. Of me. I dropped my gaze and slowly walked toward him.

  Chapter One

  Memphis Sawyer

  A few months later

  “Why, Dad? Why are you doing this?” I argued for the hundredth time. “Kingston Bentley led this team, your team, to two National Championships. He deserves better from you.” I’d been pacing the polished floors of my father’s home office with frustration oozing off me as arrogance radiated off him. He was a fucking good coach and an even better father, but when he thought he was right about something, everybody that crossed him had better stand down because he wouldn’t budge. Right now, I was smack dead center of that stand-down zone, but I couldn’t make myself end the discussion before I somehow managed to get him to understand what a colossal mistake he was making.

  He leaned forward in his leather chair, and propped his elbows on the desk. “Because you’re the better quarterback, Memphis. I’m not at this school to babysit a bunch of crybabies or over-sized boys who pout when they don’t get their way. I’m head coach in order to win games, bring home championships, and make money for the school. That’s what my decisions are based on.”

  After huffing in frustration, I countered with my usual, “Kingston Bentley is a fucking good quarterback.”

  “I agree. He just isn’t as good as you. I’m sorry if that hurts his feelings or pisses the team or students off, but the facts are the facts. I’ve made my decision and you’re the one who led this team to its third championship.” He stood up and looked at his watch. “You’re a leader, Memphis. Prove it. Make the team follow you. Once they respect you, they’ll do what needs to be done.”

  “And Kingston?” There was no way Kingston Bentley would ever respect me. Following his release from jail after the charges were dropped, he’d quietly finished his junior year. The team had gotten a short break, and I’d only seen him once during those months. One memorable time that we both would just as soon forget for a variety of reasons. When we had our first official team meeting three days ago, he’d looked like a different person than the Kingston who had been the school and team hero. He’d stayed in shape, gotten even leaner with impressively defined muscles, but there was an emptiness to him that wasn’t there before. He went through all the motions, doing everything he was told without question, but the spark in his eyes had diminished to a dimness that troubled me.

  Considering how he felt about me, I wasn’t sure why I cared, but I did. Hell, who was I fooling? I cared because of the night we’d met—the one I still hadn’t been able to forget. I worried about him, and I couldn’t seem to turn that off. He’d been given a raw deal and I felt to blame. Maybe if the school and the team had accepted me, I’d be just like my father—focused only on winning. I just didn’t think so.

  My father sighed. “I’m tired of arguing about this! What can I tell you, son? I believe in keeping your friends close and your enemies closer. You and Kingston will be sharing a suite of rooms in one of our condos. Play nice with him and maybe some of those bullseye posters with your face in the middle will disappear from the cheerleader’s sorority house.” He shrugged. “Or maybe not. I don’t really care. You’re here to play ball and win games, not to try and get a fan club started.”

  I stopped pacing. “There are posters with my face in the bullseye? In the cheerleader’s sorority house?” Hell, I loved cheerleaders. They usually loved me. Fuck this stupid drama. I should have stayed where I was in the Big Ten—I’d been happy there.

  He chuckled. “That’s one of the nicer things I’ve heard about.”

  I glared at him and wondered for the hundredth time why I’d listened to him and come here. I understood that he was the winningest college football coach in the nation and had seven National Championship titles under his belt —which easily made him the best of the best and boosted his cocky level off the charts…but about this one issue at least, he was dead wrong in every way.

  Hell, convincing me to move from a college I loved and where I was idolized to one where I was viewed as a pariah was the first of his mistakes and definitely not the last he’d made in this whole debacle. It was like he was on a slippery slope of stupid and was sitting on one of those round snow sleds lubed up with whatever Clark W. Griswold had used on Christmas Vacation.

  His first mistake was moving me to his team when he already had a damn good quarterback that had given him two championships and had been working on his third. The media immediately started buzzing nonstop about nepotism and some even went so far as to check the rules to see if my father was in violation. He wasn’t, but that still didn’t make it a good idea for either of us.

  His second mistake was not publicly standing behind his former quarterback when the shit hit the fan. Third—sliding me into his position without the slightest hesitation or showing the least bit of guilt. Fourth, and arguably the biggest of all—announcing to the team that I would be the starting quarterback for our new season and not Kingston Bentley, even though he’d been completely exonerated, and the girl had admitted she’d lied.

  In my opinion, it was Kingston’s job to lose—not to have taken away from him because the girl had lied about him and opened the door for me to waltz straight through. Sure, I’d played a hell of a game—I had no false modesty about that. We’d easily won, beating our opponents by over twenty points, but there were so many other factors involved with the win. The other team had prepared their defense to face Kingston, not me. Kingston was a running quarterback. I ran when I had to but mostly stayed in the pocket and launched the long ball. They’d been caught with their pants down, and we’d taken advantage of the situation. End of story.

  “Oh, man up, Memphis,” my father said. “I raised you to be stronger than this. Handle Kingston and handle the team. If you can’t master this situation, you’ll never be able to play for the NFL.”

  The NFL—that was his dream, and I wondered if it had become mine because of that. At the moment, I was simply trying to survive my last year of college without the students and football team finding a way to make me disappear—permanently. I was being ov
erdramatic, but in spite of my royal status because of my father, I didn’t enjoy walking over people because of my last name and family football history.

  “I think you’re missing the big picture here, Dad. Half the students believe that either me or you paid that girl to lie about Kingston in order to set me up to play the championship game. The other half simply hate me on principle. Hell, the entire team dislikes me, because they’re all loyal to Kingston. Even I don’t think Kingston is being treated fairly. I’m not afraid to fight for my rights as starting quarterback, but you handed it to me on a silver platter in practice today and did you see the look on his face? How the hell do you think that looks to everybody?”

  He stalked over into my personal space, the way he always did when he was intent on getting his way or trying to prove a point. After years of practice, I stood my ground and looked down at him. At some point, he needed to realize I had three inches and about sixty pounds of muscle mass on him. Obviously, today wasn’t that day because his eyes darkened with determination and a trace of anger.

  “I don’t care how it looks to everybody, Memphis. I care about developing a winning team. You’re the better quarterback.” He stepped even closer. “Use your head and make this work. That’s why I’m putting you and Bentley in the same suite. The answer’s there. Find it and make it happen.” He looked at his watch for the second time, which meant I was being completely dismissed. As he started walking toward the door, he said, “And another thing—stay away from your Uncle Nicholas and those clubs that I know you and he enjoy going to. If the media was to get wind of something as…immoral as what you and your uncle participate in, they’d have a field day with it. One year, Memphis—that’s all I’m asking of you.”

  Immoral? He thought my actions were immoral?

  I chuckled to myself. Dear ole dad had no idea just how immoral I could be, especially with a flogger in my hand. My uncle, who was a sales rep for a pharmaceutical company and my favorite relative in the family, had introduced me to his favorite activity when I was just out of high school, after he’d caught me watching porn on the internet. Porn that involved a Dom and his sub during some intense play time. Since then, he’d seen to it that I had been properly and expertly trained. That had been three years ago, and there was no way I was about to agree to stay away from the private clubs I enjoyed. My father might refer to it as immoral, but I called it making someone scream with pleasure…pleasure I had given them. One way or another, he was going to have to learn to accept me for what I was. He called that deviant. What could I say? I liked what I liked and I made no apology for it.

  “I’m confident I explained to you that I wouldn’t give up that part of my lifestyle when I agreed to come down here, Dad,” I answered as calmly as possible. “I know how to be discreet, so get off my back about it.”

  Between the shit storm going on with Kingston, my father’s obvious lack of concern as to how his game decisions affected people, and my love of BDSM coming into question—I was about to hit my tolerance wall. Actually, I was about to slam straight into it, head first.

  He growled in frustration. “Keep it under wraps, Memphis. That’s all I’m saying. We seriously don’t need the press to get wind of that kind of bullshit.”

  His shitty decisions were fine but my bullshit was off limits? What-the-fuck-ever.

  He handed me a sheet of paper. “That’s your new address. Make nice with Kingston. Act like you’re his buddy whenever any media is around. Do whatever it takes.”

  “Does he know?” I asked, fury burning in my gut as I stared at the address. I recognized the numbers immediately. It was the penthouse suite in our nicest condo unit—always reserved for the team captain and co-captain. But I had a sickening feeling my father didn’t intend to make Kingston co-captain. He intended for the ex-star to stand on the sidelines, cheer for me, and make nice for the cameras. When my father wanted something, he felt like everyone else should get in line to see what they could do to help make it happen.

  “No, I’ll leave that to you. He moved in three days ago. I’m sure he knows he’ll get a roommate—everybody does. Practice starts on Monday, Memphis. You and Kingston had both better be there, ready to support my team for the season.” He started to walk out of his office but then turned to face me again. “And be thinking about how you’re going to handle Stallone. He’s out of control and I won’t be at all surprised when I get a call telling me that he’s been arrested for something. And in that case, he’ll no doubt be guilty as charged.”

  Jet Stallone. Perfect. Yet another problem with my father’s fantasy football team. Stallone wasn’t the best running back in the conference, but he was the best on our team. I didn’t much care for him. Actually, there wasn’t much about my life right now that I didn’t hate.

  Welcome to the SEC.

  *****

  Kingston

  I twisted the knob that would send music blaring through my new suite’s sound system, switched the station until I heard music similar to what the rest of the guys on the team listened to, and then slipped in my earbuds. As I flipped through my own playlist, hunting for something dark and dangerous, a soundtrack more fitting for what I was about to do, I couldn’t help but notice that my hands already trembled. The endorphins hadn’t actually kicked in yet, but my body knew what was about to happen, and it was trembling with anticipation.

  With the hate-filled music blaring its way into my head, I walked to the door and doublechecked the locks to ensure I wouldn’t be interrupted. After that, I made my way toward the bathroom inside the bedroom I’d picked for myself—since I didn’t have a roommate as of yet. As I walked, I refused to allow my mind to focus on anything except what I was about to do. I didn’t have time and couldn’t make the effort to wonder how my well-structured life had become so fucked up…so damn quick. I’d already wasted too much of my energy on that clusterfuck.

  I’d spent months struggling with trying to find myself again but had eventually come to the realization that Kingston Bentley was truly lost…gone forever. The man who’d thirsted for structure, adoration, and being as perfect as humanly possible was nothing more than a ghost of a memory. The pain of having to accept I was no longer that person had nearly killed me… And then I lost the only other outlet I’d found to give me relief. That all ended the night I met Memphis Sawyer, and I was too scared of exposure to try that again.

  I’d had to resort to the one thing that never let me down. The one outlet for my stress that was always there, always at hand when I needed it the most. I was a cutter, only not really in the past tense. My psychiatrist from when I was a kid had told my parents I always would be, much like an alcoholic never really recovers. The chance would always be there that I’d start to cut again. More evidence of just how broken I really was, just in case my parents needed it. Pain soothed the pain deep inside me; it was the shameful secret I tried to hide.

  It had been six long years since I’d last cut myself. Not since I was fourteen years old, and I’d actually thought I’d been able to leave it in the past, no matter what that doctor had said, because I’d found a new way to get my pain fix. A more adult way. But then when my life had imploded the night Memphis found me, cutting had been there waiting in the wings for me, just like an old friend. The old craving had still been there too, the urgent need for the endorphins racing through my veins, filling me up with pain until all the other feelings were crowded out, and all I could concentrate on was that thin red line of torment. Of blessed relief.

  When I realized where my head was going, I cranked my music up even louder, forcing all thoughts of the past out of my head. This wasn’t a time for rehashing what couldn’t be changed. It was a time for escape. My attempt to create a place where I didn’t have to feel worthless anymore. I didn’t have to feel anything at all except the pain I gave myself.

  I shut the bathroom door behind me, clicked the lock in place, and then slowly removed my t-shirt. While every nerve inside of me screamed that I
toss the clothes aside and dive head-first into escape, I forced myself to neatly fold the shirt and lay it on the spotless countertop. My shorts and underwear followed the same procedure. Completely naked, I climbed into the oversized tub and lay there, waiting for my body heat to warm the chilly porcelain. Making myself wait was also part of the satisfaction. It had been a long time—far too long—since I’d allowed myself to enjoy the pain that, paradoxically, also brought me relief. Cutting myself wasn’t as good as submitting to a cruel Dom—nothing was as good as that. But it was the next best thing, and all I could allow myself to have. Anything else was far too dangerous.

  I clung to the blade like my very life depended on it. Hell, it probably did.

  After three songs played—all part of my careful ritual—I picked up the sharp blade and passed it between my fingers, like it was some sort of fucking magic trick. Three times I turned the thin metal between my fingers, slipping it in and out, building the anticipation like foreplay. The need to cut myself rose up in me like a thin column of smoke, dark and suffocating. I took three deep breaths, the calmness flowing through me. My eyes closed as soon as the blade kissed the flesh below my waist. The bright, savage pain consumed me, and left no room in my head for anything else. I could feel the tension and stress and pain in my soul receding, falling back against the onslaught of the blade-induced endorphins rushing through my bloodstream. They burst through my system as I pulled the blade upward with a short even stroke. Even with my eyes closed, I had no trouble picturing the beautiful thin red lines of blood that marred my skin. My endorphin high was different than other cutters. While the self-harm made some of them feel high on life, mine gave me peace and calmness—structure where it no longer existed. If anything, it was more like what subspace was. Whatever—I didn’t give a fuck. I needed it.