Home > Head to Head (Nerds vs Jocks #3)(4)

Head to Head (Nerds vs Jocks #3)(4)
Author: Eli Easton

I shifted in my chair. The tension was even getting to me. I took a deep, cleansing breath. It’s fine. It’s cool. Whatever. But I couldn’t help adding. Come on, guys.

“The next question is in the Math category,” the moderator said. Everyone at the two tables tensed, hands near the buzzer. “If 40% of a given number is 8, then what is 15% of—”

Felix buzzed in and so did a guy on the Harvard team. It seemed simultaneous to me. The moderator looked at the referee. The buzzers were hooked up to a computer, so they could see the buzz-in times in milliseconds.

“SMT buzzed in first,” the ref said.

The room erupted with cheers and groans. The moderator had to warn the crowd to be quiet. He turned to Felix. “The question goes to SMT. And the answer is?”

“3!” Felix crowed.

“Correct. Fifteen points to SMT. SMT wins the question and earns three bonus questions.”

A loud murmur washed through the room. Everyone knew it was done. We were ahead even before the bonus questions were read. I managed to catch Dobbs’s gaze, and he gave me a brilliant, breathtaking smile, but then the team focused on the bonus set and got all three of the answers right.

Final score: SMT won by 75 points.

As soon as it was officially called, the room erupted. Jorge jumped up, leapt in the air, and gave Sean a high five over my head. Smiling, I got to my feet and accepted hugs and back slaps all around. Besides the nine of us who were there with the team, there were another twenty or so students from Madison who’d come all the way to Philly to watch the tournament. SMT had other fans in the crowd too from other schools. Harvard wasn’t that popular since they were so intense and, well, they were Harvard, so the audience liked SMT by default. Well over half the room clapped, cheered, and whooped it up.

When our guys started coming down from the dais, I pushed forward and grabbed Dobbs in a hug. “You guys were brilliant! Totally smokin’.”

“Thanks, Jax. Thanks for everything,” Dobbs said warmly.

When I pulled back to look at him, his face was transformed. He was so happy he glowed. And Jesse, who somehow managed to get decent at Quiz Bowl and start a torrid romance with Dobbs in a few short months, grabbed Dobbs and kissed him full on the lips. “You deserve that trophy. I’m so happy for you.”

“For me? I couldn’t have done it without you,” Dobbs said with a wink. “You science nerd you. If you think I’ll ever let you live it down, you’re very much mistaken. There will be a photo of you with the Quiz Bowl trophy on my desk. Forever.”

Jesse laughed and blushed a little. “Guess I can live with that.”

 

 

A few hours later, we were all at a local Philly pizza place snarfing doughy slices of heaven and downing pitchers of beer. The team had insisted on taking us all out. Since they were flush thanks to a check for eight grand, I wasn’t going to argue.

The pizza was the best I’d ever eaten, and the cold beer hit the spot. We ate and drank like a ravening horde. The one blight on the evening was Rand Charles, the ALA president, aka head jock, aka Ice Prince, who had unfortunately shown up in Philly for the Quiz Bowl finals. He lurked like a dark cloud in my peripheral vision. But he was seated at the opposite end of the table from me, so I did my best to be the adult and ignore him.

Hell, nobody got under my skin like Rand did. Nobody ever had. But I refused to let him ruin my night.

As we were all winding down on pizza consumption—except for Felix, who grabbed a new slice from a nearly finished pan down the table—Sean looked at me. “I was informed that you’re coming to the flag finals in Omaha, Jax.”

“Planning on it. I want to be there to support you and Dustin. Even if you aren’t gonna be able to play.”

Sean touched the neck brace he wore. It still made me cringe. He’d gotten whiplash in the flag semifinals a few weeks ago. The thought that he might have been hurt far worse because of me—because I agreed to the dean’s ultimatum that two of our SMT bros had to play on the ALA flag team—was scary. I’d be forever grateful that he hadn’t broken his neck.

I smiled. Sean hated not understanding anything. “Nope. My brother, Donny, lives near here. He bought a new car, and he’s handing down an old family dinosaur of a Buick to my little sister, Loveda, who just got her license. I said I’d drive it to my folks’ house near Indy. There’s a week between this and the flag finals, and I wanted to go home anyway, so it was meant to be.”

Sean blinked. “Donny and Loveda? How many siblings do you have?”

I leaned back in my chair and wiped my beard carefully with my napkin. Pizza cheese was a thing I’d learned about early in my beard-wearing career. “My parents had seven of us.”

Sean gaped. “On purpose?”

Bubba, Sean’s new jock boyfriend, roared with laughter and patted Sean’s knee. “Sean! You’re so funny.”

I chuckled too. “Yeah, Sean. Pretty sure my parents know how it all works.”

“There was a Catholic family in our neighborhood that had, like, ten kids,” said Sai. “Are you guys Catholic?”

“Dude! Kinda personal,” said Dobbs.

“I’m just asking.” Sai pushed up his glasses.

“We’re not Catholic,” I said. “My parents just like kids.” And animals. And chaos. And a challenge. There was all of that and more at Chez Johnson. The thought of our overflowing house made me smile. I couldn’t wait to get home, even for a few days.

“Hey, Rand’s driving to Omaha from here too,” Jesse said. “If you want to ditch that old dinosaur, you guys could totally carpool.” The teasing grin he shot Rand told me he wasn’t serious. But Rand, of course, couldn’t let that go, not even as a joke.

“Drive twelve hundred miles with a Poin? That’d be a worse punishment than any of you team-hoppers had to bear,” Rand huffed.

As usual, the entitled jerk hadn’t read the room. Everyone but two of the people at the table—hell in all of Quiz Bowl—were his so-called Poins, his word for nerds, so his comment landed like an infidelity joke at a bridal shower. I swallowed down rising anger. Rand was such an ass. He was practically magnificent in his asshattery. If there were a Greek god of being an ass, it would be Rand Charles.

He glanced around, as if confused by the pregnant silence.

“Good thing you’re graduating this year, Rand,” I said lightly. “Because between the team camaraderie this swap has created, and actual couples that have come out of ALA and SMT pair-ups, no one wants to hear your bullshit hate anymore.”

The sneer Rand shot me was a knee-jerk reaction. But when he looked to Jesse for support, and then Bubba, they both avoided his gaze, expressions stony. Color rose up Rand’s throat and seeped into his cheeks. I loved to see it. Bet it wasn’t everyday Mr. Perfect found zero takers for what he was selling.

Dobbs glared at Rand. “If you hate Poins so much, why the fuck did you even come to the finals?”

Rand’s nostrils flared. “I came to support Jesse and PJ. And I don’t hate Poins.” He looked down the table at me. “I only hate Jax.” His shark’s grin was pure malice, and all of it was aimed at me.

A whoosh of rage exploded inside me. A match to gasoline, man. I don’t know what I’d ever done to Rand to deserve the hate vibes he’d sent me for years. No, scratch that. I knew what I’d done—precisely nothing. I hardly even knew the guy. At first, I thought the glares and daggers he sent my way from across the street, or anytime we crossed paths on campus, were a homophobe thing. Then I learned he was gay. So obviously, he wasn’t a homophobe unless he was way more fucked up than I even thought. Then I decided it had to be the traditional rivalry between SMT and ALA. But it was so intense. Like, dude, get a life! I’m just chillaxing in my own little world. I’m not fucking with you, bro. But now, when several SMT guys had been working with ALA—and seemingly accepted by them—it was clear that Rand’s hatred really was about me. Me personally. Maybe it was the sheer senselessness of it that absolutely popped my cork.

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