Chapter 6
6
TUCK
I ’m an idiot.
For the first time since I laid eyes on her, Olivia and I were actually having a conversation. A real conversation, beyond me trying to pick her up and her telling me to get lost. We were joking around, getting to know each other. Fuck, it felt good.
Somehow it managed to turn into a stupid argument. Somehow, I managed to turn it into a stupid argument.
I’ve played the conversation back in my head enough times to realize I probably came off as insensitive.
At the same time, when people imply that I haven’t worked hard for what I’ve accomplished, that everything’s come automatically for me, even in hockey, just because I come from a wealthy family … well, it pisses me off. It’s something I’ve had thrown in my face a lot.
Sure, being annoyed that people underestimate you because you’re rich is the quintessential first-world problem . Still, it stings when it happens over and over again.
I don’t like having accomplishments I’ve worked hard for dismissed. Who would?
And now, thanks to me getting lost in my head, ruminating on all this shit for the fiftieth time today, Jamie’s managed to skate deftly up and steal the puck from me.
“Shit,” I grumble.
The rookie just made me look like a rookie, taking advantage of my inattentive puck handling.
That’s not the first time I’ve cursed myself for screwing up during this practice session. Frankly, I’m playing like shit today. And everyone notices.
After we’re dismissed from practice, anxiety crawls up my back while I’m getting changed, just waiting for Coach Torres to shout my name and call me into his office to give me the tongue-lashing I deserve for my performance.
“McCoy!” Coach’s voice booms from outside the locker room entrance just as I tug on my jeans after coming from the shower. “My office!”
“Took him longer than I expected,” Hudson mumbles, casting a wry look at me. That earns him a middle finger as I walk past him.
“Two things, McCoy,” Coach Torres announces when I step into his office.
I purse my lips. “Only two?”
He narrows his gaze, making it clear he’s not in the mood for joking around. “Take a seat,” he nods towards the very uncomfortable metal folding chair on the opposite side of his desk.
I oblige.
“I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you what a pathetic performance you turned in today,” he says. Coach Torres never sugarcoats a message. One of the things I like about him. “You’ve had a hell of a season so far, so I’m going to assume it’s a one-off thing. But if I see any traces of the carelessness I saw on the ice today during this Friday’s game,” he holds up a finger and injects some hardness into his voice to make sure I know he’s not messing around, “the next conversation we have about it is going to be very different. Clear?”
“Yes, sir,” I nod.
He leans back in his chair. “Second thing. I heard from Martinello.”
My English professor. The course I’m taking this semester is especially writing intensive. The syllabus has us writing bi-weekly essays, composing eighty percent of our grade.
And I hate essays.
The funny thing is, I enjoy debating. I know how to make a point and defend my argument with my words. When I’m speaking them, at least. But when it comes to doing it on paper, I’m hopeless.
“Yeah?” I ask.
“Sixty-two percent. That’s the grade of the first essay you submitted.”
My neck stiffens, and I hold back an f-bomb that wants to spew out of my mouth. I worked hard on that damn essay, and I actually thought I did a good job.
“Not a failing grade,” Coach says, “but way too close for comfort. We’re firing on all cylinders right now, and one thing that is not going to happen under my watch, is one of my top players getting tripped up by academic eligibility when we’re this close to the playoffs. We’re gonna nip this in the bud early. You’ve got a tutoring appointment scheduled on Monday.”
I cringe internally. I hate tutoring. It’s never done anything for me. But I’m not about to tell Coach that.
“Two-thirty in the afternoon, right after your last class. You know where the tutoring center is. Make sure you’re there.”
“Will do, Coach,” I force myself to say. Not like I have any other options.
As I walk out of Coach’s office, I force myself to look on the bright side. Maybe if my tutor is a girl, I’ll be able to turn on the patented Tuck McCoy charm and get her to write all my essays for me.
Ethical? Probably not. But just think of the satisfaction she’d get out of it. It would practically be an act of charity.
I poke my head back into the locker room, but all the guys are gone. “Thanks for waiting up,” I grumble to the empty room.
My phone vibrates. It’s a message from Lane. They’re all at Chiyoda Ramen, a Japanese restaurant in downtown Cedar Shade, for an after-practice lunch.
I find them sitting at our usual table, a big sectional booth near the front windows. I walk up to the proprietor, Kazu, and order myself a pork belly ramen. He doesn’t even nod, just slightly turns his head to shout the order to the cooks back in the kitchen, before continuing to look straight ahead.
Kazu’s a little … anti-social.
Lots of students who’ve come here to eat think he’s a jerk. But that’s not really true.
He’s just super introverted and doesn’t have any interest in basic pleasantries like saying hello to his customers. He and Hudson, two grumpy birds of a grumpy feather, actually get along pretty well.
I slide onto the end of the booth, joining my teammates. “Thanks for waiting up,” I repeat now that they’re present to hear the snark. My stomach rumbles as I look at them all digging into the food that they’ve already been served.
“Don’t mention it,” Rhys says, not even looking up from stuffing his face with his chicken tempura rice bowl.
My stomach only growls louder when I take a deep breath through my nose, and the smells from everyone’s dishes mingle. Kazu might not know how to exchange niceties, but he sure as hell knows how to cook. Everything this place serves is incredible.
I decide to distract myself by turning my attention to Sebastian, who wields his chopsticks deftly as he wraps his thick Udon noodles around them.
“Did you grow up using chopsticks or something?” I ask. The rest of us can fumble our way through eating a meal with them, but Sebastian controls them like he’s been using them his whole life.
“There was this sushi place that opened in the town where I grew up when I was in middle school. Me and my best friend went there all the time. I got the hang of them there.”
“Sophisticated motherfucker,” I jest.
Sebastian’s a worldly guy, even though he’s never actually traveled outside the country. Aside from being into artsy shit, he reads all the time, and is always learning about different cultures. Brainiac even speaks French.
Mercifully, I hear a hotel-style service bell ringing from the order counter. This isn’t a table-service kind of place. Kazu takes your order, shouts it to his cooks, then rings a bell for you to pick it up when it’s ready.
I give Kazu a friendly nod as I pick up my bowl. I don’t think I’m imagining that he dips his own head about half a centimeter in response. But I might be.
The other guys may have had a head start on me, but I finish my food at the same time as them. I’m so starved that I inhale it like air.
I’ve just finished slurping down the last of the broth and letting out a satisfied sigh when Hudson, who’s sitting next to me, nudges me in the side and nods towards the order counter. “Check it out, he whispers.”
I turn my head to look towards Kazu’s regular place behind the wooden counter to see he’s got a visitor.
A very special visitor.
It’s Cindy. The owner of Last Word, the three-story bookstore-slash-coffee shop in Cedar Shade.
Kazu and Cindy obviously have a thing for each other. They’re always finding excuses to visit each other’s shops. They talk to each other often, every time with this mix of eagerness and shyness that makes them seem like teenagers who have a crush on each other and don’t quite know what to do about it.
It’s like watching a romcom from a distance. Me, Hudson, and Summer are totally invested in this budding relationship.
I wish one of them would just hurry up and ask the other out already. I like a slow burn as much as the next guy, but it’s not like these two are getting any younger.
I strain my ears to try and hear their conversation, at the same time not trying to be too obvious about what I’m doing. I can tell Hudson’s doing the same thing.
It’s hard to hear the whole conversation, but it sounds like Cindy’s giving Kazu a book that they’d talked about in some previous conversation. Now my busybody instincts are itching to know what the book is.
I’ll have to make a point to stop by here again in the next couple days to see if I can catch Kazu reading it behind the counter.
“Talk about opposites attract,” I say to Hudson after Cindy leaves.
“Speaking of opposites, Summer mentioned that Olivia was asking about you the other day,” Hudson says, casual as can be.
A jolt of excitement races up my spine. I sit up straighter, my brow leaping towards my hairline as I lean towards Hudson with interest. “Really?”
“No.”
My chest deflates. I sink against the backrest, drilling Hudson with an irked glare as he chuckles.
“Asshole,” I grumble.
I’m still down bad for that girl. The fight we had in my car sure as shit hasn’t changed that.
Before we argued, I got a taste of what it would be like to hang out with Olivia without her hostility towards me dialed up.
A taste of what it would be like to just drive around with her in my passenger seat, talking about anything and everything and nothing.
It tasted sweet. And that’s sure as hell not all that I want to taste when it comes to Olivia Lockley.