The Jock Read online

  The Jock

  BY JAID BLACK

  Writing as

  JASMINE LEVEAUX

  Copyright © 2001 by Jasmine LeVeaux.

  Republished Copyright © 2019 by Jaid Black w/a Jasmine LeVeaux.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  Publisher: Valentina Antonia, LLC.

  Prologue

  Tampa Florida, eleven years earlier

  Her heart was breaking.

  Gwenyth Jones had been in love with Sam Tremont for as long as she could remember. And now he was getting married.

  At the tender age of five, little Gwen’s heart had been lassoed and claimed by her elder brother Harry’s best boyhood friend, the then nine-year-old Sam. A double-decker scoop of strawberry and banana flavored ice cream from Mrs. Hampton’s Frozen Haven was all it had taken. Heedless of the creamy confection dripping from its cone and making a mess of her tiny fingers and starched pinafore dress, Gwenyth had gazed up into Sam’s bright blue eyes and given her love to him then and there. He had given her a napkin in return.

  At the age of eleven, Gwenyth cheered from the bleachers with all of her girlish enthusiasm as she witnessed Sam slam home the run that would take him and his high school baseball team to the state finals. After the game, Sam had thrown her his #33 jersey with a wink and a grin. Before going to bed that night, Gwenyth had dreamily inhaled his sweaty scent, closing her eyes and wishing the wishes of an enamored eleven-year-old girl. She had kept the shirt.

  On her fifteenth birthday, Gwenyth watched breathlessly as Sam swung his bat with all he had in him and hit the ball clear out of the park. The bases had been loaded. Two strikes and two balls had been called against him. Sam soared to the heights of fame that day. It was the same dramatic homerun that made a boy into a man and a man into a sports legend. It brought him a multi-million dollar contract with the New England Crusaders, prestige and commercial endorsements, and more women than any one man had a right to lay claim to.

  Sam didn’t throw his #15 jersey to Gwenyth that day. He threw that one to Wendy Patterson, his then girlfriend. Yet Gwenyth still loved him.

  Gwenyth saw little of Sam after that. He moved to Boston and embarked on his new, fast-paced career as baseball hero and his new, heady status as every woman’s fantasy come true. Men wanted to be in his confidence. Women wanted to be in his bed. Everyone wanted to be his friend. And through it all, Gwenyth still loved him.

  On her sixteenth birthday, Gwenyth was overcome with excitement when Sam pulled up in his bright red Ferrari and flashed her the winsome, million-dollar grin that endorsers couldn’t get enough of. His pearly white smile highlighted his tanned skin, dark hair, and true blue eyes. The fact that Sam showed up at the family house with a gallon of strawberry and banana flavored ice cream in tow only added to the exuberance of the occasion. “Happy birthday, Cupcake.” He smiled as he alighted from a sports car. “How’ve you been?”

  Gwenyth gazed up and smiled nervously. “F-fine, Sam. I’m sixteen now, you know.”

  He grinned. “Uh huh. And as purdy as a picture you are, Cupcake.”

  Gwenyth’s heart raced. She knew she wasn’t pretty. She was too pudgy to be pretty. But it was the sweetest moment of her young life, hearing Sam say those words. She smiled tremulously up at him as he reeled her in for a hug. At five-feet-and-six-inches, the top of Gwenyth’s head barely met the shoulders of Sam’s six-foot-three-inch frame. She breathed in the scent of him and basked in the feel of his muscled body enveloping hers.

  This was better than winning the photography contest she’d entered in at school. Better even than strawberry and banana ice cream. This was Sam.

  “Sam, darling, who is that delightful little cherub you’re hugging?”

  Startled, Gwenyth dropped her arms from around Sam’s waist and watched as a drop-dead gorgeous blonde with small, pert breasts and an aerobicized figure sauntered from the Ferrari and into her worst nightmare. Gwenyth’s dreamy lassitude gave way to embarrassment as she remembered that the beautiful woman had called her a cherub. A nice way of saying she was fat. Her cheeks flooded scarlet as she pulled away from Sam and cast her eyes to the ground.

  Sam glared at Stacy from over Gwenyth’s head. Stacy gave him a negligent shrug and continued her promenade towards them. A superficial smile plastered on, the bombshell held out her hand and offered it to Gwenyth. “Hi there. I’m Stacy, Sam’s fiancée. You must be Gwenyth.”

  Gwenyth swallowed painfully. Fiancée? Sam was getting married?

  Her heart breaking, she somehow found the strength to whip up a superficial smile of her own. Gwenyth accepted Stacy’s hand and shook it, the knot in her belly twisting as painfully as the knife in her heart was wrenching. She wanted to scratch the beautiful woman’s eyes out. She wanted to call her names. But in the end, she said, “Yes, I’m Gwenyth. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

  Stacy smiled knowingly. As if she not only understood her anguish, but also welcomed it—a fact that confused Gwenyth mightily. “Sam has told me so much about you. May I call you Gwen?”

  Gwenyth’s eyes narrowed. Only family and close friends called her by the shortened “Gwen” rather than by “Gwenyth”. She decided things should stay that way. Valor only cut so deep after all. “No,” she said pointedly, “I prefer for you to call me Gwenyth.”

  Blushing, Stacy dropped Gwenyth’s hand and turned to Sam. He cleared his throat and grinned. “Why don’t you show us inside, Cupcake.” He held up the gallon of strawberry and banana ice cream, shaking the bag it was contained in as if he expected her to start panting like a puppy that had just been tossed a bone from the dinner table. “Wouldn’t want this to melt.”

  Gwenyth looked at the bag with the ice cream inside of it and then at her thighs. Stacy’s thighs were infinitely smaller. She stared at the paper bag container again, then glanced down at her breasts. Stacy’s were smaller and perkier. Hers were big and bouncy. Gwenyth turned to Sam and glowered at him. “I’m on a diet,” she sniffed.

  Before he could respond to that assertion, Gwenyth announced that Harry was inside waiting for him. “It was nice to see you again, Sam,” she said as she began to back away. “And it was nice to meet you, Stacy. If you’ll excuse me, I was on my way to the bay to take some pictures for photography class.” She whirled on her heel and ran all the way to the one place where she was consistently able to find comfort.

  Gwenyth cried inconsolably for the better part of two hours, her teardrops falling from her eyes and becoming one with the soothing, glistening waters of the bay. Every dream that Sam would one day notice her came crashing down to reality. Every fantasy that Sam would one day fall in love with her and marry her died along with Stacy’s announcement that she was his fiancée.

  Harry later found Gwenyth that way, crying and broken, but spoke not a word. He knew. He understood. And terrific brother that he was, he said nothing that would make it seem as though her adolescent heartbreak was a childish, trivial matter. He rubbed her shoulders and sighed instead, waiting for her to finish with her cry. And when she did, she rose to her feet and threw herself into her brother’s outstretched arms.

  During the walk back home that night, Gwenyth arrived at a conclusion that would unconsciously guide her for many years to come. She would no longer place her hopes and dreams in someone else’s hands just to have them snatched back again. She would no longer waste precious years or even hours of her l
ife dreaming about what could never be. Instead, Gwenyth would concentrate on what she could have. She would carve out a formidable destiny for herself.

  And she’d never, ever dream about Sam Tremont again.

  Chapter 1

  Riverview Florida, Present Day

  The circle of men were naked. Butt naked. And beating on drums.

  Good Lord.

  Gwenyth Jones shook her head with an air of incredulous disbelief. When she had agreed to shoot the photographs for her best friend Candy Crawford’s exposé piece on the conservative National Association of Men, or NAM as they referred to themselves, she had never expected to encounter this. What the hell kind of conservatives rally in the buff? Of course, she quickly reminded herself, the men of NAM had no notion that their private party was about to become very public.

  Gwenyth scanned the clearing of the forest with the keen eye of a trained photographer accustomed to getting the picture. There was a total of twelve men, all of them naked, all of them beating on their drums, NAM placards propped up behind them against nearby tree trunks. A glimmer of excitement sparked in her eyes as she considered for the first time not only what this would mean to Candy’s desire to join the leagues of the paparazzi, but the ramifications this event would also have on her brother Harry.

  They would both win this battle. Gwenyth would see to it that the incumbent senator looked as foolish as possible in tomorrow’s early morning editions of the Florida newspapers. And her brother would take his place in Washington DC.

  Grinning triumphantly, Gwenyth turned to Candy and nudged her. “Is Senator Green here yet?” she whispered, not wanting the naked protesters to notice their presence just yet.

  Candy smiled owlishly, her gum smacking as she chewed and talked simultaneously. Gwenyth couldn’t understand her best friend’s desire to leave her lucrative career in novel writing behind for a low paying job in journalism, but that was Candy’s decision. “Uh huh. That’s him and his aide right over there.” She pointed towards the NAM round that was conspicuously propped against one of the taller trees. “Take the picture, Gwen. It’s a perfect shot,” she murmured.

  Gwenyth wasted no time. Candy was right. An ace in the hole photograph like this one didn’t come along every day. Senator Green and his aide were standing with the NAM rounds visibly adjacent to them, naked men beating on drums everywhere within their vicinity. She crouched down low on her knees, held the camera at an angle, adjusted the zoom lens, and snapped away.

  “Make certain you can see the NAM placards behind him,” Candy whispered excitedly. “I intend to have my story dominate tomorrow’s front pages.”

  It seemed to Gwenyth that Candy’s fascination of late with journalism was at best another attempt on the author’s part to alleviate the monotony of having worked within the same field for several years. Last year, bored after hitting the bestseller lists yet again, Candy hit the drag racing scene, deciding it would be “cool” to become the next Shirley Muldowney. That lasted a week. The year before that Candy swore up and down she’d had a vision and was thereby convinced that she was destined to deliver singing telegrams for a living. That lasted three days. Gwenyth was willing to lay odds that journalism would last equally as long if that. Still, she said nothing.

  “Done.” Gwenyth stood up and rubbed her hands together with unabashed glee. “With the senatorial race right around the corner, this couldn’t have happened at a better time.”

  Candy nodded bemusedly. She spit out the piece of bubble gum rapidly losing its flavor and popped a fresh piece between her lips. It seemed to Gwenyth that any given career outside of novel writing lost its flavor to her best friend as quickly as the piece of gum she’d just discarded. “Until tonight, nobody knew that Senator Green supported the agenda of these naked, overprivileged whiners. Not only will this jumpstart my as of yet stagnant career in journalism, but this will also make your brother’s coup all the easier.”

  Gwenyth grinned. She could agree wholeheartedly with the last observation. “I know.” Like a panther stalking its prey, she silently moved through the fragrant trees and snapped as many photographs as she could take. Two rolls of film later, she dropped to her knees and placed the camera on the ground while she hid her evidence.

  To prevent the soon to be irate senator from removing the incriminating photographs of him and his aide chumming it up with the naked NAM men, she tucked the two rolls of film into her underwear and reloaded her camera with a third decoy roll. That accomplished, she regained her standing position and gave the signal to Candy to move in for the kill.

  Candy blew out a bubble and nodded. She moved in; shit hit the fan. Threats flew, fists cuffed, and naked men scattered for their clothing, their unmentionables flapping up and down as they did so. An hour and a painkiller later, Gwenyth sat up in the back of the ambulance bed and dabbed at the shiner she’d received from the senator’s aide in his struggle to take the camera from her. She winced as she drew the icepack up to her battered eye, but managed to glance over at Candy with the eye she could see out of long enough to grin. The senator’s aide had taken the camera.

  But Gwenyth Jones always got the picture.

  * * * * *

  The following evening, Gwenyth was ear-to-ear smiles regardless that she sported a purplish, puffy eye. Candy’s story was not only picked up by the Florida papers, but by the Associated Press as well. Once that happened, Gwenyth’s photos of the naked NAM men with Senator Green at their rally spread through the nation like wildfire. The incumbent’s numbers in the polls immediately dipped ten percentage points. Her brother Harry’s went up by twenty-three. It was a glorious day.

  “I still can’t believe it.” Harry grinned as he flicked off the TV by remote and swung around on the barstool in the Jones’ family house. “I knew Larry was wacko, but fraternizing with NAM? Jay-sus!”

  Granddad Willy harrumphed. The fact that he was a wealthy, self-made man was at ironic odds with his long gray ponytail and the t-shirt he was wearing today that proclaimed: Proud to be a Union Man. “I’m not surprised a lick. Met the senator once or twice myself. Weird boy, that’n.”

  No one bothered to mention to Willy the fact that at forty-five, Senator Green was as far from boyhood as a man could get. “That he is, Granddaddy.” Gwenyth touched her eye lightly and winked. “But his aide can sure pack a wallop.”

  Harry winced. “Sorry about that, Gwen. I appreciate what you went through to get those photographs, but I wish you hadn’t had to get a black eye in the process.”

  Gwenyth studied her brother quietly. With the Jones family’s trademark tawny hair and green eyes, he was a good-looking man and a very eligible bachelor. Until this morning, Harry’s unmarried status had been working against him in the polls. Now it seemed that no one genuinely cared. Compared to Larry Green and the naked NAM men, Harry’s singlehood was by and large turning out to be the lesser of two political evils. She shrugged and grinned. “No big deal.”

  Granddad Willy harrumphed again. “She’s a Jones girl, Harry. Your sister has true grit. It’s in the blood. Why I remember a time before your Grandmama did me the honor of weddin’ this ole boy when we were at a protest for…”

  Gwenyth and Harry groaned simultaneously. Willy had more stories of his hippie, protesting days than a cat had lives. In the sixties, he and Grandmama had protested the Vietnam War. In the seventies, racism and sexism. In the eighties, they protested against President Reagan in general. These days, he and Grandmama rallied against a little of everything. Not that their causes weren’t good. It’s just that the stories all tended to run together after a while. Whether it was how Willy had been named the first white Black Panther or how his hero and quasi namesake Willy Nelson had once called him “a groovy guy,” Gwenyth and Harry had heard them all. “Please Granddaddy,” Harry begged, “not another story.”

  Willy glared at him. “Your Grandmama would roll over in her grave if she could hear you say that, boy.”

  Harry frowned at the fa
mily patriarch. His southern lilt carried a hint of annoyance. “Grandmama isn’t dead. She has no grave to roll over in.”

  Willy waved his hand dismissively. “A figure of speech.”

  Gwenyth and Harry exchanged an amused glance, but said nothing. They had been brought up by the elderly hell-raisers after their parents were killed in a car crash, so if Granddad wanted to tell one of his stories of the glory days, they would just have to listen to it—again.

  “Quit your talk, Willy, and let our grandson revel in his gained percentage points for a spell.”

  Grandmama wafted into the family room as airily as a July breeze off the Gulf of Mexico. She looked radiant today in a rose colored silk shirt and shorts set, her elegantly dyed blonde hair pulled into a tight bun on the top of her head. Two wisps of hair had broken loose of the hold and dangled above either ear, giving her ageless face a vixon-esque look. Perfect for a seventy-year-old woman whose name still inspired awe in the world of fashion photography. She strolled up to her husband’s side and kissed him soundly on the cheek.

  Granddad Willy harrrumphed—his favorite method of communication. “’Bout time you graced us with your presence, Verlene. I was beginning to think you’d up and disappeared.”

  Verlene slapped him playfully on what was left of his rump, then sauntered over to Gwenyth and held her chin in her hand while she angled her granddaughter’s face this way and that, getting her first good look at the shiner. “Luckily for Jones & Jones, it’s your left eye,” Verlene murmured. “This won’t affect your scheduled shoot with the Vantrys tomorrow.”

  Gwenyth smiled. “No ma’am. And thanks, by the way, for letting me grab the reins of this account and go with it.”

  Verlene patted Gwenyth affectionately on the head. “It’s not me you should thank, sugar. It’s yourself. The Vantrys asked for you specifically to photograph their new line of sportswear. They didn’t ask for me.” She gave her that affectionate smile that grandmothers reserve only for their progeny. “I’m so proud of you, sugar. Me and Granddad both. Aren’t we Willy?”