Chapter 1
Izzy
August
I pick through the M I don’t even need to open my texts. The unfinished thread will still be there,
taunting me, and that’s just going to make me want to get started on the green M&M’s, too.
I know I should delete it. My summer fling is over, and it involved way more dirty bits than feelings. But the last texts
that Nik sent me aren’t something I can just forget, even if I woke up alone the morning after our last hookup.
I peer down the hallway. No Alexis yet. As soon as our team meeting ended, I ran upstairs to her office. She can’t ignore me if I’m right in front of her door, after all.
I open the thread.
N
You’re a beam of light in a person, Isabelle
So fucking beautiful
My heart squeezes tightly.
He can’t have meant it. If he meant it, maybe things would be different. It’s just a line, no matter how good, and the fact
I’m still obsessing over it is several shades of pathetic. It doesn’t change the fact that what we had was casual. An exploration
in attraction with no promise of anything deeper. A fun time, exactly what I’m good for, and one my family—especially my brother
Cooper— absolutely can’t find out about. He and Nik are two of the top college defensemen in the country, captaining rival programs. They already
got into one fight their sophomore year, and that was just because of hockey. The last thing I need is to encourage another,
more personal one.
At least Nik is back in Massachusetts at UMass Amherst for his senior year, and I’m in New York at McKee University for my
sophomore year. I’ve never been so grateful for state lines. Soon, I’ll forget his crooked smile, and how he handled my body
with as much skill as his hockey stick, and especially the way he said my name—always my full name, Isabelle—like a velvet
caress.
His mother was my boss this summer, and the first day of my internship, he sauntered into her office without knocking while
she was out at lunch. He teased me until I realized who he was... and he called me Isabelle from the first introduction.
Isabelle, not Izzy, like everyone else.
I can still see him in perfect detail: the blue button-down, sleeves rolled to the elbow. Messy hair, sharp eyes. He stole my M&M’s and didn’t even eat any—bastard—and scrawled his number on one of my pink sticky notes with a wink that made me go molten.
The rest of the day, I couldn’t stop thinking about the way my name sounded coming out of his mouth. I broke down and texted
him, and somehow, the first kiss we shared felt like the hundredth. Once we started, I couldn’t help but let it happen all
summer long.
I stare at those two brief texts until my vision blurs.
“Izzy?”
I whip my head up, shoving my phone into my bag. “Hi, Coach.”
Coach Alexis arches an eyebrow. She’s dressed casually, just in leggings and a McKee sweatshirt, but the full face of makeup
and perfectly placed bleach-blond hair give her a sense of unsettling sophistication. Nik’s mother, Katherine, is equally
glamorous, but she never made me squirm like Alexis can with a mere look.
“Make sure you take off your necklace before next practice,” she says, gesturing pointedly to my diamond I charm.
Crap. I thought I got it along with my tennis bracelet and earrings, but since I wear it so often, I sometimes forget it.
“Right, sorry. Um, can I talk to you for a second?”
“Now? We just had the team meeting.”
She went over the usual things—the schedule, the importance of sticking with the team during away matches, our practice and
conditioning commitments—in her crisp, speech-first-questions-later voice. Honestly, it was more like speech-and-no-questions.
She prefers for her plan to be the only plan, which is why my stomach feels like one big knot right now.
My first instinct is to say I can come back later, but I don’t know if I’ll be able to work up the courage twice, so I nod. “Please. Just a moment.”
“Fine,” she says, leading the way into her office. “I only have a few minutes.”
Like all the athletic facilities at McKee, purple and white dominate the color scheme. Alexis made it glam, of course. The
love seat is an inviting shade of lavender, and a chic white chandelier hangs above us. I perch on the end of a leather chair,
snow-white with the McKee school logo stamped across the back, and give her my best smile.
“Let me play setter.”
She crosses one long leg over the other. “You do a fine job at opposite hitter.”
“It’s a new position for me.”
“It was new last season. This season I expect you to have gotten the hang of it.”
“Please, Coach.” I swipe my sweaty palms against my shorts. “It’s not the position I fell in love with when I started volleyball.
I know I can do more for the team as a setter.”
She sighs. It’s the sigh you might give a toddler who covered herself with peanut butter. I twist my fingers together, excess
energy getting the better of me. I bite my tongue so I don’t start spewing nonsense.
Last season, she took one look at me and decided I was a second-rate player. I made the mistake of showing up to our first team bonding exercise hungover, and I didn’t play my best in practice, and when she integrated the freshmen with the rest of the team, she moved me from setter to opposite hitter. I’m not the best volleyball player in the world, but I love the sport, and I don’t want to be sidelined when these four years at McKee are the only time in my life I’ll be competing at such a high level. Losing out on the position stung, and losing out on playing time hurt worse. My parents were surprised by the change and, although they didn’t voice it, disappointed, too. If there’s one thing us Callahans are, it’s athletes. My three older brothers—not to mention my retired pro quarterback father—can attest to that.
I accepted Alexis’s decision last year rather than fight it, but I know I’m better than that. I hope so, at least.
“You really want to do this, Callahan? You want to go there?”
“I don’t—”
“I’m sure you were the best setter on your high school team. But you’re not the star here. You’re nowhere near the top of
the roster.” She leans in, drumming her knuckles across the glass top of her desk. “I understand that hearing that is hard.
But someone needs to be the one to break it to you that you don’t automatically get everything you want just because you can
afford to attend a school. I knew plenty of girls like you when I played, and every single one of them had to learn this lesson
eventually.”
I blink once. Twice. Then one more time, hard enough my eyes sting, so she doesn’t see me cry. I knew I wasn’t her favorite
person, but I didn’t think she thought I needed to be taught a lesson .
“What, did a football player break your heart or something?” I blurt. “Is that why you don’t like me?”
Her eyes flash. “Izzy.”
“Sorry, sorry—”
“This has nothing to do with your family. Not specifically. Were there other girls I wish I could have recruited? Other players
who were maybe a better fit for the team but whose parents weren’t some of McKee’s biggest donors? Sure. You’re an adult,
I don’t mind being honest with you. Like I said, the sooner you realize this, the better off you’ll be.”
“So I wasn’t your first choice.”
“I’m not saying you’re without talent. But perhaps you should be in a program more suited to your... level.”
I ignore that. I don’t disagree with everything she’s saying, but there’s no need to insult me. “Let me prove to you that I can do it.”
“I saw what I needed to see last season.”
“This season will be different.” I lean forward on my elbows. I don’t want to sound too desperate, but I don’t know when I’ll
get this chance again. “Please, I promise. Let me show you that I can do it.”
“I’m committed to the starters I have.”
“Brooklyn is a senior. She won’t be here next season, and by then I’ll be a junior. You don’t have to put me there right away.
Just give me some sets. I’ll show you I can handle it for next season.”
“I don’t—”
“Please, Coach. I love this sport. I’m serious about it. I want to help us win, and I know I can do that best as a setter.”
She twists her wedding ring around her finger as she looks at me. I don’t dare say another word. After the longest minute
of my life, in which I suppress the urge to say at least ten more things, something shifts in her expression.
Maybe it’s sympathy. Even if it is, I don’t care. I’ll take anything at this point. Just half a chance, and I’ll run with
it.
“Fine. I can tell you’re serious about this.”
“I am.”
“You want my attention, you have it. But you need to focus, Callahan. Work on your grades as much as your technique. Put in
extra time in the weight room and in practice. Show me that you have what it takes, and that I can trust you.”
I nod. My parents told me as much before I arrived on campus a few days ago. “No distractions.”
Especially not when they’re wickedly handsome, talented hockey players named Nikolai Abney-Volkov.