Chapter 6
Hayes
I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want to run into Kelsie this morning. I don’t want to corner her or wait outside her door like a lost puppy or anything, but I want to explain what happened. I really do, but it’s difficult.
If I tell her everything…she may never look at me the same way again.
But if I don’t, I know with certainty that she’ll never forgive me. It’s this double-edged sword and I feel like I can’t win either way.
I still can’t believe the weird twist of fate that she not only attends CFU, but also happens to live in the same freaking house as me.
When I left Paris, I thought it’d be a clean break and we’d never see each other again. That was the plan anyway, and we had both agreed there’d be no contact after we parted.
I thought I was saving myself from the possibility of falling in love, but that was a huge miscalculation on my part. I haven’t stopped thinking about her for one minute since I left.
Being in the place I was mentally, I thought it would be better if we both moved on with our lives without a backward glance. I knew I couldn’t be the man she needed, especially in a long-distance relationship.
Hell, half the time, I don’t know if I can be the man I need me to be.
With a drawn-out sigh, I sling my backpack over my shoulder and trudge downstairs to the main floor of the house. The kitchen is empty and I don’t hear Kelsie in her room. I know now that she’s in the bedroom in the rear of the house. With it being so early, she’s probably still sleeping. I remember in Paris she loved to stay up late and work on her art and then would oversleep and be late for our morning classes at the university. When I asked her about it, she said she was a night owl and would often stay up until 2 or 3 a.m. to paint.
I wonder if she still paints in her free time. Does she take art classes in school?
I put those unanswered questions aside and head to class, stopping first at the student union cafe for some coffee.
The minute I step into the domed building foyer, the light streaming in from above, I get in line for my latte and hear my nickname being called out from behind me.
“Boys, it’s Mac’s big first day!” Killer shouts boisterously as he walks toward me. He throws an arm over my shoulder and smiles broadly. “Dude, are you ready for classes?”
I shrug. “Is anyone ever really ready for class?”
He laughs. “Good point!”
Then he turns around, dropping his arm from me before reaching for his girlfriend, Grace, nuzzling into her neck as she giggles.
“Good morning, Grace,” I greet, hoping to sound friendly and to avoid the stink eye. I know she’s one of Kelsie’s friends and is clearly on Team Kelsie.
“Hey,” she says like I’m a complete stranger before her gaze moves back to her giant boyfriend.
Oh, great. That’s not a good start.
I assume that after our interaction at the party the other night, Kelsie gave her friends the download on what happened, in the event they didn’t already know.
I’m sure I wear devil horns in their eyes and am a guy not to be bothered with. At least my teammates don’t seem to have the same level of animosity toward me.
“Well, we’re off.” Killer slaps me on the back and the force behind it has me bumping into the girl in line in front of me. She swivels around and gives me a ‘WTF’ look. I make my quick apology.
“Sorry.”
“Okay, man. Have a good day at school, Mac. Make sure to bring the professor an apple,” he teases jovially. “We’ll see you later at practice.”
I flick him off and he just laughs, the sound carrying throughout the high-domed center room. Then he turns toward Grace, slipping his hand in hers and they head out to talk with some of our other teammates.
If it weren’t for my strange encounter with Kelsie and the tension with her friends, I’d feel like I could really belong at CFU. Killer, EJ, and Hendy have all been very welcoming to me, as have the other players. I just hope the same holds true as I begin to meet other students in my classes.
By the time I wait for my drink order, everyone else has cleared from the front of the building. Although I scoped everything out the other morning when I took a walk around, I still pull up the campus map on my phone to locate my first class. I’m not used to being on such a large campus. Everything here seems so foreign to me.
That brings up the memory of the day I met Kelsie. I’ve always struggled with directions and maps, and I was at a café in Paris trying to get my bearings, starting down at a city map, when she came up and introduced herself.
God, that seems like a lifetime ago already. And now here I am.
Should I even be here?
The question echoes in my brain like a foghorn as I race toward the Sheridan Building at the far end of the quad. As I enter the building, I glance down at my phone one more time to confirm the location of my first class—Room 115, first floor, just around the corner from the entrance.
I stride down the hallway and see the door to the lecture hall already open and follow another guy inside. Glancing around, I check out the space. It’s not one of those huge halls that holds five hundred students or anything, but maybe close to fifty. I scan around for an open seat, noticing about twenty-some students already seated in various chairs, most of them near the front of the room.
I choose a spot close to the middle and pull out my laptop from my bag. Opening it up, I start a new folder labeled Managing Family Business in an International Marketplace. It sounded interesting when I registered and checked off a box on my major course requirements.
I’m not yet sure how I’ll use my degree when I graduate. Before the accident, I wanted to start a company with my brother and one of our friends. They liked the idea of something tactile. A local, small town business on Main Street, while I dreamed big. I wanted to have offices in different countries. I wanted to have investors and grow something from the ground up that could become important, meaningful to the world. But I was a kid, and what was meaningful changed weekly. We had brainstormed different ideas, but hadn’t settled on one yet, when the accident happened.
A friend had gone to Paris that summer and brought me back a small Eiffel Tower. It sat on my dresser for weeks and something about that sparked life in me again. Maybe it was the idea of going somewhere new or experiencing something different. In any case, by the end of that year, I knew I wanted to study business. And now I’m getting to study at one of the best business programs in the country.
I pull out my phone, hoping I’d have heard something from my brother today. It’s been two days now since he’s texted. I’m trying to give him space, but it freaks me out whenever he ghosts me.
As a twin, there’s always a tug of connection with him and when I don’t feel it, it fills me with a level of despair I can’t shake. Especially knowing the state of mind he’s been in since the accident.
A swatch of color grabs my attention from my peripheral vision and I catch a glimpse of someone walking into the classroom. The minute I lock eyes on the student, my chest tightens. Her hair is up in a bun, accentuating her perfect facial features and she’s wearing a bright pink scarf that makes her big blue eyes seem even more blue. If I had the talent to paint the perfect woman, she would look just like this.
Of course it happens to be Kelsie. Why wouldn’t she be here?
Kelsie stands for a moment in front of my table staring at me. She rolls her eyes, tossing down her bag and then pins me with a glare. She jabs a painted fingernail toward me and mouths, “Stay the fuck away from me, Hayes.”
I give her a tight smile and a shrug, pointing out the futility of this request. “It’s not like I planned this on purpose.”
She grabs her stuff then whips back around sharply and moves up the steps toward the back section of the lecture hall before she takes a seat way up at the top. I internally groan. I figured we’d have classes together since we’re in the same program, but I’d hoped it wouldn’t be this awkward.
How am I ever supposed to apologize to her if she doesn’t give me a chance?
A few other students trickle into the room, followed by a woman who looks to be in her mid-forties with her graying hair pulled back in a ponytail. She sets a bag on the table at the front of the lecture hall.
“Good morning, class, I’m Professor Wallen. This is Managing Family Business in an International Marketplace. So, if you’re not here for that, you’re likely lost, so scram.”
This gets a few laughs and two very embarrassed students rush out of the room.
“I’ll be going over the syllabus today and giving a brief introduction lecture. All of the materials should be on our class’s webpage but if you’d prefer to have them texted or emailed, I can have my TA, Redding, do that. Let me know if you don’t have access.” She gestures toward a tall, skinny dude on the far wall toward the front. He gives a little wave and the prof continues. “Next class session, I’ll be pairing each of you up for the main course project. I know everyone hates group projects, but there’s no better way to learn how to operate and function out in the world than in teams or pairs.”
The room lets out a collective groan and the professor chuckles.
“You’ll have a paper and a presentation due at the end of the semester which will make up 75% of your overall grade. So, let’s get started,” she says cheerfully, turning on a computer as the screen projects at the front of the room.
I feel Kelsie’s eyes boring into the back of my head, and I wait a few seconds before taking a surreptitious glance over my shoulder, but her eyes are on the screen.
I just hope to hell that we don’t have any other courses together and no further awkward confrontations.
My last lecture of the day ends at four and I pack up my bag, hefting it over my shoulder with a sigh. Three new classes today and Kelsie happened to be in every single one of them. Fuck my life, this is going to be a long-ass semester. Especially if she continues with the silent treatment.
She hasn’t spoken to me since our run-in this morning and it’s killing me. I want to say something to her, but every time I get up the nerve, the professor shows up and I’m left feeling her eyes glued to me the entire lecture.
Or maybe that’s just my guilt.
With a heavy sigh, I walk through the quad area that’s sparsely filled with students and faculty heading home as I make my way to the gym for a team strength-training day.
As the kicker, I’m focused on leg workouts and drills. It’s not exactly like kicking a soccer ball, but at least it’s a familiar muscle memory for me. It’s something tangible that I can focus on instead of letting my mind wander where it shouldn’t.
I check the map on my phone as I navigate across campus. I swear I’m getting a workout just trying to locate my classes. Fortunately the first two were in the same building, but that last one was on the other side of the quad.
When I arrive at the athletic facility, I find most of my teammates changing at their assigned lockers. I make quick work of putting on my gym clothes before heading into the weight room.
Killer is already on a leg machine and Hendy and EJ are lifting free weights. I glance at my phone to see if our strength and conditioning coach added anything to my training for today. I end up doing a lot more leg days than the average player because of my special team role. I warm up with several drills involving running in place and bringing my knees up high in a marching style and then low squats into high jumps. I finish with some balance stretching before heading over to weights.
Adding some weights to a bench press bar, I sit down at a bench.
“Hey, Killer, can you spot me when you got a sec?” I ask as I realize I may have added more weight than I should lift without a spotter.
“Fuck, yeah, dude. Let me just finish this rep,” he grumbles. I watch him press out four more reps and then, with a clang, he finishes and walks over to me. He glances at the weights and nods his approval. I look up at his arms. Shit, this guy is stacked. He could probably bench press me.
He gets in position and I begin. “How was your first day?” he asks as he stands behind me.
“It was interesting,” I mumble as I try for eight reps at this new weight.
“Interesting how?” he inquires as he leans forward a bit to look down at me.
“Kelsie was in every one of my classes,” I huff as I feel my muscles tremble under the increased weight.
“Shit. That sucks. She must be really pissed at you. Hopefully she finds someone else to hook up with this semester and she’ll forget about you. It’s just hella awkward now. Grace and Lucy are like her best friends, which means…you know,” Killer says with a sheepish grin.
“Dude, bros before hoes,” Hendy yells over to us and we all chuckle.
EJ whacks him on the back of the head. “Shut the fuck up, Hendy. This isn’t the nineties. We don’t say shit like that anymore.”
“We don’t?” Hendy asks with a smirk.
EJ scoffs and throws a towel at him. “No…anyway, you always leave us for a woman. Never fails.”
Hendy has the presence of mind to look contrite. “Well, they’re prettier than you ugly bastards.”
Killer glares at Hendy and then looks down at me. “Don’t worry. We’re teammates, man. We got your back. Now, our girls, on the other hand…well, just know they got their own friend code. So the sooner you can make nice with Kels, the better,” he explains.
“Believe me, I’m trying,” I mutter as I finish my third set.
Killer nods and then pauses. “Maybe pick her up some of the chocolate croissants at Madame Beaufort’s on Second Avenue. It’s this little French bakery and she fucking loves that shit. It could be like a peace offering or something.”
I rub the sweat from my brow with the towel. “I’ll have to try that. Thanks, Killer. Good suggestion.”
He grins. “What can I say? I’m a wealth of female knowledge.”
I chuckle and move to the leg press station.
One of the offensive tackles is over near Hendy and they chat, but I don’t hear about what until Hendy yells out, “The Cougars are going down! I can’t wait for our scrimmage!”
There’s some hoots and hollers from different guys across the room and it reminds me why I’m here. I’m here because Kevin and Holden can’t be and I need to focus on that. I can’t let what’s going on with Kelsie get in the way of my goal. As long as we can avoid each other at the house and act civil when we do come in contact, then maybe Killer is right, and she’ll find someone else and lose this hatred she has toward me.
There’s just one problem with that.
The mere thought of Kelsie with another man makes me crazy. I’d rather she just stay mad at me. If someone so much as touches her, I might lose my shit.
I’m not usually a jealous man, but what we had in Paris was special. We were so good together and then I fucked it all up.
I can only hope she”ll let me explain why I had to do what I did. And when that time comes, she doesn’t permanently close the door on us.
I shove my earbuds in my ears to drown out my teammates and contemplate how I can fix things between us.
I don’t know if there’s still a chance, but maybe I can try.
Just maybe, we can end up as friends.