Lovestruck (The Minnesota Mustangs #2)

Chapter 1

THIS IS GOING TO HURT

KNOX

I’m so fucking late, and traffic isn’t helping. I spent all night studying for my English literature exam, and if I don’t get above an eighty percent on this test, there’s gonna be a doghouse waiting for me with my name emblazoned on the front.

I thought I’d set my alarm, but between a sleep-induced fog and thoughts which made as much sense as incompatible Scrabble pieces, I woke up ten minutes before class time. My professor closes the door once all the exams have been distributed. I live twelve minutes from campus.

This isn’t the first time school has been a pain in my ass. I’ve been struggling this entire semester. I’m not…academically…gifted. Learning is difficult for me—even at the baseline class levels—and with my parents hounding me to get better grades, the pressure has only grown tenfold.

I speed through the intersection like a madman, garnering aggravated honks from unfortunate cars that have been caught in my crosshairs. The frenetic movement of my steering jostles both the anxiety and sour acid in my stomach.

“Mulligan, we agreed that you’d play as long as you kept your grades up,” Coach Lawson barks through my phone’s speaker, his stentorian, brass-wrapped lilt filling the interior of my Lamborghini.

My threadbare voice rises in response, wearing a false coat of confidence. “I know, Coach.”

“Your professors have informed me that you have an overall grade of sixty-five percent. Do you understand why I’m upset with you?”

“Yes, Coach,” I grit through clenched teeth as I white-knuckle the steering wheel, my frustration cut with something stronger—indignation, maybe.

A fatal warning that my ever-growing resentment will mutate into something uncontrollable, unbridled, and unholy if the right preventive measures aren’t taken.

A sigh unravels from Coach Lawson’s chest. “You know I don’t want to have this conversation with you, but the bottom line is that if you can’t turn these grades around by the end of the grading period, I’m going to have to bench you.”

“Please, sir, I—” Praying that it’s not obvious I’m driving and talking, I swerve out of the way of an oncoming car, my heart halfway up my throat. “I know I’m not doing well, but I can fix this.”

“You said that the last time we talked, and nothing has changed. Just because you’re a talented player doesn’t make you exempt. Being on this team is a privilege, not a right. I made that very clear to you.”

His disappointment is deafening, and if I wasn’t entertaining this conversation, I’d have a warranted breakdown in the comfort of my own car right now.

My nerves are being plucked like untuned violin strings; my exhaustion has been playing a sick game of catch and release with me for the past ten minutes.

I’m mad at myself. I’m mad at the situation. No matter how hard I study, I never make any progress. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. All my peers seem to understand. All my hockey teammates are keeping their grades up. I feel like I’m the only one struggling.

I’m still in my junior year of college. I can’t fathom…fuck, I can’t fathom not graduating. I have my whole future planned out, you know? I’m going to play in the NHL, and nowhere in the schedule does “becoming a super senior” belong in the fine print.

I want to argue with Coach. I want to prove to him that I’ve earned my spot on the Minnesota Mustangs, but the man is unswayable. He’s my superior, and at the end of the day, I have to respect his decision.

Hockey is my lifeblood. It’s the one thing that keeps me sane in this world, and it’s the only thing I’m good at. I’ve never pictured myself doing anything else. I don’t have the patience or facilities for a nine to five. I’m likeable, sure, but I have a low tolerance for most people in the world.

Plus, my father will disown me if I don’t make a career out of my “extracurricular,” as he calls it. Since I’m not following in his footsteps to become a CEO—a laughably ridiculous ask of me, by the way—I have to do something with my life that brings “honor” to the Mulligan name.

My dad is the senior executive of one of the most esteemed law firms in all of Minnesota, my mom is an investment banker, and my older sister, Livia, is a psychiatrist. Dropping out of college and making a minimum wage isn’t an option for me.

Oh my God, I think I’m spiraling. At 9:10 a.m. on a Tuesday. Class starts at 9:15. This is it, folks. This is my pathetic, pitiful rock bottom, and life is burying me alive in an unmarked grave, shoveling earth onto my nowhere-near-cold body.

There’s a congested mass of tardy student drivers ahead of me, hindered by a mocking red stoplight. Cursing beneath my breath, I’m allocated the time to choose between reassurance or vulnerability, and the latter is yet another topic I’m not well-versed in.

“I’m studying my ass off. I’m doing everything I can to bring up my grades, but I just…the curriculum is difficult this semester.”

A half lie that tastes bitter on my tongue.

I hate giving people the impression that I’m not capable.

I shun vulnerability as much as the next guy—it’s basically a direct pipeline into my tissue-scarred heart, and there’s a reason I’ve got that bad boy locked up with deadbolts and latches.

Weakness isn’t something that the Mulligan men admit to.

Toxic? Maybe. My upbringing? Unfortunately.

“You need to get a tutor. As soon as possible,” Coach demands, and I quite literally cringe at the suggestion.

I can’t, Coach. Mostly because having anyone know that I’m universally bad at anything involving critical thinking makes me want to throw myself onto train tracks.

Come on, Knox. It’s either hire a tutor or bon voyage hockey. There’s a clear lesser of two evils here, and honestly, you don’t have much of a choice.

9:12 a.m. I’m not going to make it. Fuck. FUCK! Professor Hardwin doesn’t allow retakes unless you have a good excuse. I already have a C in that class—a culmination of bullshitting assignments and skipping critical sessions. An incomplete on an exam is sure to bring me down to a D.

Coach keeps blabbering my ear off. Everything he says is warbled, staticky, refusing to root into my brain and curate some sense.

His cautionary tales are drowned out beneath the knocking of my heart against my ribs.

There’s a feverish fire rolling through my body—slicking my palms in sweat and loosening my grip on the steering wheel—and an impending sense of doom circles me like a flock of crows scared from a grove of evergreens.

When the light finally flashes green, I’m hightailing it through the intersection and swerving into the lip of the parking lot by Reber Hall, glancing down at my phone that now broadcasts a stomach-dropping 9:14 a.m. on the home screen.

“Hello? Kid? Are you even listening to me?”

With my focus split and hope letting from my body like blood, I don’t see the bicyclist that crosses in front of me until I glance up.

A sickening thud reverberates in my eardrums, and the force of the collision jars the entire carapace of my car. I catch the tail end of a blurry form flying over my hood as I slam on the brakes, screaming in blind terror.

Oh my God. I THINK I JUST HIT SOMEONE.

Why wasn’t I looking where I was going? What happened to all those PSAs you watched in high school about texting and driving, Knox? Forget spending your future behind a desk—you’re going to be behind bars.

A swarming sea of pedestrians stops to assess the damage, and a buildup of cars all halt in their tracks.

Hanging up the phone and jumping out of my vehicle, I race over to the poor casualty of my reckless driving, shoving through a throng of spectators who all murmur in collective concern. It feels like steel wool is scratching at the tissue of my guilt-ridden heart.

Please don’t be dead. Please don’t be dead. Please don’t be dead.

When I breach the inner ring, I’m met by the sight of a (thankfully) conscious girl on the cold asphalt, a bleeding contusion nestled underneath her raven-black hair, and a mosaic of scratches marring her limbs.

My first thought is that she’s the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen.

Her bike has been capsized and tossed to the wayside—wheels still spinning from the momentum—and her backpack is in an equally destroyed state, spilling out papers and books from polyester innards. Despite there being a decent-sized crowd, nobody moves to help her.

I frantically crouch down to her level. She groans, her eyes half-lidded, her lashes brushing the hills of her cheekbones, and her splayed body reminiscent of a chalk outline. The image churns my empty belly and calls nausea to the crime scene.

“Fuck,” she mutters.

I press two fingers to her wrist, assessing the sluggishness of her pulse. Each beat is slower than normal, but it seems steady. She’s probably in shock.

Exhaling in relief, some of the tension boiling in the pit of my gut flatlines into a fizzle. “Someone fucking call 911!” I shout at the bystanders.

Even the ebony sky weeps for what’s happened here today—a nimbostratus rolling out over Maple Grove like a funeral procession, low-sitting clouds sagging with rain.

Fibrils of darkness feather into the atmosphere, hailing droplets to fall to the tainted earth and cleanse my blunder from between sandblasted cracks.

The neighboring trees bow in the unrelenting wind, and a few wide-eyed stragglers race to the nearest building to absolve themselves.

A sillage of petrichor dances in the air.

This is all my fault. I didn’t see her. I should’ve seen her.

Her hand flies to the gash on her head as she uses all her strength to try and sit up. “What just happened?”

With my heart performing a sixty-yard dash in my chest, I restrict her from elevating any further in case it exacerbates an invisible injury.

“You—I—um, I hit you…with my car,” I explain, the last part practically a whisper, paralytic guilt stunning my nerve endings.

I hear the wail of an ambulance in the distance, and instinctively, I grab her hand, crushing it against the warmth of my palm.

I’ve fucked up a lot in my past—from cheating on tests in high school to giving my current hockey captain shit for rightfully earning his title—but this takes the cake. I’m not a bad person, right? It was an accident.

Do you think that’s how this girl’s parents will feel? It might’ve been an accident, but you carelessly put yourself and others in danger.

An unhelpful susurrus creeps through the remaining students. They’re talking about me. They’re taking pictures.

Anger flips the kill switch, welling behind my ribs until a budding pressure descends on my chest like an anvil. “Show’s over. Every single one of you—leave!” I snarl, practically vibrating with rage, my inhibitions reduced to something so viscerally primal that I barely recognize myself.

A few people flinch at my outburst, doing the wise thing and speed-walking away to evade the fallout. This is going to make headlines within an hour. Coach is going to hear about it. My parents are going to hear about it.

Rain begins to plink against the ground, puddling into craters that reflect the dreary ether above. The mystery girl finally wrenches her eyes all the way open, her chest rising and falling at a more quickened pace.

The color of her irises is a familiar brown—warm, comforting, like a sunlit forest in the middle of autumn, bathed in persimmon shafts of light that weave through a dense canopy, soaking the detritus-riddled floor in tones of sepia.

She’s too discombobulated to pull away from me. “You hit me? With your car?”

“I’m so sorry. The paramedics are on their way,” I inform her, instinctively bringing our interlinked hands to my chest.

She stares at me strangely, then glances down at the crimson carnage staining her fingers. “I’m barely bleeding. You shouldn’t have called 911. I can’t afford a hospital bill.”

“Are you serious? You could’ve died!”

Betrayal flickers across her expression. “Yeah, thanks to you.”

She has a point.

Not right now, Inner Me.

“You need medical attention. Don’t worry about the hospital bill, okay? Just work with me here,” I beg, long-brewing fear burrowing into my bone marrow like a starving parasite looking for sustenance to siphon.

I don’t know anything about this girl, but as the dunce-cap-wearing fool that I am, I have a feeling that begging for her forgiveness won’t be an easy feat.

Suddenly, she yanks her hand back. “Work with you? That’s a mighty high ask for someone who plowed me down a few minutes ago,” she growls, all animalistic vitriol and flashy incisors.

I can’t stave off the heat encroaching my body. “I…”

Don’t incriminate yourself, Knox. Don’t make things worse.

“In my defense, I was on the phone. I didn’t see you.”

Dude, why would you admit that?!

“Oh, great. Negligent driving to go along with the fact that you’re a fucking idiot.”

Take it back. TAKE IT BACK.

I have no idea how to make any of this better. I’ll be lucky if I don’t get sued. My dad will kill me. He already hates that I don’t have a summer internship lined up on top of everything. He definitely won’t take kindly to having to clean up my mess.

“I deserve that. God, I’m so sorry. Tell me what I can do to fix this. I’ll do anything.”

A little bit of color loads back into her cheeks, and although she’s grumbling expletives at my expense, it’s comforting to know that she’s lucid enough to hate me at her full capacity. “Ooh, how about you kindly fuck off and find a drainage grate to shove your dick in?”

Dear God.

The high-pitched screeching of sirens loudens, and the ambulance pulls haphazardly into the parking lot to deploy its first responders, who push me out of the way. It’s a whirlwind of black uniforms, first aid, and hospital jargon that I can’t understand.

I stagger to a stance, sidelined, left to watch the broken shards of my mistake be picked up by those who aren’t responsible. A common theme, I’ve come to notice. It’s like I’m always looking for something—or someone—else to take accountability.

She’s hoisted onto a stretcher, hooked up to various machines that look invasive, and swept into the back of the ambulance in record time.

When I round my car to tail after them, my forfeited exam is the last thing on my mind.