Love to Hate You: An Enemies-to-Lovers New Adult College Sports Romance

I plunk my messenger bag on the floor next to the table Olivia has commandeered at the library and drop onto the chair across from her.  Other than a quick text letting me know that she’d made it home safely, we haven’t spoken about last night.  I’m dying to know if anything happened with Tanner.

I pray for her sake that it did.

In true Olivia fashion, her books are spread out on the table in neat, orderly piles.  Olivia has always been studious.  I suspect that she has channeled all her sexual frustration into her classes.

When she doesn’t immediately launch into the details, I throw my arms wide.  “Well?  Don’t keep me in suspense.  Talk to me about last night!”

A few people turn and shush me.

I lower my brows and shush them right back.

Give me a break.

It’s noon on a Sunday and these people are already hunkered down at the library.  Clearly, they have no lives.

Present company excluded, of course.

I’ve only dragged my butt here to meet up with my bestie.  Olivia informed me that she’d be camped out here for the foreseeable future.  She’s a freak about her grades.  Nothing less than a solid A will do.

From what I’ve pieced together over the years, Olivia’s parents ride her pretty hard.  They weren’t happy with the degree program she chose, but I’m proud of her for sticking with it and not caving under their pressure.  I figured she’d apply to medical school like her father, but that hasn’t happened.

The summer internship in California did Olivia good.  She was able to stop living under her mom and dad’s thumb.  Too bad she didn’t find a nice guy to rid her of her virginity.  Hence her delving into this school year and making the library her second home.  Olivia is wound so tight, that I’m afraid if she doesn’t get laid soon, she’s going to self-combust.  And I’d really hate to see that happen.

Which brings us back to her impromptu date last night.

“So, any chance you let Tanner deflower you?” I ask.

Heat suffuses her cheeks and I grin.  She’s so easily embarrassed.  I probably shouldn’t delight in tormenting her but it’s kind of fun.

And that’s what friends are for, right?

Probably not, but oh well.  Olivia is stuck with me.  We’re lifers, baby.

She glances around to see if anyone overheard me say the word deflower before grumbling, “I hate you.  You know that, right?”

I lean back in my chair, balancing precariously on two legs.  “Please.  You love me.”

She shakes her head.  “Maybe once upon a time, but not anymore.”

“I think we both know that I could have been way more vulgar.  For instance, I could have said something like…did he pop your cherry.  Or did you play a game of hide the sausage.  Or how about—”

“Oh my God!”  She buries her face in her hands and mumbles, “Stop.  I’ll tell you whatever you want to know, okay?  Just stop talking.”

I chuckle.  “You make it so easy, that it’s almost no fun to tease you.”

“I wasn’t lying before.”  Lifting her face from her hands, she glares.  “I really do hate you.”

With a smile curving my lips, I lean forward and rest my elbows on the table. My chin is tucked on my fists.  “So, what did you two do if not each other?”

She huffs out a breath.  “You seriously have a one-track mind.”

“In regard to your virginity, yes.”

Sometimes I think I’m more invested in making this happen then she is.  Which is weird.  But the sad truth is that if I didn’t take the initiative, Olivia wouldn’t bother.

If it weren’t for me, Olivia wouldn’t have experienced half the things she did at BU.  Like the Halloween party last year where I made her dress up like a sexy devil.  She couldn’t bend over without flashing her panties.  Or when I secured us fake ID’s freshman year, so we could hit the bars and dance clubs.  Or when we rushed Alpha Sigma Tau sophomore year, got accepted, and then decided we were happier being a sorority of two.  Or when I signed us up for intermural kickball.

Yeah, those were some good times.

And do you know who Olivia has to thank for all those enriching college experiences?

Yup, that’s right.

Me.

Come hell or highwater, Olivia is losing her virginity by the end of senior year.  There is no way I can send her out into the world at age twenty-two with her hymen still intact.

That cannot happen.

Breaking eye contact, Olivia glances at the marine biology book splayed open in front of her.  “Well, we went to the diner off Maine street, the one that serves breakfast all day.  I ordered hash browns with cheese and banana stuffed French—”

I roll my eyes.

Olivia loves breakfast so much that she would happily eat it for every meal.  Which, I suppose she could now that she lives on her own, but thankfully doesn’t.

What I’ve already discerned is that if the highpoint of this story is the banana stuffed French toast and hash browns, she didn’t come anywhere close to punching her V-card.

How disappointing is that?

When I give an exaggerated yawn, she frowns.

With my hand in the air, I twirl my wrist in a circle.  “Can you please get to the good part?”

Looking offended, she confirms my suspicions.  “Um, breakfast was the good part.”

“There wasn’t any kissing or making out?”  When she just stares, I perk up.  “How about an accidental boob graze?  Did that at least happen?”

This line of questioning is apparently considered offensive because she pokers up in her chair as if someone just shoved a two by four up her ass.

“Of course not!  This is the first time we’ve been out.”  She folds her hands in front of her and says in a clipped tone, “When he kissed me goodnight outside my apartment, I told him I wasn’t that kind of girl and needed to take a physical relationship slow.”

I narrow my eyes, trying to decide if she’s screwing with me.  “Please tell me you didn’t say that.”

“Of course, I did.”

“So…was the plan to never see him again? Because saying something like that will do the trick.”

“Then I don’t see him again.”  She shrugs.  “I’m not going to be pushed into something I’m not ready for.”

I drop my chin to my chest and huff out a sigh. “You are aware that you’re twenty-two years old, right?”

“Yup.”  Sounding philosophical, she says, “When the time is right, it’ll happen.”

“Or you’ll just die a virgin,” I mutter and throw my hands in the air.  “No biggie.”

“Can’t miss what I never had,” she shoots back.

“Well, I can’t argue with that, now can I?”  And I’m not even going to try.

Olivia grins, realizing that she’s managed to wiggle out of our uncomfortable conversation.  “What about you?  Can’t say that I wasn’t shocked to see you and Carter getting along so well.  I was expecting bloodshed and tears at the party last night.  You can imagine my surprise when there was none.”

She’s going to flip out when I tell her what happened with the guy I’ve always considered my arch-nemesis.

I smirk.  “Unlike you, my dear, I got a little action last night.”

Her eyes widen.  “You hooked up with someone at the party?”

“Why yes,” I flutter my eyelashes and grin.  “Yes, I did.”

Her body migrates toward mine from across the table.  “Who?  Was it that blond frat guy?”

“Nope.”  I roll my eyes.  “Definitely not him.”

I’m tempted to do a little drumroll on the table with my hands, but I wouldn’t put it past these people to shush me again.  I lean toward her so that the crowns of our heads are almost touching.  “Are you ready for this?”

She nods.

Without further fanfare, I drop his name like a bomb.  “Carter.”

“Carter who?”  She blinks and scrunches her face.  “Is there another Carter on this campus?”  Olivia doesn’t give me time to respond.  “What am I saying?  There must be.”

I slap my palms on the table in exasperation.  “There’s only one Carter at BU and that’s Carter Prescott.”

I get another round of shushing, but this time I don’t pay it any attention.  The way Olivia’s eyes pop wide and her mouth tumbles open is well worth their condemnation.  By the looks of it, it’s entirely possible that her brain has imploded from information overload.

Olivia shakes her head as if to clear it.  “I’m sorry.  Did you just say you hooked up with Carter Prescott?  Mr. BU first string tight end?  The guy who is getting drafted to the NFL?  Your roommate and cousin’s best friend?  The one you’ve hated for years?  The one you tried feeding laxatives to?”  She pauses for a beat.  “Are we talking about that Carter Prescott?”

“Yup.”  I cross my arms in front of me and slide them out the same way an umpire calling a strike would.  “On all accounts.”

She inhales a sharp breath and nods.  “Exactly how drunk were you two?” 

“I was a bit buzzed,” I admit. “But I don’t think he was drunk at all.”

“I can’t believe this.”  Her voice drops.  “Was this like a praying mantis-type of scenario?  Did you have sex and then bite his head off and kill him?  Because that’s what they do.”

“What?”  My brows slam together as I frown.  “No, of course not!  The fact you even know something like that is disturbing on so many levels.”

Taking offense, she straightens her shoulders.  “It’s not disturbing, it’s nature.  In high school, I used to have sleepovers and we would stay up all night and watch Nat Geo.  You can’t imagine all the cool stuff we learned.”

I reach across the table and pat her hand.  “Oh, sweetie, that is so sad.  I’m starting to understand why you’re still a virgin.”

“You are obsessed with my virginity.”  She rolls her eyes.  “You need to get yourself a hobby.”

“I do,” I inform her.  “You losing your virginity is my hobby.”

She grumbles under her breath and clears her throat.  “Can we please get back to you sleeping with the super sexy Carter Prescott?”

I sniff and tap my fingers against the table.  “I’m not the one who sidetracked us with the creepy praying mantis info, now am I?”

“Fair point,” she concedes.  “Please, continue.”

My lips bow into a smile.  “Carter is pretty sexy, isn’t he?”  An image of his muscular body pops into my head.

“Ummm, yeah.”  A rosy blush heats her cheeks.  “He’s definitely sexy.”  She goes a little dreamy eyed.  “And those gorgeous gray eyes…” her voice trails off on a sigh.

“Just an FYI, we fooled around but didn’t sleep together.”  If fooling around means doing everything but the actual P to the V, then that’s exactly what we did.

She nods.  “You came to your senses and put the kibosh on coitus?”

“Coitus,” I snicker like a fifth grader who’s just heard her teacher use the word balls.  “Nope, he did.”

“Huh.”  Her eyes flare wide and her brow creases.  “Well, that’s an unexpected turn of events.  How come?”

She’s right.  It was totally unexpected.

I’m still peeved.  Not to mention turned on.

“I don’t know.”  Instead of admitting the truth, I shrug.  “He gave me some song and dance about taking advantage of my inebriated state and when I called bullshit, he said that Noah would be pissed.”

“True statement.”  Olivia nods.  “So, what happens now? Was it just a casual encounter?”

“I don’t know.”  Needing something to focus my attention on, I pick up a pencil from the table and twirl it like a baton with my fingers.  “I’m not sure what it means.”

I don’t mention that beneath all my ire for Carter lurks something more.  Olivia brought it up a few weeks ago and I immediately shot down her theory, but there was some truth to it.  Only now am I coming to terms with it.

How stupid would it be to fall for a guy like Carter?

That was more of a rhetorical question.

As if reading my thoughts, she says, “You’re better off letting it go and pretending it never happened.  You two have to live together.”

She gives me a look rife with meaning, one that has the breakfast I wolfed down curdling in my belly.

“And Carter doesn’t date.  He,” she glances around and lowers her voice, “hooks up.  A lot.”

She’s right.  That’s Carter in a nutshell.

One-and-done.

Mr. Hit-it-and-quit-it.

The thought of Carter bringing chicks back to the apartment makes me nauseous.  Everything I did last night and this morning hits me like a ton of bricks.  I fooled around with my cousin’s best friend.  And I have no idea what it meant.  According to Carter, it didn’t mean anything.

Frustrated with myself for not thinking about the repercussions, I lay my forehead on the table.  Once again, I’ve looked without leaping and Olivia wasn’t around to save me from myself.

My bestie reaches over and rubs my shoulder.  “Virginity isn’t looking so bad now, is it?”

I snort.

She’s got me there.