The Sweetest Thing (Covington University #1)

1. She’s a Heartstopper

1

SHE’S A HEARTSTOPPER

OLIVER

Halloween, Freshman Year

I would rather sit butt naked on a hot grill in front of all my teammates than be at this party a second longer. I hate Halloween. Always have, always will. Unless you’re a kid going trick or treating, it’s a pretty pointless holiday. For college students like me, it’s just an excuse to get blackout drunk and fuck around. But considering I’m a freshman, it’s not really an excuse. You can decide to get drunk for any reason, and when you’re on the hockey team like me, you find yourself getting invited to parties constantly.

Every year, or so I’ve been told, Greek Row hosts a mega Halloween bash of some sort — I don’t know what it is, but what I do know is that all of the fraternities and sororities open their doors to students who are looking to get drunk. Which I’m not.

But when you’re part of a team, you have to be a ‘team player’ — or so my captain, Gabe, says.

He’s graduating this year, so he’s looking for someone to replace him when he leaves, and he said he’d look at everyone – even us freshies who have our heads stuck up his ass – everyone but me, anyway. I’m not stupid enough to think that I’ll actually get picked.

We’re about to enter our third frat of the night, Beta something, and most of the team is already plastered – all except me and Cap. We’re the designated driver’s for tonight, which means water and kombucha will suffice. We’ve just walked through the front door, and surprise, surprise , the first person I spot, is Mallory Grace, five foot seven inches of pure fucking hotness. She’s the most gorgeous girl I’ve ever laid my eyes on in my entire life.

She was beautiful the first time I saw her earlier this summer at hockey tryouts.

She was beautiful when we hung out most of that summer.

She was beautiful when I found out she was in all my classes at the start of the semester.

She was still beautiful when I found out she’s our coach’s daughter.

And has a boyfriend who is on the team.

Cole Jensen. We call him Jackass Jensen because … well, the name speaks for itself. He’s such a horrible person, and treats Mallory like shit. He always ditches her to hang with the boys, controls what she wears, what she eats. My fists clench whenever I see them together.

She’s a ball of energy, of sunshine. If sweetness came in a human form, it's her. She lights up every room that she enters and makes everything a million times better.

Jackass Jensen, on the other hand, is an asswipe who can barely skate. He sucks all the air out of the room with his screeching voice and sexist jokes. He always makes us pay for him when we go out, and always flirts with girls when she’s not with him .

I think he cheats on her too. It’s never been proven, but I just have the feeling he is.

But we can’t tell her because he’s my teammate and that’s against bro code.

Fuck bro code. I’d rather be friends with her anyway.

“Close your mouth dude, you’re drooling.” Shawn says. Shawn Maddison and I met at freshman orientation and ended up living together on the same floor with some of the other guys on the team. Tommy Rose lives down the hall. He’s the resident redhead with too much energy. He’s practically a golden retriever with the way he’s always bouncing around the hall and bothering people. He’s a decent guy nonetheless, and a hell of a skater.

I reach my hand up to wipe my chin with my sleeve and sure enough, I’m drooling. Tommy comes up behind me and wraps an arm around my shoulder.

“She’s a heartstopper, all right.”

That’s putting it lightly.

Tonight’s outfit of choice is a black sparkly dress with some tights and black Dr. Marten boots. Her hair is curled even more than it usually is, and if I squint really hard, I’m pretty sure it sparkles. Then again, she always sparkles when I look at her, like a cartoon character. Her smile is wider than anything I’ve ever seen, but it falls when Cole whispers something in her ear before walking away from her. A frown is plastered on her face as she frantically tries to pull her skirt down.

“Jackass Jensen strikes again.” Shawn folds his arms as we all watch her stand with a sudden shift in energy.

“I really hope she catches him cheating one of these days,” Tommy adds. “Then maybe coach will kick him off the team.” I whack Tommy in the back of his head, knocking his backwards cap onto the floor. It’s a good plan, a great one in fact. The only thing wrong with it, is that she’d have to catch him cheating, and that would break her. “Then they’d break up, you’d swoop in to console her, be there for her, and eventually, she’ll see you as a nice guy,” he pauses for a moment, then clicks his fingers together. “Then you convince coach G to let you date her. You’ll fall in love, get married, have kids and move to Vermont where you’ll raise your cute little hockey family together.”

Shawn and I both consecutively blink at Tommy. “Yeah, I'll get right on that.” I mumble. We love him, but sometimes he does say the weirdest shit, and he can’t even blame it on weed because he doesn’t smoke during the season.

He looks at us with a confused look. “I have a twin sister who’s a theater geek, Juliana loves all that shit. She’d eat this up.”

Some time goes by, and I’m officially bored. Mallory left the room so now there’s nothing interesting left to do.

“Are we boring you, Ashby?” Gabe says, throwing an empty cup at me. I watch it fall to the floor as my mind focuses on the fact all the guys are probably staring at me.

I really need to talk to them more.

“Of course we’re boring him,” Tommy pipes up.

“Anyone without a certain pair of tits,” says Tommy’s friend, Cory. He’s Tommy’s roommate and I think they know each other from home. They’re still laughing at Tommy’s comments when Mallory comes running down the stairs with Cole trailing after her in his boxer briefs. A frown consumes my face. Something about this doesn’t seem right.

“Are you going to explain why you were fucking some random girl? I have excused some serious stuff Cole, but this…” she takes a long breath. “This is another level.” She shouts at him, and he just looks so angry with her, like this somehow is her fault. He cheated on her, got caught and now he’s blaming her.

“Yo, looks like trouble in paradise.” One of the seniors on the team says.

Gabe slaps my back, looking back and forth between Mallory and Cole. “I told him so many times to grow the fuck up and break up with her or break it off with the other girl. He said he did. That was a month ago.”

“You knew ?”

“Like I said, I told him to grow a pair and sort it out.”

Motherfucker.

“The only appealing thing about you is your tits and your family.” He says to her.

“Oh hell no.” I grind my teeth, trying to stay put and not go over there. That little line was devoured by all the students watching, laughing. Cole keeps going, pushing the metaphorical dagger even deeper into her stomach, but my focus is solely on her. Since I found out she had a boyfriend, emphasis on had , I’ve been keeping my distance. And by that, I mean I don’t speak directly to her — I silently pine for her from afar. I only smile — but not too much — and nod when I see her in class and in the rink, but that’s it. But nobody has to actually talk to her to know you can read her like a goddamn book. And right now, she reads as if she wants to bawl her eyes out.

But I’m proven to not know her at all, apparently.

Instead of crying, she takes a step closer to him and punches him right in the nose.

I think I just fell in love with her even more than I already was .

“Fuck you, Cole! Consider yourself officially kicked off the team.” She shouts.

“Thank fucking god for that.” Shawn says, blowing out a breath.

We all had a sneaky feeling that Coach Grace was the one who got him on the team in the first place, special connections, and all that. But coach is a scary motherfucker, so we never dared to ask, and of course none of us are particularly close to Mallory, so we just had to stick to assuming. I know her better than they do, but it’s… complicated.

Just as Shawn leans over to whisper something to me, I look forward to the spot Mallory seems glued to, and she looks over at me. She has the most beautiful brown eyes I’ve ever seen in my fucking life. She pushes her way past the crowd and back up the stairs. As soon as she leaves our eyeline, Jackass Jensen makes this the perfect moment to walk up to us and be all ‘buddy buddy’, like he's not standing in his boxers with an ice pack held up to his nose.

“Women, am I right? So glad to be rid of her controlling ass. Oh, but what an ass she had.” He sighs.

We all gape at him in horror. We may be guys, and we may fuck around sometimes, but those of us with girlfriends are intent on keeping them and don’t condone cheating. Especially Gabe and Shawn, they both have been with their girlfriends since high school. He walks in front of Cole, his six foot five height towering over Cole’s mere six foot one.

“I told you to break it off with the redhead weeks ago, Jensen, what the fuck were you thinking? And with Coach’s daughter, too?”

“Fucking relax Cap, she’s not anything special.”

“I’m going to go take a leak.” I whisper to Shawn. As much as I would love to see Cap and the boys rip Cole a new one, I really want to make sure Mallory is okay.

Also If I hear him disrespect her one more time, I’m going to rearrange his face with my fist.

I head to the stairs but decide to take a detour to the kitchen, her sweet cherry scent still lingering in the air like a ghost. I find whatever bottle of alcohol there is that doesn’t make me puke by just smelling it and pour it into two fresh cups. Considering I don’t plan on leaving her side for the rest of the night, I decide that one drink won’t be enough. I add some soda to water it down and head to the refrigerator to give it an extra something. I find a punnet of cherries, and remove four, plopping two into each cup, and fill them with a handful of crushed ice from the freezer.

Mallory Grace: Lover of cherries, and anything baby pink. Oh, and she prefers crushed ice over cubed.

I grab the cups, shielding the top with my palms and head up the stairs until I find the only room with the door cracked open slightly.

She’s in there, I know it.

I lock my eyes on it, taking a big deep breath.

Be cool, be cool, be cool.

I push open the door with my foot and woosh. All the air immediately escapes from my lungs.

“You uh, looked like you needed a drink…”

Out of all the words in the fucking english language, that’s what I decide to say.

She just blinks at me. Again and again. After what feels like an eternity of silence, finally speaks.

“Oliver Ashby, I was wondering when I’d speak to you again.” She whispers softly like she doesn’t have the energy to speak, like she’d ruined her voice from the shouting. Even the quietest sound, her voice is still the sweetest thing I’ve ever heard. And hearing my name leave her lips? I never want anyone else to say it, just her.

“H – hi, Mallory.”

When I said be cool, I didn’t mean stutter like a fucking idiot.

“You can sit with me if you want, but I’m not the best company right now.”

Ok, deep breath. I can do this. I can do it. She’s just a girl, right? Just go in there, talk to her, and ask her out for a date.

What’s the worst that can happen?