One Southern Night (A Novella) Read online

  ONE SOUTHERN NIGHT

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  PLAYLIST

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ONE SOUTHERN NIGHT

  Copyright © Marissa Carmel 2014

  Names, characters and incidents depicted in this book are products of the author's imagination, or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of the author or the publisher.

  No part of this book may be reproduced or shared by any electronic or mechanical means, including but not limited to printing, file sharing, and email, without prior written permission from author Marissa Carmel.

  All rights reserved.

  Cover Design By:

  Marisa Shor, Cover Me, Darling

  Editing By:

  Jenny Carlsrud Sims

  Interior Design and Formatting By:

  Christine Borgford, Perfectly Publishable

  Kamdyn Ellis is the man.

  Mr. All-Star athlete and resident bad boy. #7 quarterback on the field, and #1 player off.

  Every guy at school wants to be him, and every girl at school wants to date him. Well, except Laney Summers that is. The sassy city girl is the only one immune to Kam’s clear blue eyes and arsenal of southern charm. But when a debilitating injury sidelines Kam’s future and ability to play football, it’s Laney who is tasked to be his tutor while he recuperates at home.

  The chemistry between Kam and Laney is undeniable, and after months of ignoring what’s clearly evident, Laney gives in. Allowing herself one night with Kam, no strings attached, no commitment to speak of. Alone, under the stars, on the fifty-yard line, Kam and Laney set out to discover if what they have is real, or just one steamy southern night.

  The cheerleaders on the sidelines chant: Wolverines … let’s hear you yell ... blue … BLUE! Wolverines … let’s hear you yell … white … WHITE! Put it together what’s that spell … blue … white. The crowd echoes BLUE! WHITE! Then a cheerleader flies twenty feet in the air, touches her toes, and plummets back down to earth. This weird phenomenon has become my life. Three months ago I couldn’t fathom spending a Friday night in the stands of a stadium watching a football game. Yet, here I sit—in the middle of Nowhere, Alabama—cheering on the Wolverines in the state championships. Nowhere is where my father’s from, and after my parents’ divorce, he decided we needed to move out of New York City for a while. Which brings us to the here and now. Please don’t get me wrong. I’m not opposed to football, but relocating to the Heart of Dixie has definitely opened my eyes to the magnitude, commitment, and love of the game in the South. My father has always been a diehard fan, but he has become a different man living here. In New York, celebrity Chef Riley (that’s my dad) was going all the time. If not social networking on his phone, he was on the computer—if not the computer, he was in the kitchen cooking up new recipes. There wasn’t much time to sit back and watch four quarters. When we moved, that all changed. Lately he seems to eat, sleep, and breathe the sport, much like everyone else in this small county town. I don’t really get it. I like the cheerleaders; my cousin Miranda (the one who was flying through the air a minute ago) is co-captain. And honestly, if it wasn’t for her, I’m not sure how the transition from big city to small town would have gone.

  It’s been tolerable so far. Especially when you get to ogle your chem partner every morning in first period. Said chem partner is also the quarterback currently kicking the other team’s ass. Just like he said he was going to do. Such the ego.

  The first day I met Kamdyn Ellis, he called me sugar and I nearly knocked him out. I told him I have a name, and he had better use it. He laughed at me and then corrected himself, calling me Lemon instead. Because as sweet as I look, I’m totally sour. I’m fine with him thinking that. I’m not interested in his arsenal of southern charm, boyish good looks, or baby blue eyes.

  Hey, I said I’m not interested, not dead. He’s hard not to notice. Especially when he’s sitting a foot and a half away from you, wearing low slung jeans, a tight Roll Tide t-shirt, and backwards baseball cap.

  See, not only have I noticed his southern charm, boyish good looks, and baby blue eyes, I’ve also noticed the revolving door of women he has on his arm. Like, a new one every other week. Sorry, I’m no one’s hot and sweaty solitary southern night.

  So I keep my distance and flirt from afar, leaving him to his womanizing ways. Flirting with Kam has become one of the highlights of my day. Because, trust me when I tell you, living in Nowhere Alabama, I need to be creative with my time.

  I zip my fly.

  Ahhhh. Nothing like a little stress reliever the morning of a big game. I help Darla stand. She runs her hands up my chest and locks her arms around my neck. “I love starting my day with you.” She has that starry look in her pretty green eyes.

  “Sugar, I’m a better caffeine rush than coffee.” I smile, unhooking her hands.

  “You’re more than just a rush, Kam.” She blinks up at me flirtatiously. “How about I wear your practice jersey to the game tonight, so I can show everyone I’m your number one fan.”

  Time out.

  If there’s one thing that screams ‘item’ in this school, it’s wearing a player’s football jersey. And, umm, no thanks. I’m not in the market for being anyone’s significant other, boyfriend, or one half of an item. And Darla knows that. Everyone knows that. I spent the last three years with the most cold-hearted bitch in school, and I’m done with duos. I’m done with status and done with image. Done with the captain of the football team dating the head cheerleader.

  Senior year is all mine. No strings attached.

  The warning bell rings for first period. Couldn’t be better timing.

  “We better go.” I avoid responding altogether, making a quick getaway. Am I being a dick? Yeah, a little. But you shouldn’t ask questions you already know the answer to. I open the door to the storage closet and peek my head out. The coast is clear, no faculty in sight. Get caught making out—or in my case getting head—and it’s suspension row for us. I don’t think The Touchdown Club would be too happy their star player had to ride the bench because he couldn’t keep it in his pants. Darla and I slip into the growing mass of students filling the hall. I move fast, snaking my way through my peers and away from Darla. Scot-free. Or so I think. I’m not ten feet in when I run smack dab into Laney Summers. She gives me that look. Her big blue eyes sharp. Yup, busted. She always knows.

  “Blowin’ off a little steam this morning?” she asks. Her tone is curt but amused at the same time. She sometimes drops the G off her words. It’s cute as hell. She’s cute as hell.

  “You know me so well.” I smile down at her. The sweetest, most enticing smile I can manage. She rolls her eyes as we walk down the hallway and into chemistry together. The first time I met Laney was in this very spot. Chemistry class, the beginning of the school year. Our seats were already assigned, and lucky me, I got to sit with the new girl from New York. I knew all about her already. Her cousin, Miranda, filled me in. Miranda was one of my ex’s best friends until we broke up. Our separation divided our group, and Cheyenne actually demanded people choose sides. So everyone did, and they chose mine.

  Laney was forced to move to Alabama when her parents got divorced. Pretty harsh moving the summer of your senior year. Miranda basically threatened my life if I wasn’t nice to her. Me? Not nice? To a girl?
I asked if she remembered who she was talking to. What I wasn’t prepared for was Laney not being nice to me! I called her sugar—not even thinking—I call everyone sugar. She snapped at me, saying she had a name and I better use it. I apologized and told her I’d use her name. From that moment on I’ve called her Lemon. Sweet if you add sugar, sour if you don’t. I’m waiting for the moment I get to pour some sugar on her and really take a bite.

  Sassy city bitch.

  I fell in love with her immediately.

  “You coming to see me kick North’s ass tonight?”

  “You sound pretty confident in yourself, country boy.” She drops her backpack on the floor next to the table covered with glass beakers, test tubes, and burners.

  “I am confident, Lemon. We’ve beat them once already. Actually, I wouldn’t even use the word beat, annihilated is more like it. It’s in the bag. Bet I don’t even get sacked.” I cross my arms haughtily.

  “Oh, well if that’s the case, I’ll probably just stay home and surf Facebook. Doesn’t sound like it’s going to be a very interesting game.” She curls her lip.

  “Lemon,” I stress, causing Laney to smile smugly. “Are you messing with me?”

  “It’s so easily done.”

  That’s what she thinks.

  “So you are coming?” I sit down in my usual first period seat, with Laney a few inches away from me. It’s my favorite place to be. Breathing in her … exotic scent. It’s the only word I can come up with.

  “Miranda would decapitate me if I didn’t.”

  “Do you hate football so much that Miranda has to threaten you to go to a game?” The concept is foreign to me.

  “No.” She shrugs. “I just don’t get what the big deal is. It’s a game.”

  My mouth drops open. “Sugar, it’s not just a game in these parts. It’s a religion.”

  “Is that why there’s a play called a Hail Mary?”

  Now I’m the one rolling my eyes. “You don’t like anything about football?”

  She smirks darkly. “I like you in those tight pants.”

  My blood heats. “So you do like me?”

  “I like to look at you.” She flirts. I love when Laney toys with me. It electrifies my insides.

  “Lemon—” I lean in close to her ear, getting an injection of her intoxicating scent. “If you hang out with me after the game, I’ll let you do so much more than just look.”

  She burns me with those scorching blue eyes. “Thanks, but no thanks. I’m not interested in being just another touchdown in your end zone.”

  I can’t stop the ridiculous smile from spreading across my face. “I love when you talk dirty to me.”

  Actually, I love everything about Laney, from the way she looks with those red streaks running through her hair, to her casual Converse, and smart mouth. She’s the anti-southern bell. And exactly what I need.

  “You better be careful, Laney Summers, or else you might get caught from behind.”

  “Is that a threat, Kamdyn Ellis?”

  I glare at her like I want to devour her. “It’s a threat, and a promise, and a pledge.”

  “You don’t scare me.”

  “Oh no? Care to put your money where your mouth is?”

  “And what did you have in mind?”

  “A bet of sorts.”

  “We’re eighteen. We’re not old enough to gamble.”

  “Then let’s just keep it between us.” I lower my voice provocatively.

  “I’m listening.”

  “If we win tonight, I get you.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “If we win the state championship, I get to have you, in the bed of my pickup, to do with what I want.”

  “You want me to bet my body?” She raises her eyebrows.

  Maybe your heart, too?

  “It seems to be the only way you’ll give me the time of day,” I say vulnerably, hoping my humble tone and baby blues will persuade her. It works on all the other girls, but Laney is different. She doesn’t topple that easily. She needs persuading and a challenge.

  She sighs, as if considering. “What’s the spread?”

  “Spread?”

  “Yeah, you know, how much do you have to win by?”

  “For a girl who claims she doesn’t like football, you can talk a good game.”

  She shrugs. “It’s discussed nonstop in my house. I listen with one ear open.”

  She is always surprising me. Since day one.

  “Okay.” I mull it over carefully; the last time we played North we won by seventeen and that was with all their starters healthy. Since then, they’ve lost two of their best players to injury: their quarterback and a tight end. “Twenty-point spread.”

  Laney’s eyes widen. “That’s a huge number. Are you that confident?”

  “Baby.” I put my hand on her leg and run it up her thigh. “Football is what I know. So yes, you’ll be mine tonight.”

  The roar of the crowd is deafening. The smell of fresh cut grass intoxicating. The feel of the ball in my hands exhilarating.

  I thrive on all of it. It’s what causes my heart to beat and blood to flow through my veins. It’s my vitality. I have lived football for as long I can remember. My mother says I was born to play. She knew the instant I threw my binky across the room at three months old. She’s always said I was special, and I have always believed her. When I was a freshman, Sports Illustrated did a top ten article on football prodigies in the US, and I was number one. My whole life I have been compared to the likes of Tiger Woods and LeBron James. Descriptions like speed, power, and pinpoint accuracy have followed me everywhere. I have trained at the best football camps in the US with the most well-known names in the NFL. I broke the record for most passing attempts, most completions, and most passing yards my sophomore year. And have continued to crush those numbers into the ground. I was recruited by over fifty colleges and given full rides to all of them. Football is not only my future, it’s my life. I dominate in the arena; no one can touch me.

  The cheerleaders are shouting on the sidelines and the announcer’s voice is echoing into the clear night sky. I glance at the score board. Wolverines 35; Visitor 10. I told Laney we would spank them. Looks like I won that bet, and I fully intend to collect. But right now, I have to keep my head in the game and not think of Laney naked under the stars. Just the way I’ve always wanted her.

  There’s forty-five seconds left. This is the last pass of my high school career. It has to be a good one, not just for me, but for my brothers-in-arms. These ten guys have looked to me the last four years to lead them, and in doing so they have protected me, bled with me, and allowed me to thrive.

  I call the play in the huddle: Gun south right, X flash on two.

  Break!

  We take formation up on the thirty yard line. My center, Bugger, crouches down. He’s a big-as-life black dude, snarling at the opposing team. I take one last look around the stadium. This is the start and the end of my legacy. Miranda flies twenty feet in the air as the cheerleaders below chant blue and white. The clock feels like it’s ticking down in slow motion, and the monstrous defensive lineman who has had my number all night looks like he wants to rip my head off. It’s an adrenaline rush.

  “I’m coming for you, Q,” number sixty-seven growls.

  “You’ll have to get through me first,” Bugger rumbles. I just smile. “Might as well go home. We wiped your ass with the field. Again.”

  Sixty-seven howls. The guy actually howls like a freakin’ injured coyote.

  It’s time to finish this.

  “Blue forty-two!” I scream out. “Blue forty-two! Hike! Hike!” Bugger snaps the ball right into my hands, a perfect exchange, and everyone disperses in a frenzy. The lines collide like Spartans going to war as I scan the field for my receiver. I watch Duce burn grass down the center and everything inside me ignites. It’s the same feeling every time. A tingly sensation under my skin, like pins and needles. This, right here, this second, is pure control. An u
ntouchable feeling. I see my opening and take it, firing the ball. A perfect spiral headed straight for the end zone. I watch it spin and land right into Duce’s hands. The crowd explodes. “TOUCHDOWN, Wolverines!” the announcer yells, “And new Alabama State Champions!”

  I break out in goose bumps right before everything goes black.

  Sack!

  I blink my eyes. They feel heavy.

  I look around trying to figure out where I am. There’s muted florescent light and a bleachy smell. I try to move, but my limbs feel like lead.

  I groan, and it vibrates roughly through my whole body. Where am I? What’s happening?

  “Well, good morning,” a pleasant voice says from above me. A woman I don’t recognize comes into my eye-line. My heart palpitates, and I hear quick beeping in the room. “It’s okay, Mr. Ellis, you’re fine.” The older woman with kind brown eyes tries to soothe me.

  “Where am I?” I croak. What the fuck is wrong with my voice?

  “You’re at County State Hospital, darlin’.” She fluffs up my pillow.

  Hospital?

  “What happened?” I can barely push the words out.

  She pours me some water. “Here, drink this. Your mouth is dry.” The water is cold and quenches my thirst. It feels like I’ve been sleeping in the desert. “I’m going to get the doctor and your mama.”

  “What happened?” I ask again.

  “They’ll explain everything, sugar.”

  “Kam!” My mother rushes to my side. “Baby, we were so worried.” She kisses me all over my face.

  “What happened?” I ask for what feels like the hundredth time.

  “Baby, you had an accident of sorts. During the game, you were sacked after your last pass. It was a cheap shot by the other team. Something happened in your brain when you got hit. The doctor can explain it better. But you didn’t get up.” Tears pool in her distressed hazel eyes. “I thought we lost you.”

  “My brain?” I repeat. My voice is getting a little stronger.