Escape Velocity

Chapter 1

MASON

September is the most confusing month of the year.

The sun beats down on him. Sweat trickles from his neck down the rest of his back as he stalks across Montgomery University’s quad.

September marks the beginning of fall. It’s when the weather is supposed to get cooler.

It’s supposed to be about cozy sweaters and warm drinks.

It’s supposed to be cooler than the blistering summer sun.

It feels like summer instead of fall as Mason huffs and hoists his backpack higher on his shoulders, trying to give his sweaty neck a reprieve from the scorching sun.

His first week of college classes is done. Instead of taking the time to relax and make friends, he’s already speeding off to get work done.

He’s glad none of his teachers took baby steps with the coursework. He hates when teachers only go over the syllabus and don’t teach anything. He wants to dive straight into the material.

In his case, he wants to dive straight into his modern physics homework so he can find some control.

He still can’t believe he’s walking across the cobblestone quad of Montgomery University. It’s breathtakingly beautiful.

Ivy adorns each brick wall, and the architecture of each building makes him feel like he’s in some kind of nineteenth-century boarding school.

But—in a good way.

He’s in love with the campus already, like it was calling his name for years and he had finally returned home, the walls welcoming him like an old friend. Like he always belonged there.

It was the only place he had dreamed of going since he was a kid.

Burgundy, maroon, gold, and mustard yellow hued banners, posters, and Montgomery paraphernalia decorate a corkboard in his bedroom back home. A reminder of where he was going to end up. His dream school. Well—his parents’ dream school.

It’s the Fanning’s alma mater. He comes from a long line of Fannings that attended Montgomery for decades before him, but he truly wanted to go to Montgomery, not because of the legacy his family had here.

It just felt like somewhere that was made for him, and as he walks from the quad to the football team’s practice field, life feels like everything is going well for the first time in a while, even if the heat is making him want to throw his iced maple latte at the sun.

Despite his aversion to football as a sport, their practice fields are his favorite study spots.

It reminds him of being back in high school.

Back in Northwood, his hometown, sitting on the metal benches on the top bench in high school, overlooking the field and having a canopy of trees to shield him from the sun was the perfect spot to distract himself.

To study. To read. To think.

Back at Northwood High, football had been the bane of his existence. It was the most glorified thing there, much like at every high school, where it seemed to be the crowning jewel of the place, where all the school’s budget went to support the team.

He knows football is big at Montgomery too. Twenty-foot posters of the players hang on many of the walls of the quad.

One of them he intentionally averts his eyes from.

Either way, disliking football won’t stop him from using the bleachers to study and relax. He has to bide his time before his best friend, Jenna, gets out of her classes for the day.

His sneakers make metallic squeaks on the bleachers as he hoists himself up the much taller and more numerous stairs. The bleachers are much bigger compared to the ones at football games back home.

This is truly professional football, where even the practice field has bigger bleachers than high school games.

It’s stupid of him to think that Montgomery wouldn’t be like that; it’s known for its ability to send players to the big leagues. But he never keeps track or understands much of the hype.

He slowly makes his way to the top, passing by an older student reading a likely older issue of The Goldberg, Montgomery’s school paper.

He plops his bag down on the bench and sets his iced latte on the top bench.

He straddles the bench and rifles through his bag, taking out his notebook and modern physics textbook.

He opens them to the first section problem sets.

A breeze sweeps through the trees above him. Flickers and streams of light dance across his textbook.

Mason looks up into the tree. He smiles and inhales. The breeze is a welcome reprieve from the beating sun.

He looks down at his spread on the bench as his heart swells.

He made it into Montgomery in physics. He was really here, pursuing his dream.

The breeze blows harder, weaving its way through his hair. It’s a fresh reminder that fall is coming. He just wishes it would haul ass already.

His phone buzzes, and he rolls his eyes, fishing it out of his pocket to see who is bothering him before he can get lost in his homework.

Mom

Did you get into the paper yet?

He throws his phone across the bench.

He really doesn’t need this right now. He doesn’t need to be reminded that he’s lying to his parents.

If only they knew he was doing physics problems instead of writing articles.

He tries to file his mom’s text away, wrangles his headphones dangling from his neck, and puts them over his ears; the birdsong, chatter of other students, and hopefully his mother’s nagging being drowned out.

He prefers it this way. Earbuds don’t block out enough noise. Screeching laughs or the raucous noise of football players always manages to squeeze their way into his eardrums. He needs complete and utter quiet right now, and his bulky headphones do the trick.

He puts his pencil to paper and gets to work, quickly scribbling down the problems in his notebook, sticking his tongue out and tapping his paper with his pencil as he thinks of how to solve each problem.

Movement catches his eye across the field, and Mason lifts his head from his paper to see the football team making their way out to the field, sporting maroon shorts and t-shirts.

He adjusts his glasses, that have fallen down onto the bridge of his nose, to get a better look at them. He’s not sure why he’s staring. He’s looking for someone he doesn’t want to find.

His stomach twists at the idea of who might be in the crowd of players, but he’s too far away to be noticed, most likely. The football team has much more important things to think about and notice than some guy doing relativity problems on the bleachers.

Metallic clangs vibrate along the benches, and he looks up again to notice a few girls scooting onto the benches, giggling and whispering to each other as they glance at the field, their hair in high ponytails and skin aglow in the sun.

A few of the players wave at them, and Mason swears the girls almost fall over from their swooning. He bites back the need to roll his eyes and shake his head and focuses back on his problem set.

He’s already blown through most of his relativity problem sets quicker than he anticipated, his iced latte turning into a watery-brown mess by the time he’s done. He’s about ready to wrap up, just in time for Jenna’s class to end and for football practice to start.

He takes his headphones off, hangs them back on his neck, and starts packing his things.

“Hey!” a deep voice calls from the field. Mason keeps his eye on his paper, likely one of the players trying to get the girls’ attention, as if they weren’t completely enamored already.

“Hey!” the same voice calls louder, and Mason finally rips his eyes off his things and looks to the field.

He’s met with one of the players staring at him with their helmet on.

The player lifts a hand and waves at him.

Mason points at himself and looks around to see if the player might be waving at someone else. The girls below nearly break their necks to look back and sneer at him as if he’s crazy.

The player nods emphatically. Mason does a little wave back and shoots the player a bewildered look.

Whoever that footballer is, he must be confusing Mason for someone else.

There’s a small—no—an infinitesimally small chance that it’s him, but it surely isn’t. He wouldn’t decide to finally acknowledge Mason’s existence now, all of a sudden.

He decides he can finish up the last of his problem sets elsewhere. He definitely doesn’t want any more attention on him than the football team, and certainly not if it means getting attention from one of the players he shall not name.

He quickly packs his belongings and glances at the field, noticing the mystery player talking with his coach as the other players start warming up with stretches.

He drops his metal water bottle on the bench, and it nearly rattles the entire bench with the force of an earthquake, making one of the girls below squeal in surprise.

They all cast him sneers, and he utters a small apology as his cheeks heat, and he barrels down the stairs so that he can’t draw any more attention to himself than he already has.

“Note to self. Don’t work on the bleachers before or during football practice,” he mumbles to himself.

He finally gets off the last step, but just as he flings his backpack around his shoulders, he’s getting another loud, “Hey.”

He sighs and spins around.

“Look, I have somewhere I have to be. If all you have to say is ‘hey’ to me—”

“Fanning,” the player says, tone even and all-knowing.

Mason raises an eyebrow. How does this guy know his last name? He hasn’t even talked to any of the football players yet—at least he doesn’t think so.

He sees the player sporting the number four. He remembers seeing that number on one of the ginormous player posters on campus. One he tried to avoid.

And only one person ever calls him by his last name…

No. Absolutely not. No chance.

Mason immediately freezes, and for the first time today he takes a deep inhale through his nose. He clenches his fist like a learned response, like only he can elicit.

Mason’s heart nearly stops as the player takes off his helmet, and he’s met with the achingly familiar and piercing hazel eyes of Callum Brown.