Chapter 3
CHAPTER THREE
KELLAN
My life is scheduled down to the second. It needs to be or the balancing act I’ve been keeping up will fall apart. And once that happens, there will be no way to pick up the pieces.
Every weekday, my day starts at five-thirty a.m. I share an on-campus apartment with Cooper and Dutch, my line, so we all usually snag breakfast on our way to practice.
This is our second year as a unit and our first year as roommates.
So far, they haven’t told Coach that I’m very rarely in bed at the team’s curfew.
I think about what would happen if they did, but I can’t let it plague me.
It’s all part of the delicate balance, and I tell myself that they’d care way more if I’m late to practice than where I am when they turn in for the night.
By seven, practice is starting. During the season, we alternate days on the ice, in the weight center, and watching footage from our upcoming opponents and past games.
After I house an obscene amount of food during lunch, I hit my classes.
I usually try to catch a nap during this time.
I know that I get unfair slack because I’m an athlete, but right now, I need it.
I was carrying a 3.0 GPA during my freshman and sophomore years, but after my step-dad left, I haven’t found a way to come up for air.
I usually try to get in an afternoon workout or review more game tapes on my own before heading to dinner and then study hall.
I always make sure that at least a few of my teammates see me every night.
My personal rule is to not break more rules while I’m already breaking other rules, so I do as much as I can to keep up appearances.
I’m fucking exhausted, but if I stop, I don’t know that I can start moving again.
So I don’t. When I reach a nondescript building on campus that I’ve never given a second thought–I don’t give many things energy these days unless it’s hockey or my family–I quickly scan the name etched across the front. Beckett Academic Support Center.
I adjust my backwards hat and take the steps up to the glass doors two-at-a-time.
The building’s larger than I expected inside, with the main area filled with pairs of desks either side-by-side or facing one another.
There are dozens of students and tutors working, heads down and talking quietly.
This is just another task I have to add to my never-ending list, but I’m committed to seeing it through.
I refuse to give Coach a single reason to doubt my commitment to the team.
I walk over to the reception desk and hand over the sheet that one of the assistant coaches gave me after practice this morning. “I’m here for a tutoring session.”
The woman, a cute brunette with dark eyes that match, breaks out into a nervous smile.
Then, her eyes grow even wider when she recognizes me.
I flash her a smile. I’m here on Coach’s orders, and I’m taking it seriously.
Finally, she pulls her focus away to scan the paper I’ve given her.
“You’re in office twelve. It’s the last one in the hallway,” she says, pointing through a doorway.
The thing about being an athlete is that besides the slack people give me, my academic life has intentionally been made as easy as possible so that I can spend all of my mental energy focusing on hockey.
I didn’t ask for it to be this way, but I can’t remember the last time someone didn’t just shepherd me where I needed to go.
And with hockey as big as it is at Radford, usually they try to roll out a red carpet while they’re doing it.
It feels like Coach is trying to teach me a lesson. I didn’t pick the place. Or the time. I don’t even know anything about the person who I’m going to be sitting uncomfortably close with for the foreseeable future.
And while I could think that Coach setting this all up was to make things easier for me, I have this gnawing feeling in my gut that it isn’t the case.
I’m also going to have to eat dinner later than normal, which is already putting me on the wrong side of hangry. But I tamp down on my frustration.
“Thanks. I appreciate it.” I flash her my pearly whites again and take the paper back when she hands it to me, noticing that she quickly scribbled her phone number on it.
This isn’t the first time–and it’s definitely not the most interesting way–a woman has given me her number.
But I can’t even remember the last time I got laid.
It’s been me and my hand for so long that I barely remember what it feels like to have an orgasm with someone else.
I don’t even have time to miss it. The few hours of shut-eye I get every night are spent in a blissful slumber that’s always over too soon–not fantasizing about what it would be like to have someone else make me come.
Sleep is the only god I worship these days.
I shake the thought away and resist the urge to crumple the piece of paper and throw it in the trashcan next to me. I’m not a complete asshole, even if there’s no way I have the energy to call her.
By the time I walk across the main room and reach the doorway, at least half-a-dozen heads have turned my way.
At six-foot-one and two-hundred pounds, I’m used to it.
But on campus, I know that if these people give a shit about hockey–and most of them do because we’re consistently ranked as one of the top five teams in the country–they either love me or hate me.
Usually, that depends on whether we won last weekend.
Luckily, we pulled out back-to-back victories in our most recent series, even though I only scored a goal in the second game. But the season’s still young, and since I bulked up over the summer, I’m being given grace by all the sports pundits as I ‘acclimate to my newly dominating size.’
I hoist my backpack tighter on my shoulder and quickly move down the hallway, passing by a door with each long stride. I spend so much time on the ice that I move like I’m on it no matter what I’m doing.
When I reach the closed door with the ‘twelve’ on it, I knock.
No answer.
I look down at the paper, wondering if the receptionist made a mistake. But no, near her phone number, listed clearly, it shows that I’m to report to office twelve for a private session with one of their senior tutors. I’m not surprised that Coach sprung for the big guns.
I don’t start getting pissed off until I hear muffled voices and what sounds like laughter behind the door.
I couldn’t care less that I’m Kellan O’Reilly, star center for the Radford Renegades.
I have an appointment. I showed up on time.
And it annoys the shit out of me that some nerd on a power trip is wasting that time when I have a million other things I need to be doing, should be doing, or wish I was doing instead.
But if I flake on this appointment, Coach truly may kick me off the team. So now, I’m at some inconsiderate asshole’s mercy who can’t even bother to tell me to hang on a second.
As I’m about to knock again–and put a little oomph behind it–the door swings open.
A guy, at least half-a-foot shorter than me and with a body type that I haven’t had since before puberty, gives me a stare like he’s been caught at something.
His cheeks are flushed. One of his hands is tightened around his backpack strap, while the other is wiping at his mouth.
Even though it’s abundantly clear from the way he keeps moving awkwardly, I don’t give a shit what they were doing in here except that it’s cutting into my time.
He clears his throat and juts a finger in my direction. “Excuse me,” he says, and I can’t help but feel like it’s a little bit judgmental, like I’m the one doing something wrong.
I do realize, then, that I’m taking up the entire doorway, and there’s no way this guy is moving past me unless I let him.
But instead of pushing this–it doesn’t even seem like he’s my tutor, given the way he now looks like he wants to run out of the room–I shift to the side so he can pass.
I can see the wetness on his lips, like he’s just been sucking on a lollipop.
And he won’t make eye contact, turning his shoulders away from me so that he doesn’t touch my jersey on his way out.
“You’re late,” a deep voice from inside the room calls to me.
This fucking asshole. Seriously?
I walk into the room, covering the small space in only a few strides.
Across from me, sitting behind a desk, is my tutor.
Presumably. Who knows with whatever sideshow has been going on in this office.
A few papers are scattered on the floor.
A laptop is hanging perilously close to the edge of the desk.
And this guy, with his dark green eyes, lidded like he’s about to fall into the best sleep of his life–lucky motherfucker–is looking at me with a self-satisfied smirk that raises my hackles, the hair on the back of my neck bristling.
I was expecting some dweeb with glasses and a still-pimpled complexion but he is…
not that. His dirty blonde hair is askew, and like he notices me staring, he runs his long fingers through it casually, calming it back down.
If I saw him on campus, outside of this awful fucking room with its too-bright lights and furniture that makes it hard for someone my size to maneuver around the space, I’d think that he was an athlete.
Maybe a swimmer, given his broad chest that tapers toward his hips with far more definition than my own solid torso.
Even with his sweater on–some gray material that looks stupidly soft–I can tell that he’s incredibly in shape.
And mostly, I’m just confused. What is a dude like this doing spending his days in what can only be described as a circle of hell?
“See something you like?” His voice pulls my attention, and my focus scans from his body back up to his eyes, which are now narrowed in my direction.
Is this some sort of weird tutoring hazing ritual?
I clear my throat but maintain eye contact, refusing to take whatever bait this is. I’ve dealt with far bigger–in size and personality–assholes on the ice, and I’m not going to let some poindexter on a power trip look at me like I’m scum on his shoe.
I take another step forward, aware that between his size and mine, there isn’t much extra space.
“Hopefully, I’m looking at my tutor. And I don’t like being here, but I’m ready to get started when you are.
” I drop my backpack at my side and sit in one of the two chairs across from him.
Then, I spread my legs out so they slip under the desk, invading his space.
I watch as he opens his mouth like he’s going to say something, then closes it again.
He’s staring me down, an anger in his eyes that I’m not used to seeing.
Not even from my opponents. This guy hates me on-site, and I have no idea why.
It’s not my fault that I interrupted his hookup.
Good for him for even having the time. I also didn’t ask to be paired with him.
If this is the attitude I’m going to be dealing with, I hope he asks for me to be reassigned. I know that Coach wouldn’t like it if I raise an issue, so I’m stuck with this ass for better or worse, unless he says so.
And we’re definitely in the thick of the ‘worse’ part when he says smugly, “Let’s start with econ. It’s your worst grade, though that isn’t saying much for your others.”
I shot him a daggered stare. It’s weird how hard he’s antagonizing me. I can feel those green eyes like a bodycheck into the boards. Like he wants me to understand why he hates me so much, when I have no idea who this guy is or why he’s carrying a chip on his shoulder the size of Texas.
Even if my time is precious and fleeting, I won’t let him force my hand. Call it a point of pride–or maybe a trauma response–but I won’t be pushed around.
Slowly, I twist my body so that I can start to unzip my backpack, giving long, drawn-out attention to thumbing through my folders and books, all neatly organized inside my bag.
If he wants to waste my time, then right back at him. And I know, from a lifetime on the ice and at home, that the only way to deal with a bully is to push back.