Chapter 4: Halftime Bet, Bears Fan Payback
The halftime score sat on the screen like a taunt: Bears 17, Packers 10.
Jordan had his head in his hands. Maria was pacing the length of his dorm room—the same nervous circuit he usually wore into the carpet during close games, except she was doing it with a half-eaten bag of pretzels and a scowl that could curdle milk. On the futon, Derek was sprawled like he owned the place, his Bears hoodie a visual assault, his girlfriend Priya perched on the armrest next to him with a smug little smile that made Jordan want to throw something.
"Bear down, Chicago Bears," Derek sang, off-key, drumming his palms on his thighs. "Make every play clear the way to victory!"
"Jesus Christ," Jordan muttered.
"Bear down, Chicago Bears," Priya joined in, her voice sweet and pitchy and deliberately annoying. "Put up a fight with a might so fearlessly!"
Maria stopped pacing. She turned slowly, the way a predator turns when it hears something rustling in the bushes.
"You're both enjoying this way too much," she said.
"We're winning," Derek said. "That's the whole point of watching sports. You're supposed to enjoy it when you're winning."
"You're winning because your defense is holding and our offense can't convert on third down. It's not sustainable."
"Tell that to the scoreboard."
Maria's jaw tightened. Jordan knew that look. It was the same look she got when someone said Brett Favre was overrated, or when a Vikings fan tried to argue that Randy Moss was better than Jerry Rice. It was the look that preceded something reckless.
"We're going to win this game," she said.
Derek snorted. "Sure you are."
"I'm serious."
"Okay. Sure." He grabbed a handful of pretzels from the bag on the desk—Jordan's pretzels, his snack, his room—and crunched them loudly. "What are you willing to put on it?"
The room went quiet.
Jordan lifted his head from his hands and looked at Maria. Her eyes were bright, sharp, dangerous. The fluorescent light from the hallway bled under the door and caught the edge of her jaw. She was wearing his gray Packers sweatshirt again—the one she'd claimed as her own—and her hair was pulled back in a messy knot that was already coming loose.
"What do you mean?" she asked.
"I mean a bet. A real one." Derek leaned forward, elbows on his knees, a grin spreading across his face like oil on water. "If the Packers lose—which they will—you do whatever we want. Within reason."
Priya giggled. Actually giggled, like a high schooler watching drama unfold in the cafeteria.
Jordan's stomach dropped.
"Don't," he said.
Maria ignored him.
"And if the Packers win?" she asked.
Derek shrugged. "Then we'll wear Packers gear for the rest of the night."
"That's not much of a punishment."
"It's humiliation enough."
Maria crossed her arms. The sweatshirt bunched up around her elbows. Jordan could see the wheels turning in her head—the calculations, the odds, the risk assessment. The Packers were down by ten. They'd been flat all first half. Rodgers had thrown an interception in the second quarter. The running game was nonexistent.
But the Packers were also the Packers. And Maria believed in them the way other people believed in God.
"Fine," she said.
"Maria—"
"Fine," she said again, louder, cutting Jordan off. "But if we win, you don't just wear the gear. You sing the fight song. Both of you. On video. And you post it."
Derek's grin faltered. "What?"
"You heard me. You post it on your Instagram. All your Bears friends get to see you in green and gold, singing about being a Packers fan."
Priya's smile disappeared. "That's—"
"That's the bet," Maria said. "Take it or leave it."
Derek looked at Priya. Priya looked at Derek. Some silent couple communication passed between them, the kind of wordless negotiation that Jordan had never quite understood.
"Fine," Derek said. "Deal."
"Deal," Maria echoed.
The second half started.
Jordan couldn't sit still. He was on his feet, then on the edge of the futon, then on his feet again. His heart was hammering in a way that had nothing to do with the shitty dorm-room air and everything to do with the fact that Maria had just bet something insane on a game the Packers were currently losing.
"You're an idiot," he muttered to her as the Bears punted on their first possession of the third quarter.
"I'm confident."
"You're an idiot who's confident."
"Same thing."
The Packers moved the ball. Rodgers completed a pass to the tight end, then another to the slot receiver, then scrambled for eight yards on third down. The drive stalled at the Bears' thirty-five, but the field goal was good. Bears 17, Packers 13.
Derek booed.
Maria stuck her tongue out at him.
The Bears went three-and-out. Jordan's pulse spiked. The Packers got the ball back and moved it down the field again, methodical, patient, Rodgers picking apart the defense with short passes and checkdowns. The drive took seven minutes. It ended with a touchdown pass to the back of the end zone, the receiver dragging his toes on the green turf.
Packers 20, Bears 17.
Jordan screamed. Actually screamed, loud enough that someone in the hallway pounded on the wall.
Maria was on her feet, fists raised, yelling something that was probably profane in at least two languages. Derek's face had gone pale. Priya was staring at the screen like it had personally betrayed her.
"There's still time," Derek said, but his voice had lost its smug edge.
The fourth quarter was a knife fight.
The Bears marched down the field and scored. Touchdown. Bears 24, Packers 20. Then the Packers answered with a field goal. Bears 24, Packers 23. Then the Bears punted, and the Packers got the ball with four minutes left and the entire room holding its breath.
Jordan was pacing again. Maria was sitting on the edge of the futon, her hands clasped so tight her knuckles were white. Derek and Priya had gone quiet, their earlier taunts replaced by a tense, nervous silence that Jordan was enjoying way too much.
Rodgers dropped back. Scrambled. Found the receiver on the sideline for a fifteen-yard gain. First down.
The clock ticked. Two minutes left. The Packers were at the Bears' forty.
Another pass. Another first down. The Bears' defense was tired, their pass rush slow, their coverage soft. Rodgers kept finding open receivers, kept moving the chains, kept bleeding the clock.
Thirty seconds left. The Packers were at the fifteen.
Rodgers dropped back and threw a dart to the corner of the end zone.
Touchdown.
The room exploded.
Jordan was screaming. Maria was screaming. Derek was on his feet, his mouth open, his face a mask of disbelief. Priya had her hands over her mouth, her eyes wide, her smugness replaced by something that looked almost like fear.
Packers 30, Bears 24.
The extra point was good. The Bears got the ball back with eleven seconds left, but the Hail Mary fell incomplete, and the game was over.
The Packers had won.
Maria turned to Derek with a smile that could have cut glass.
"Sing," she said.
Derek looked at Priya. Priya looked at Derek. Neither of them moved.
"Sing," Maria said again. "Or I'll post it myself. I have screenshots of the bet."
"You don't have screenshots."
"I have screenshots."
Derek's face went through about six different emotions in the span of two seconds. Then he sighed, pulled out his phone, and started recording.
"Bear down, Chicago Bears," he sang, his voice flat and defeated. "Make every play clear the way to victory..."
Priya joined in, her face red, her voice barely above a whisper.
Maria was laughing so hard she had to lean on Jordan's shoulder to stay upright. Jordan was laughing too—laughing and also feeling something else, something hot and sharp that had nothing to do with the game and everything to do with the way Maria's body felt pressed against his.
She looked up at him. Her eyes were bright, her cheeks flushed, her lips slightly parted. The victory was radiating off her like heat off asphalt.
"Bathroom," she said.
"What?"
"Bathroom. Now."
She grabbed his hand and dragged him across the room, past Derek and Priya still singing their humiliation, past the TV still showing the post-game show, past the mini fridge and the scattered pretzels and the foam cheesehead sitting on the corner of his desk like a witness.
The bathroom door clicked shut behind them.
It was small—barely big enough for two people, definitely not big enough for what Maria clearly had in mind. The sink was stained. The mirror was fogged from the last shower. The fluorescent light buzzed like a trapped fly.
Maria didn't care.
She turned around, planted her hands on the edge of the sink, and looked at him in the mirror.
"Fuck me," she said.
Jordan's brain short-circuited. Again. It was becoming a pattern.
"Here?"
"Yes, here. Right now. Bend me over this sink and fuck me."
"Maria, Derek and Priya are literally twenty feet away—"
"Then you'd better be quiet."
She reached down and yanked her leggings down—the black ones with the hole in the knee, the ones she wore every Sunday because they were lucky—and kicked them off. Her underwear followed. She was bare from the waist down, bent over the sink, her ass on display and her reflection staring back at him with a look that was pure, unfiltered hunger.
Jordan's cock was already hard. Had been hard since the touchdown, maybe, since she'd grabbed his hand, since she'd said "bathroom" in that voice.
"Hurry up," she said.
He fumbled with his belt, his zipper, his jeans. His hands were shaking. His heart was pounding. The post-game show was blaring through the door—something about playoff implications, something about Rodgers' legacy, something about the Bears' collapse.
None of it mattered.
He stepped up behind her and pushed inside.
She was wet. Soaked, actually—he could feel it, the slick heat of her gripping him from the first inch. She gasped, one hand flying to her mouth, the other bracing against the sink. Jordan grabbed her hip with one hand and clamped his other hand over her mouth.
"Quiet," he whispered. "You have to be quiet."
She nodded, her eyes meeting his in the mirror, and then he started to move.
He fucked her hard and fast, the way she wanted, the way the victory demanded. The sink creaked. The mirror rattled. His hips slapped against her ass with a sound that was obscene and perfect and probably way too loud for the thin walls of the dorm.
"You're a fucking menace," he breathed into her ear. "You know that? Betting yourself like that. What if we'd lost?"
She bit his hand.
Not hard enough to draw blood, but hard enough to make him wince. Her eyes in the mirror were fierce, defiant, alive.
"We didn't lose," she said, her voice muffled by his palm. "We never lose."
He fucked her harder.
The angle was awkward—the sink was too high, the bathroom was too small, his knees kept hitting the cabinet—but none of it mattered. What mattered was the way she was pushing back against him, the way her body was trembling, the way her teeth were still clamped down on his hand like she was trying to leave a mark.
"You're gonna come," he said. "I can feel it."
"Shut up."
"You're gonna come on my cock while Derek sings the fight song in the other room."
"Shut up."
"Admit it."
"Fuck you."
"You're gonna come."
She bit down harder. He felt the sharp sting of her teeth, the heat of her mouth, the way her body clenched around him like a fist. She came with a shudder that went through her whole body, a moan that she tried to swallow against his hand, a flood of wetness that coated his cock and dripped down her thighs.
Jordan fucked her through it, chasing his own release, and when it hit him it hit him hard. He came with a groan, buried deep inside her, his hips stuttering against her ass. For a long moment, neither of them moved.
The post-game show droned on. Someone laughed in the other room. The buzzer on the bathroom light flickered.
Maria pulled his hand away from her mouth.
"You're bleeding," she said.
He looked down. There were teeth marks on the meat of his palm, deep and red, already starting to bruise.
"You bit me."
"You told me to be quiet."
"I told you to be quiet. I didn't tell you to cannibalize me."
She laughed, breathless and flushed, and pushed herself up off the sink. Her legs were shaky. Her hair was a disaster. There was a red mark on her forehead from where she'd been pressed against the mirror.
"Worth it," she said.
"You're insane."
"You love it."
He did.
They cleaned up as best they could—splashing water on their faces, smoothing hair, trying to look like they hadn't just fucked in a bathroom the size of a closet. Jordan's hand was still throbbing. Maria's cheeks were still flushed. Neither of them looked remotely innocent.
When they stumbled out of the bathroom, Derek and Priya were standing in the middle of the room, both of them wearing green and gold.
Derek had on a Packers t-shirt that was clearly too small—probably something Maria had brought, something she'd planned for exactly this scenario. It stretched across his chest and rode up his stomach, and he looked like he wanted to crawl into a hole and die.
Priya was wearing a Packers hoodie that hung down to her knees. Her face was a mask of resignation.
"Well," she said, looking at Jordan and Maria with an expression that was half disgust and half amusement. "You two are disgusting."
Maria grinned. Her lips were swollen. Her neck was already starting to show a bruise.
"You're just jealous you're wearing a Packers shirt," she said.
Priya opened her mouth to respond, then closed it. Because she was wearing a Packers shirt. And there was nothing she could say about it.
Derek pulled out his phone and started recording again.
"Just get it over with," he muttered.
Maria grabbed Jordan's hand—the one she'd bitten, the one that was still bleeding—and pulled him toward the futon.
"Come on," she said. "Let's watch the post-game."
"We already watched the post-game."
"We can watch it again."
She sat down and pulled him down next to her, and Jordan let himself be pulled. The futon creaked. The TV flickered. Derek and Priya stood in the middle of the room in their Packers gear, both of them looking like they were reconsidering every life choice that had led them to this moment.
Maria leaned her head on Jordan's shoulder.
"Good game," she said.
"Yeah."
"You want to do this again next week?"
"What, watch the game?"
"That too."
He laughed. She laughed. Derek and Priya glared at them from across the room.
And for a few minutes, everything was perfect.
The perfection lasted about ninety seconds.
Derek muted the TV with a jab of his thumb, and the sudden silence made the room feel smaller than it was. Priya had already pulled out her phone—scrolling, probably, or texting someone about the indignity of wearing green and gold. Jordan could feel the heat coming off Maria's body, the way her breathing had finally started to slow, the faint tremor still running through her hand where it rested on his thigh.
Then Derek spoke.
"So," he said, drawing the word out like he was testing its weight. "That bet. The one you made. That was, what—a test of faith? Divine intervention? Or are you just genuinely insane?"
Maria lifted her head from Jordan's shoulder. She didn't smile. She didn't gloat. She just looked at Derek with an expression that was almost bored, almost tired, the way a chess player looks at an opponent who's just realized they've been in checkmate for three moves.
"All three," she said. "You want another beer?"
Derek blinked. "What?"
"A beer. You're wearing a Packers shirt. You sang the song. You lost. The least I can do is offer you a drink."
She stood up and crossed to the mini fridge before Derek could answer. The fridge was Jordan's—a battered thing he'd bought off a senior for forty bucks, covered in magnets and stickers and a laminated schedule from last season. She pulled out four bottles of Grain Belt and handed them around like she was hosting a dinner party.
Priya took hers with a suspicious look. "This isn't poison, is it?"
"It's Minnesota's finest. If it kills you, that's just a bonus."
Derek cracked his open and took a long pull. Some of the tension drained out of his shoulders. The Packers t-shirt still looked ridiculous on him—too tight, too green, the logo stretched across his chest like a second skin—but he was wearing it, and that was the whole point.
Jordan took a sip of his own beer and watched Maria settle back onto the futon. She didn't lean on his shoulder this time. She sat with her knees pulled up to her chest, her bare feet tucked under her, the gray Packers sweatshirt swallowing her whole. The bite mark on his palm throbbed in time with his pulse.
"You know," Priya said, "I don't actually hate the Packers."
The room went quiet.
"What?" Derek turned to look at her like she'd just announced she was joining a cult.
"I'm serious. I don't hate them. I just hate how smug their fans are." She gestured vaguely with her beer bottle. "Present company included."
"We're not smug," Jordan said. "We're confident."
"That's the same thing."
"It's really not."
"It really is."
Maria laughed—a short, sharp sound that cut through the argument like a knife. "You're both being ridiculous. Priya, you're wearing a Packers hoodie. You're basically one of us now."
"I'm not one of you. I'm a hostage."
"Same thing."
Derek finished his beer and set the bottle on the floor. He looked at Jordan with an expression that was almost friendly, almost apologetic, like he'd just remembered they were supposed to be roommates and not mortal enemies.
"Your team's good this year," he said. "I'll give you that."
"They're always good."
"They're never this good."
Jordan couldn't argue with that. The Packers had been inconsistent all season—flashes of brilliance, stretches of mediocrity, the kind of team that could win the Super Bowl or lose in the wild card round depending on which version showed up. But today, they'd shown up. Today, they'd been the team Jordan believed they could be.
"They're going to win it all," Maria said.
Derek snorted. "You're delusional."
"I'm a fan. Delusion is part of the job."
The post-game show kept playing on mute—talking heads gesturing at screens, highlights flashing by in a loop. Jordan watched the replay of the touchdown pass, the receiver dragging his toes, the ball nestled against his chest like it belonged there. He'd watched it ten times already. He'd watch it ten more before the night was over.
"We should go," Priya said. She stood up and stretched, the Packers hoodie riding up over her hips. "I have an early class tomorrow."
"It's Sunday."
"I have a lot of homework."
"That's not the same thing."
"Shut up, Derek."
Derek finished his beer and stood up too. He looked down at his Packers t-shirt with an expression of profound suffering.
"Do I have to wear this home?"
"You have to post the video," Maria said. "The shirt is optional after midnight."
"What if I just—"
"You have to post the video."
Derek sighed. He pulled out his phone and opened Instagram, and Jordan watched the whole thing like a man watching a car crash in slow motion. The video was only thirty seconds long. Derek's face was bright red the entire time. The singing was terrible.
"Posted," Derek said, his voice flat.
"Let me see."
Maria grabbed his phone and scrolled, and a smile spread across her face—the real one, the one that crinkled the corners of her eyes and made Jordan's chest do something complicated. She handed the phone back to Derek and nodded.
"Good," she said. "Now you can go."
Priya was already at the door. "This was the worst night of my life."
"You loved it."
"I hated every second."
"You loved it."
"I'm never coming back."
"You'll be back next week."
Priya opened her mouth to argue, then closed it. Because she would be back next week. Because this was what they did. Because the bet, the trash talk, the beer, the humiliation—it was all part of something bigger, something that had become a ritual without anyone noticing.
"Next week," Priya said, "we're watching at our place."
"Fine by me," Maria said. "Just make sure you have snacks."
Derek and Priya left. The door clicked shut behind them, and the room was suddenly quiet—not the tense quiet of the fourth quarter, not the breathless quiet of the bathroom, but a different kind. A comfortable quiet. A quiet that felt earned.
Jordan reached over and turned the TV off. The screen went black, and the room dimmed, lit only by the little lamp on his desk and the strip of light under the door.
Maria didn't move.
"You're bleeding again," she said.
He looked down at his hand. She was right—a thin line of red was seeping through the teeth marks, slow and steady.
"It's fine."
"It's not fine. You need a bandage."
"I've had worse."
She stood up and walked to the bathroom—the same bathroom, the same closet-sized disaster they'd just defiled—and came back with a wad of toilet paper and a bottle of hand sanitizer. She sat down next to him and took his hand in hers, talking gently, dabbing at the wound with a tenderness that felt surreal after everything they'd just done.
"You bite hard," he said.
"You told me to be quiet."
"I didn't think you'd take it as a challenge."
"Everything's a challenge."
She pressed the toilet paper against the wound and held it there, her fingers warm against his skin. The hand sanitizer stung—a bright, sharp pain that made him hiss—and then faded to a dull throb.
"You're not bleeding to death," she said. "You'll live."
"I'm relieved."
"You should be. I'd be a terrible widow."
He laughed. She laughed. The sound was small and private, and it filled the room in a way the TV never could.
"You know," he said, "you never told me what you would have done if we'd lost."
She didn't answer right away. She kept pressing the toilet paper against his palm, her eyes fixed on his hand, her jaw set in a way that meant she was thinking.
"I hadn't thought that far," she said finally.
"You made a bet without thinking it through?"
"I'm a woman of impulse."
"You're a woman of chaos."
"Same thing."
He reached out with his free hand and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. She looked up at him, and her eyes were soft in a way that made his throat tight.
"I would've figured something out," she said. "I always do."
"That's what scares me."
"That's what excites you."
She wasn't wrong.
She finished cleaning up his hand and tossed the bloody toilet paper in the trash can. Then she stood up and started collecting the empty beer bottles—Derek's, Priya's, the two they'd shared—and carrying them to the recycling bin in the corner. Jordan watched her move. The sweatshirt, the leggings, the bare feet. The way she knew where everything was, even though it was his room.
"You don't have to clean up," he said.
"I know."
"This isn't your mess."
"I know." She dropped the last bottle in the bin and turned to face him. "I want to."
He didn't have anything to say to that.
She walked back to the futon and sat down—not across from him, not pretending to be somewhere else, but right next to him. Her thigh pressed against his. Her hand found his. The bite mark was covered now, wrapped in a fresh layer of toilet paper that she'd taped down with painter's tape from his desk drawer.
"I do this too," she said.
"What?"
"Need to think sometimes. When I come here. When we watch games." She looked at him. "This is my thinking place."
"I thought I was your thinking place."
"You are." She squeezed his hand. "That's the problem."
He didn't ask her to explain. He didn't need to. The problem wasn't that she thought about him. The problem was that she thought about him too much. The problem was that this—the Sundays, the bets, the bathroom, the bite marks—was starting to mean something she couldn't take back.
"I think about you too," he said.
"I know."
"It scares me."
"I know."
"It's also—" He stopped. Tried again. "It's also the best part of my week. Every week. Not just the games. Not just the—" He gestured at the room, at the futon, at the bathroom door. "All of it. You."
She leaned in and kissed him.
It was slower than the bathroom. Softer than the stairwell. It was the kind of kiss that didn't ask for anything, didn't lead anywhere, didn't need to. It just was. And for a few minutes, that was enough.
Then she pulled back.
"Next week," she said.
"Next week."
"Your place or theirs?"
"Ours."
She smiled. "I like that."
She lay back on the futon and pulled him down with her. The futon creaked. The radiator clanked. The light under the door flickered with the footsteps of someone passing by in the hall.
"We should probably sleep," she said.
"We should probably do a lot of things."
"We never do what we should."
"I know."
She closed her eyes. Her breathing slowed. Jordan stayed awake a little longer, watching her, listening to the building settle around them, running his thumb over the bite mark on his palm.
It would leave scars. He was almost sure of that. And he wasn't sure why that made him smile.