Jock Hard

I knew something was wrong the second she walked in the door tonight; I just couldn't put my finger on what it was. Same hair color. Same legs. Same face. Except...I look harder. At the small dimple beneath her lip that wasn't there the last time we went out. And her laugh - that laugh isn't as loud. This isn't the girl I've gone out with the past few weeks. It's her twin sister, and they've switched places on me.

Scarlett is always the sensible one: The sober driver. The planner. The one holding your hair back while you're worshiping the porcelain gods. Week-after-week, she visits Jock Row with her friends - the university's hottest party scene and a breeding ground for student athletes. And if keeping her friends out of trouble and guys out of their pants was a sport, she'd be the star athlete. Being a well known jock-blocker gets her noticed for all the wrong reasons; just like that, she's banned from Jock Row. No guy wants a girl around who keeps their jock friends from getting laid.  

Kip Carmichael is no pretty boy. He's rough. Dirty. Giant. Hair so unruly, and a beard so thick, his friends on the team call him Sasquatch. The first time Sasquatch lays eyes on Theodora "Teddy" Johnson across the keg at a party one night on Jock Row, she'd been relegated to the sidelines by her jock-hungry "friends". Week after week, he watches beautiful but bashful Teddy getting overshadowed and overlooked. Sasquatch finally broad-shoulders his way through the crowd, offering to to be her hairy godmother. But the minute their eyes meet? He's a goner.  

Piper has been crushing on Ryder Williams for years. What better chance to make her move on him than when he’s sacrificing himself on an auction block for a squealing mass of fans at a charity event? Too bad she’d rather hide in the bathroom than raise her paddle; what girl actually bids on a guy who doesn’t know she exists? Not. Piper. But that's what friends are for. One meddling best friend, and an overpriced bid later, and Ryder Willams is Piper's for the taking. Too bad that she has no intention of collecting on his debt.

EAT. SLEEP. FOOTBALL. Those are Jackson Jennings Jr.’s three mantras. His entire life, he’s been a trained athlete with only one end-game: the Pros. No girls. No parties. No alcohol. EAT. SLEEP. FOOTBALL. Repeat. Every Friday night, Triple J cruises the strip on campus, bored, lonely, and conditioned not to party. But the night he meets Charlotte Edmonds on the side of the road, he wonders if his three mantras will ever be enough.  

Ashley Dryden-Jones is the best rugby player on the field - when I take a dare I instantly regret, I had no way of knowing he was a gentleman. An athlete. British with no plans to stay in the States. He makes me forget myself, bruises, five o’clock shadow, accent, and all. He makes me forget I cannot crawl into bed with him at night - or get drunk and throw caution to the wind for once in my overly cautious life. Because he’s my new roommate.

Jack Dryden-Jones is easily the worst rugby player on the field — when he moves to The States to follow in his big brothers footsteps, he has no idea he’d hate the game. So horrible he considers faking an injury to take himself out of the game.

Roman Whitaker is every girl’s best friend. An easy going nice guy, Rome is brilliant, and funny. At the age of 22, he’s moving out of his parents’ house for the first time and into off-campus housing with two complete strangers.