The Love Penalty: A College Sports Romance

1. Leilani

One week ago…

The weather has turned from the hope of spring to the reminder of winter. The gray sky above and the icy drizzle hitting the window make me shiver. Or maybe it’s the subzero temperatures in the truck. Seriously, a blast from Antarctica could probably whip through this vehicle and we wouldn’t even notice its effects.

I glance into the front seat and frown at the driver. He’s gripping the wheel with this stony, pissed-off look.

Well, it’s not like I asked him to take me. I was happy to bus back to Nolan, but do you think anyone would let me?

Asher freaking volunteered, so he really shouldn’t be looking so annoyed about it.

I cross my legs and shuffle in the back seat, feeling like some rich bitch who’s being chauffeured to college by Mommy and Daddy’s driver.

That’s probably what Asher thinks of me. That I’m a snob or something. That I look down on him like he’s my underling driver. That I’m sitting in the back of his pimped-out truck, disgusted that the seats aren’t pure leather.

But I’m not like that.

I grew up in a family of ten. The backs of our cars were filled with crumbs and candy bar wrappers and empty juice boxes, lone socks and baseball caps, the odd shoe, and three library books that were due back weeks ago.

It drove me nuts growing up in so much chaos. If anything, being in the back of Asher’s truck is luxurious… and if he weren’t so annoyed with me, I’d probably be enjoying this ride.

But I couldn’t sit in the front with him.

I barely know the guy. Like I’m gonna sit close enough that he can reach over and grope my leg or something. Forget it.

The athletes at my school are all the same—sex-crazed man-sluts who aren’t satisfied unless they’re pouring sweat on a field, court, or arena… or getting high off drugs or an orgasm. They live for cheap screws and good times.

My best friend is dating one now, and before she managed to take him off the market, the guy was Mr. One-Night Stand. I mean, I guess Casey’s okay. And Ethan and Liam are really nice guys too.

But Asher?

Ugh! He thinks he’s God’s gift to the world, and women are simply placed on this earth to service him.

Well, not me.

I cross my arms with a little huff and follow the raindrops on the glass, tracking their path from the top of the window down to the bottom.

It’s so freaking quiet in here.

It’s making me edgy, but I’m not going to break the silence. If I ask him to turn on the radio, he’ll probably huff and make me feel like the biggest pain in the ass.

Why did I agree to this?

Why could I not get over myself and stay in Denver for one more night?

But no, I had to have an internal meltdown and then a mild panic attack over an upcoming world history assignment. The thought of not spending all day tomorrow working on it is giving me conniptions, and I have to get back.

I need top marks on this. I can’t go slacking off, partying in Denver like exam season isn’t just around the corner. I’ve got a scholarship to maintain. A family to make proud.

My heart thunders as I grip the edges of my sweater and remind myself to breathe.

I should never have come to Denver in the first place. But Caroline’s been worried about me, and she won’t let up.

“How are you today?”

“You good?”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

There are only so many ways I can say “I’m fine.” She’s starting to see right through me, so I said yes to Denver as a way to appease her. She was so freaking happy, and I swear I did my best. I line-danced, I played poker, I smiled and laughed when everyone else did. I tried to distract myself at every turn, but then came the afternoon at the spa—a chance to finally stop and relax… and, well, the opposite happened. My brain had no place to go, and all those thoughts I’d been avoiding came back like a tornado.

I have to get to my dorm, to my desk, to my computer.

I need quiet, space, isolation.

But how do you explain that to someone without sounding like the world’s biggest nerd?

How do you tell your effervescent, life-of-the-party friend that you’re crumbling, and the only thing to make you feel grounded is diving into someone else’s past? That studying the life of a servant boy in Pompeii or a resistance fighter in war-torn France helps you sleep easier at night than having to face the world as it is today?

I went away to college thinking it would be the making of me.

And maybe, in some ways, it has been.

But it’s also destroyed a part of myself that I desperately want back. The carefree Lani who was ready to take the world by storm is dying a slow death, bogged down by uncertainty and pressure.

I don’t know how to get her back.

And so I sit here staring at raindrops and hoping the guy in the driver’s seat will be true to his word and drop me outside my dorm as fast as possible, so that I can run inside and re-edit my essay, poring over each sentence until I have perfection.

Shit, I really have lost it.

It makes me feel pathetic.

I don’t want to be some anxious scaredy-cat in the back seat. I want to be the balls-of-steel version of me who would have sat in the front with my chin held high. The one who would have slapped away wandering hands and told Mr. Hot and Handsome that if I wanted him to touch me, I’d let him know.

My throat hurts as I swallow and shrink in on myself a little more.

My gaze darts to his fingers wrapped around the steering wheel. He has nice hands, Asher Bensen. His fingers are long, his nails nicely cut and shaped, like he takes care of himself in the small ways too. They match his handsome, brooding face with his dark hair and chiseled jawline. He has a weekend’s worth of stubble on his chin, and it only adds to his sex appeal.

A trembling desire works through me, and I push my arms into my stomach, willing it away.

As if! I am so not attracted to that asshole.

I mean, I get why the puck bunnies love him. But they only see him for short amounts of time. I’ve had to talk to the guy on the phone, sit next to him during a quiz night… and I just spent the entire weekend around him.

It really is such a shame that someone so gorgeous can be so insanely irritating. Sometimes I want to slap that arrogant smirk right off his face. And those eyes of his—they study everything, like he’s constantly looking for an opening to be a pain in the ass.

His gaze darts to the rearview mirror, and our eyes connect for the briefest moment.

Shit, did he sense me checking him out?

Kill me now!

Whipping my head to the right, I stare at those raindrops like they’re somehow going to save me.

Stupid sexy hockey player with his grumpy-ass frown and piercing blue eyes.

He’s not getting the better of me.

No, sir.

Closing my eyes, I force my mind back to world history, mentally revising my notes on the impact of female spies during the Second World War and how their stories affected the feminist movement back then, and today.