“No, Carter,” he snapped, pinning me with an icy gaze. “Not phew. You’re still on probation with me. With the program. I spoke to the athletic director about it. We’re trying to keep it under the radar this time because repeated probations look bad for you and for the program.”
“What’s the reason you’re putting me on probation?”
“You really don’t know? Your grades are in the goddamn toilet. Just like last year.”
Well, that wasn’t a surprise. Since school started three weeks ago, I’d dedicated approximately twenty minutes to studying and completing assignments. It was my last year at Boyd. I wouldn’t be staying to graduate, so I gave no fucks whatsoever about my grades.
College was merely an annoying detour along the way to the league. At least I didn’t have to worry about losing a scholarship on top of everything else. I was paying my own way through this circus.
“I’ll address my grades,” I told him.
“You’d better.” He gestured to his phone. “You’ve failed two quizzes in history already. And you have a term paper due next month that’s worth a third of your grade. I expect you’ll expend extra energy on that paper to ensure you don’t fail the class.”
“Yes, I will.” Extra energy having someone else write it for me, maybe. That history class was drier than cardboard.
“While we’re on the topic of problematic behavior, I heard about your antics at that little end-of-school party you threw this spring.”
What, specifically, had he heard? He would take issue with several things, I was sure, some of which weren’t exactly legal. Asking for details didn’t seem like a good idea, though. Then he might start digging.
“I’m sure whatever you heard was greatly exaggerated.”
He shot me a look so searing my skin prickled. “I’m told there are pictures. You better hope that is not the case.”
Shit. Maybe we needed to confiscate phones at the door. No evidence, no crime, right?
“I have eyes everywhere, Carter. If it happened, assume I’ve already heard about it.”
Cute how he was trying to scare me. But if that last part were true, I would have been kicked off the team freshman year.
He added, “Stop gallivanting around with girls, getting into fights, and acting like a teenage idiot.”
I almost pointed out that at twenty-one, I was not, in fact, a teenager. Then I realized that was his point. Instead, I nodded. Silence was usually the safest bet in these situations.
“Look,” he said, his tone marginally less hostile. “You add a lot of value to the team. And I appreciate your knack for getting into your opponents’ heads. But you have to reel it in a little off the ice, or you’re going to ruin all your hard work. Understand?”
“Yes,” I muttered. “I understand.”
“You can’t impress the scouts from the sidelines, Carter. Get it together or get benched. You’re dismissed.”
“Yes, sir.” I stood up and threw my gym bag over my shoulder before heading for the door. There was still enough time to catch some sleep before class.
“And Carter?”
“Yes, Coach?” I turned back to face him.
He snatched a pen from its holder with a worrying amount of violence. “Consider this your first, last, and only warning.”
OceanofPDF.com
CHAPTER 8
OceanofPDF.com
YOU THOUGHT ABOUT IT
Bailey
I didn’t dare tell Jillian and Amelia where I spent Saturday night. When I got home Sunday morning, they assumed I had been at Zara and Noelle’s, and I didn’t correct them. Zara and Noelle had agreed to cover for me too, angels that they were.
Plus, nothing even happened with Chase. So why open that can of worms?
Even without telling Jillian and Amelia about Chase, things were strained at our place. Like neither of them knew how to act around me now that I wasn’t Luke’s girlfriend. I hadn’t realized that as far as most of my “friends” were concerned, that was my identity.
Now it was like I was a stranger instead of their roommate and friend. Or like I had a communicable disease and they were scared of catching breakup-itis.
Maybe I could move into the Callingwood Daily office and live there.
I successfully avoided Luke for the first part of the week, which required considerable effort given the overlap of our lives. On my way to English Lit on Tuesday, I nearly ran smack into him on the quad. Fortunately, I had reflexes like a ninja, and I ducked behind a tree so he didn’t see me. At least he was alone.
You could say I was taking the whole post-breakup no-contact strategy to the extreme. If I wasn’t in class, I was holed up in the Callingwood Daily office. I didn’t even settle in to study on campus for fear of Luke strolling by. But now it was Wednesday, and contact with him was inevitable, because taking a class with my boyfriend had seemed like a great idea until he was suddenly no longer my boyfriend.
Heart racing and hands clammy, I pulled open the lecture hall door for ASTR201 - Introductory Astronomy: Stars and Galaxies. Luke and I had registered for it together last spring because we both needed to fulfill an intro-level science requirement. Astronomy seemed better than biology with its gross dissections or chemistry with all its math. Foolishly, I’d even thought it might be romantic to go stargazing for an assignment.
Now I was sorely regretting that decision. I would rather have cut up a thousand frogs （sorry, frogs） or done a million equations than be shut in a room with Luke for an eighty-minute lecture.
If only he’d get sucked into a black hole.
Heart thundering in my ears, I paused in the doorway, scanning the tiers of laminate countertops and attached seats for his familiar blond hair and his standard gray and navy Bulldogs zip-up. When I didn’t see him, I released a sigh of relief. He wasn’t here yet. Maybe he wouldn’t come. I grabbed a seat off to the side in the back for an optimal sight line while maintaining minimal visibility myself. Then I waited, like a tightly coiled spring, but the lecture began, and he never showed. Thank god. He’d probably withdrawn and taken a W. I was considering it if he didn’t. But I couldn’t afford to eat the tuition like he could.
While I was packing up my stuff after the lecture wrapped up, my phone buzzed with a half-hearted sorry about the breakup text from my brother. It was approximately five days too late and lacked the comfort—and sincerity—one would expect from a sibling in this scenario. But maybe he felt conflicted, given that Luke was not only his teammate but one of his close friends. That was, after all, how we’d met.
Following astronomy, I headed back to the Callingwood Daily office, my makeshift home these days, to complete some work on the newspaper and catch up on homework.
Zara, Noelle, and I sat at the round table, revising articles for tomorrow’s issue while snacking and drinking coffee. A few other students who also worked on the paper milled about the office, copying documents and doing various administrative tasks.
Zara glanced up from her silver MacBook. “By the way, can you cover the Hawks game on Friday? Liam called in sick.”
“It’s Wednesday,” I said, biting into my chocolate chip granola bar. “He already knows he’s going to be sick this Friday? How convenient.”