3. Jordan
JORDAN
The mood in the locker room is thick with frustration. My shoulder blades rest against the back of the wooden stall, and my breathing still comes in quick, ragged gulps. Sweat pours down my face. I haven’t moved yet, but I can already feel the burn of my muscles in my quads.
“Fuck me. That was brutal.” Even talking is painful.
Liam grunts beside me. He hunches over, elbows on his knees and a towel draped over his head. A glance around at the rest of the team tells me everyone is hurting as bad as we are.
It’s a month into the season, and we look like shit.
We only lost two guys to graduation and transfers at the end of last year, but our conference champ record is taunting us as we struggle to put the puck in the net.
Coach decided we needed a little motivation in the form of skating our asses off for two hours.
My buddy curls up into a sitting position and lets out a long breath that puffs out his cheeks. “Wanna grab a beer at The Hideout?”
“Can’t. I have to finish that paper for tech writing.”
“You still haven’t done that?” The disbelieving grin he tosses my way doesn’t have any judgment in it. “I thought you were doing that last night when I crashed early.”
“Nah. I ended up playing video games with the guys across the hall. Then some girls from the volleyball team brought up a bottle of Malibu.”
“That explains the high-pitched noises coming from your bedroom when I got up to shower this morning. I thought you were singing along to Celine Dion again.”
“Hey, Celine’s got great pipes. So did Abby, or was it Anna?”
He gives his head a playful shake and then gets to his feet. “Finish it and then meet up with us.” Liam struggles to get his practice jersey over his head. We all look like we took a dip in the swimming pool after practice without removing our gear.
“I thought you said a beer?” He hardly ever drinks, especially during the week.
“It feels like a pitcher kind of night.”
No freaking shit. “Doubt I’ll make it but call me if you need a ride.”
He tosses his jersey in the laundry bin. “I’m not staying out that late. I’ll be home before you finish that paper, probably.”
I snort a laugh. “Later.”
Back at the dorms, I pull a half-eaten sandwich and a blue Powerade from the mini-fridge and sit at my desk. I scarf down the food while I pull up the document due tomorrow.
One sentence—that’s how much I’ve written on the three-to-five-page paper assigned two weeks ago. Damn. I knew I was going to regret putting it off as long as I did.
I turn on some music and twirl in my desk chair, hoping an idea comes to me. I can bullshit for three pages no problem, but I need some inspiration.
A knock at our suite door snatches my attention, and I shoot up, glad for a distraction.
“Leonard,” I say as I pull the door wide. “What’s up?”
Stepping back, I give him room to duck his head to enter. At six foot six, Gavin Leonard’s a good five inches taller than me and towers over the general population.
“Where’s Price?” he asks.
“He and some of the guys went out after practice.”
“And you stayed in?” He scans the suite I share with Liam, his gaze stopping on my open bedroom door. His voice drops to a whisper. “You got a girl in there?”
“Do you really think I’d be answering the door for your Gumby ass if I did?” I take a seat on the couch, and he drops into the chair. “What are you doing slumming it with us dorm-folk?”
He leans back with a smirk. Gavin lives at The White House with three other basketball players. It’s a palace. They have their own gym, pool, and media room. Must be freaking nice.
“Warren lives downstairs,” he says of one of his teammates.
“Uh-oh. What’d he do to deserve a visit from the team captain?”
A devious smile pulls at his lips. “Today’s his birthday. The guys took him out to dinner, and we filled every inch of floor in his room with cups of water for when he comes back.”
I bark a laugh at the image.
“For real,” he says. “What are you doing tonight? There’s a party at Sigma and a bunch of people at The Hideout.”
I rake a hand through my hair. “I have a paper due tomorrow.”
“So finish it and let’s go out. I’m meeting the guys in twenty.”
Indecision wars inside of me. “I shouldn’t. Practices have been awful, the team isn’t meshing, and we have a game on Friday.”
“Staying in while the rest of your guys are out isn’t going to magically make it come together.”
He’s probably not wrong about that. Still, I hesitate.
“What time is your first class tomorrow?” he asks.
“One I’m actually planning on attending?” I ask with a laugh. “Not until one.”
“Practice or workouts?”
I shake my head. Coach gave us the morning off to recover from the brutal conditioning we did today.
He stands tall. “What are we even talking about then? Come on. At least come say happy birthday to Warren, and then you can come back and finish it and still get a full eight hours of beauty sleep in.”
“Yeah, of course.” I stand. Warren came out for my twenty-first celebration. It’d be shitty not to go and at least have one beer with him.
When we walk up to Sigma, the scene is insane. I can barely see the front door with all the people standing in the front yard. And the party is in the back.
“Whoa,” I say as adrenaline hits. I love a good party.
“I told you.” Gavin pushes at my shoulder and stretches his long legs to hurry up to the house.
I texted Liam on the way to see if he wanted to meet up with us, but he was already headed back to the dorm. Be like Liam, I tell myself. One beer, and I’m out.
A booming voice cuts through the silence, and the ground beneath me shakes. “Gotta get up, man. Class in twenty.”
“Unnggh.” My mouth is dry, and my head splinters in two when I open my eyes.
Liam’s amused smile greets me. “You look like shit. I thought you were taking it easy last night.”
I pull myself up and crack my neck to work out a kink. “Sigma was crazy. Biggest after hours I’ve seen all semester.”
I reach for the water bottle on my nightstand. One beer turned into two or three, and then several rounds of birthday shots.
“The Hideout was packed last night too.” He backs out of my room, stopping in the doorway. “Did you finish your paper?”
Ah fuck. I had my alarm set for eight this morning to get up and finish it, but I must have turned it off and passed right back out. Not surprising since I didn’t crash until almost three.
My face must give him the answer because he laughs. “Bring it to lab. You can work on it there.”
“Thank you.”
I have just enough time to shower and grab my shit before we head off to the Emerson Building for our physics lab. I’m finishing off a bag of chips when we walk in. Dr. Green pauses his lecture and waits for us to take our seats.
For twenty minutes, he talks, giving us all the relevant information for today’s lab.
My grades are decent. I pull Bs and Cs, thanks in large part to sharing most of my classes with Liam.
He keeps me in check with school, and I like to think I’ve helped him learn to cut loose a little.
Freshman year, when we got to Valley, he’d never had a drop of alcohol, and he spent every night studying.
I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with either of those things, but it’s college—you have to live a little.
When Dr. Green finishes, Liam nods toward my bag on the floor. “We’ve got this. Just make it look like you’re feverishly taking notes.”
“We?”
At my question, Daisy steps up to our table. She pushes a lock of dark blonde hair behind one ear. “Hi.”
“Stuck with us again, huh?” Liam asks, shooting her a charming grin.
She eats it right up, dropping her gaze to the floor with a smile. “Yeah. My partner must have dropped the class.”
Liam grabs an extra stool and sets it next to her. “You’re our partner now.”
“Thank you.” She moves like a scared rabbit, perching herself on the very edge of the seat.
I’m not sure I’d heard her say a single word all semester that wasn’t a direct response to a question until two days ago when Dr. Green put her in our group.
She’s smart, though. Our professor always calls on her when no one else knows the answer.
She’s pretty cute. The shy, quiet thing she has going on is a whole vibe.
My buddy is into it, too. I can tell. They’re perfect for one another: Barbie and Ken, brainy, introvert edition. Liam’s a good guy, the best, actually. If anyone can make her feel at ease, it’s him. That’s probably why Dr. Green put her at our table.
“How should we break up the work?” she asks as she leans forward and reads the lab handout. Her nails are painted a bright, fiery red. That makes me smile. They’re so much bolder than anything else about her.
“It’s just you and me today,” Liam says and tilts his head toward me. “Jordan needs to finish a paper. Is that cool?”
Her gaze slides over to me briefly, not meeting mine before she pins another shy smile at Liam. “Perfect.”
As planned, I start on my paper while the two of them work on the lab. I sneak a glance at them huddled together, smiling and laughing like physics is a freaking blast. Her cheeks are pink with a flush, and she looks at Liam like he’s the freaking moon and stars.
I’m closing in on three pages and reading over it again to check for errors when they finish the lab.
“Done?” Liam asks me as they clean up the lab supplies.
“Yeah. I just need a closing sentence to wrap it up.”
“What’s the paper about?” Daisy’s voice almost blends in with the noise of the classroom. She’s so quiet, but she’s talking a little more today.
“Time management.” Liam snorts as he responds for me. Okay, it’s kind of funny. Still, I glare at him.
“You had to write a paper on time management? For what class?”
“Technical writing. It’s tips and tricks, that kind of thing. We drew out of a hat for topics.”
She nods slowly. “Maybe you should end it with a cautionary tale of what happens when you don’t have good time management, and you have to finish assignments during other classes.”
Liam chuckles softly. Damn, is this girl burning me?
“Maybe I was sick yesterday or at a funeral.”
“Were you?”
I huff a laugh and grin at her. “No.”
The three of us pack up to leave. Liam has to haul ass across campus to meet with his adviser, but I take my time and walk out with Daisy. Even the way she moves is gentle and unassuming. She side-eyes me when I fall into step beside her.
“Thanks for today. I’m sorry you had to pick up my slack.”
She regards me carefully, like she isn’t sure if I’m being genuine or not. I don’t even know why I’m apologizing. They still finished early, even without my help.
I get the briefest of nods from her, and she takes another tentative step down the hall.
“Are you coming to the game tomorrow night?”
“Oh, umm…” She has this habit of tucking her hair behind her right ear, and she does it again now. “I’m not sure.”
“A big hockey fan like you?” I tease.
She blushes again but doesn’t say anything.
We come to the outside door, and I hold it open for her. The wind whips her long hair around her head, sending the strands and their fruity smell into my face.
She looks over her shoulder as she corrals her wild hair.
“I’m going that way.” I jab my thumb in the opposite direction toward my tech writing class. “Are you heading to another class?”
“No, I’m done for the day.”
“Are you in the dorms?”
She hesitates like she’s confused why I’m asking so many questions. Me too, but I find her sort of fascinating. “No, I live off-campus.”
“Huh.”
She looks at me quizzically. I can hardly tell her I find that surprising even though I do.
“You shouldn’t spend so much time socializing between classes.”
“What’s that?” Now it’s my turn to be confused.
A ghost of a smile crosses her pink lips. “It’s another tip for better time management.”