Chapter 8
eight
MAINE
“HOLY FUCK, KELLERMAN!”
My voice cracks across the driving range as Kellerman’s driver carves through empty air—not even close to striking the golf ball—and the momentum spins him backward three stumbling steps until he nearly face-plants into the rubber mat.
Perfect. This is what I live for.
The guys explode. Even in this piss-yellow sodium light that makes everyone look half-dead, I can see Kellerman’s frown. But then he’s grinning too, because this is our ecosystem—I’m the apex predator who turns everyone else’s failures into entertainment.
“Were you aiming for the ball or trying to helicopter yourself back to campus?” I shoulder past Cooper, who’s been dissecting his grip with the intensity he usually reserves for molecular bonds. “Step aside, children. Let me show you how it’s done.”
The driver settles into my hands. Worn grip tape rough against my palms, the weight of it real and solid.
It’s nothing like the pressure that’s been crushing my chest for three weeks.
Bills, money, the lingering presence of Maya and our back-and-forth war of passive aggression, and—fucking hell—the attraction .
But here? Under these lights?
I’m myself again.
I’m not much of a golfer, but I’m better than these other hacks, and my body makes sure to cash the check that my ego wrote.
I murder the ball, and the crack echoes across the range, pure sex in audio form.
I track its flight against the black sky until it vanishes somewhere past the 250-yard marker.
“Two-forty, easy.” I turn away, club on my shoulder.
“Bullshit.” Rook materializes from his bay. “Two-twenty tops.”
“—why I’ve got the best save percentage in college hockey?” He grins, already teeing up. “Stick to scoring, Hamilton. Leave the geometry to me.”
I shake my head. Fucking goalies. Every last one of them operates on a frequency only dogs and crazy people can hear, but Rook also operates at a volume that rivals anyone. And, if I’m being honest, I love it, because the emergence of his confidence has given me someone on the team to bounce off.
I grin. “You have a shot then, if your depth perception is so damn good…”
He shrugs, walks up to the tee, and swings.
And the ball disappears into orbit.
Fuck.
“Two-fifty,” he announces, examining his nails. “Minimum.”
And we’re on.
We trade shots with increasing gusto. Each impact rattles up through titanium into my bones, but I need this. Need the simple binary of further/not further, the mindless competition where the only thing that matters is winning. Something simple and fun.
The peanut gallery forms around us—Schmidt commenting on our technique, Cooper suddenly producing a flask from thin air, and Martinez silent but somehow communicating volumes with slight nods and headshakes. And Mike, with a big shit-eating grin on his face the whole time.
“You’re gripping like you’re trying to strangle your dick,” Mike observes, gesturing at my grip with his chin.
I smirk. “That’s called technique, Altman. Some of us need more than two inches of contact.”
The howls fuel me.
This is my element.
Not the apartment, with Maya’s constant presence .
I line up my next shot, weight balanced, arms straight—textbook form—but my brain’s not on the ball waiting three feet away. It’s twenty minutes across town, in my apartment, where even the brief thought of Maya has me considering what she’s doing at home while I’m here.
Plotting my next humiliation.
The passive-aggressive war has continued simply enough. After I fucked with her study materials, she reorganized my gaming setup while I was at practice, wrapping my PS5 cords in these neat little spirals with actual fucking labels. HDMI to TV. Power. Controller 1.
So I responded by “helpfully” changing the lids on her nail polish collection—making sure no lid with the little color indicator would match the actual color in the bottle. The shriek she’d let out when she’d realized had been worth the death glare at breakfast.
Back and forth it had gone. Minor passive-aggressive acts, which turned into pranks, which turned into… something else. And soon, instead of merely responding with pranks, I’d started anticipating her moves and wondering what I’d come home to.
And in the last few days, I’ve started noticing how she bites her lower lip when she’s planning something devious, and how her eyes narrow just before she strikes. Started looking forward to whatever fresh hell she’s devised, because at least it means she was thinking about me.
We’re two alphas on a collision course, and in twenty-six days of living together, I’ve already memorized the exact shade of pink her cheeks turn when she’s pissed, which is a different shade than when she’s embarrassed. But then… well… she escalated.
Staked her claim.
Asserted her dominance.
She’d started doing yoga in the living room every morning.
No problem, right? We all work out, right?
But she does it in impossibly tiny shorts that ride up when she bends into downward dog, giving me a front-row view of an ass that belongs on a Nike billboard. Pure psychological warfare, a hot new front in our ongoing cold war, and we both know it.
A week ago, I’d walked past, trying not to stare while she held poses that made her thighs shake. As those tiny shorts hugged that ass, and her top rode up, giving me a glimpse of her sports bra, she’d completely ignored my existence except for the tiny smirk when I tripped over my gear bag.
So I’d started working out shirtless. Push-ups in the living room followed by an entire ab workout on the living room floor while she tried to FaceTime with Sophie. Every crunch had made her lose her train of thought, stammering while her eyes tracked the movement of my muscles.
Then last night?
She’d brought someone home, and made sure I heard every fucking giggle through our paper-thin walls. My mind had gone wild, picturing her pale skin against dark sheets and imagining her sounds, and soon I’d found myself jerking off while in bed, listening to the orchestra in the room next door.
It was another move in our fucked-up chess game.
So this morning, I’d made sure to walk past her door in nothing but a towel, still damp from my shower, while her overnight guest was trying to sneak out. I’d given him a “morning, bro” that had made the guy practically sprint for the front door.
Point: Maine.
Except not.
Because Maya had emerged five minutes later in an oversized t-shirt that barely covered her ass, with sex-messed hair that made me want to mess it up more.
And she’d put on a porn performance as she sliced fruit—licking mango juice off her fingers, giving a satisfied hum when she’d bitten into a strawberry.
I’d retreated to the safety of a cold shower.
And that’s the real problem. It isn’t passive-aggressive roommate bullshit anymore.
It’s foreplay masquerading as territory disputes, two people who are used to winning turning their living space into a sexual tension thunderdome, and I’m one provocative yoga pose away from doing something stupid. And?—
“MAINE!” Rook’s voice cuts through my spiral. “Any day now, princess!”
I blink. The ball hasn’t moved. My club is raised like I’m about to perform surgery instead of hitting a fucking golf ball. The guys are all staring—Mike with knowing concern, Rook with gleeful mockery, and Cooper with his usual android analysis.
“Someone’s got his head elsewhere,” Rook announces, loud enough for the entire range to hear. “Can’t keep his mind on the job. What’s her name?”
“Your mom,” I fire back automatically, but my heart’s not in it. “Just getting in the zone…”
The swing, when I finally take it, is garbage. Complete trash. My follow-through is worse, the club head catching turf and sending up a divot of grass and synthetic rubber. And the ball? Well, it rockets left, so far off course it might hit someone in the parking lot.
Silence.
Beautiful, horrible silence.
Then the guys explode in laughter, Rook actually doubling over.
“Holy shit!” He gasps between wheezes. “That was beautiful! Absolutely beautiful! Like watching a baby giraffe try to ice skate!”
Schmidt winces. “That’s going to damage someone’s windshield.”
“That will damage someone’s soul,” Martinez adds quietly, his version of joining the pile-on.
Even Kellerman’s giggling behind his hand, probably euphoric that someone else is tonight’s punchline.
“Wind caught it,” I snap, grabbing another ball.
“What wind?” Schmidt asks with surgical precision. “The atmospheric pressure’s been stable all?—“
“Maybe he’s distracted.” Rook abandons his club, circling me. “New roommate situation must be fucking with his head. What’s her name again? Maya?”
My shoulders tighten. “My roommate has nothing to?—“
“Because Mike mentioned she’s absolute smoke.” He’s grinning now, all teeth. “Said she makes Instagram models look like lunch ladies. And you’ve been living with her for what, three weeks? That’s a lot of pressure. A lot of cold showers. A lot of hearing her through the walls at night?—“
“You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.”
But my voice cracks—actually cracks—and they pounce.
“Prove it, then.” Rook’s eyes glitter. “Hit this one straight, and I’ll believe your mysterious roommate isn’t currently living rent-free in your spank bank.”
I line up. Focus. Breathe.
My swing is chaos. The ball screams sideways, nearly hitting the range’s ball dispenser before vanishing.
I drop the club with a clatter. Force the trademarked Maine Hamilton grin—all teeth and no soul—because it’s time to change the narrative before this becomes the story that follows me all season.
“You know what?” I spread my arms wide, going full preacher. “You’re absolutely right. My golf game’s fucked. But you know what games I never lose?”
Mike groans. “Here we go.”
“Hockey, and women.” I let confidence saturate every word. “Hitting a little white ball? Whatever. But women? It’s about the game. And I don’t lose.”
Rook studies me with the intensity he reserves for reading shooters on breakaways. “Is that so?”
I don’t like the false innocence in his voice, but I’m pot committed now, and—more importantly—the guys aren’t focused on my golf swing. “Yep,” I say.
Rook’s eyes lock onto mine, and I know where this is headed. “Yet after three weeks rooming with campus royalty, you’re still flying solo?”
The words land hard. My jaw tightens, but I keep the grin in place, cocky and bulletproof. “Playing the long game,” I say.
“Long game?” Rook laughs. “Or no game?”
Heat crawls up my neck. The truth sits right there—that Maya has been systematically destroying my sanity one pair of yoga shorts at a time.
That I’ve been jerking off to the thought of her morning stretches.
That I’ve memorized exactly how her tank top rides up when she reaches for the high shelves.
But admitting that?
No way.
The words launch before I can stop them. “I could have her begging for me.”
The silence has weight. Even the range seems to pause.
Rook grins slowly and dangerously. “Is that so?”
“Absolutely.”
Shut up, shut up , my brain screams, but my mouth keeps going.
He turns to our audience. “Gentlemen! Maine Hamilton just raised the stakes!”
My stomach drops, because the showman has just become the show.
“Our golden boy,” Rook announces, “claims he can make Maya Hayes— the Maya Hayes—fall desperately in love with him.”
“Love?” My voice cracks. “Nobody said?—“
“Oh, my mistake.” Rook wheels back, eyes bright. “You meant a quick fuck? Because half the Eastern seaboard has that merit badge. No, you said ‘begging for me.’ Those are feelings, brother. That’s the real thing. That’s Sunday brunch and meeting the parents.”
Jesus Christ.
I’m instantly regretting going down this path, but I won’t turn back.
Because Maine Hamilton is all gas, no brakes.
“So here’s the wager,” Rook addresses the group. “Hamilton makes Maya fall for him by the last day of finals, or he pays out a hundred bucks to every man who backs it.”
Blood drains from my face. My knees actually wobble. A hundred dollars. Per head. With six takers minimum, that’s $600 I don’t have, when I’ve only just gotten out from under the mountain of shit that paying for a two-bedroom apartment solo put me under.
“Guys, maybe we should forget about it…” Mike’s voice pierces the bubble of bravado, but his eyes are locked on me. “That’s a lot of money.”
I appreciate Mike’s save, but I can’t abide the eye-rolls and snorts of derision that follow it.
To these guys, I’m the ringleader of chaos, the chief joker, the head prefect of piling shit relentlessly on others.
And backing down would be more than just keeping money in my pocket. It would be giving up my crown to Rook.
“It’s a bet,” I say, before my mind can talk me out of it. “Who’s in?”
“Count me in,” Mike says with a shrug, having given me an out I’d refused.
“Same,” Cooper adds with his robot efficiency.
Schmidt, Martinez, Kellerman, and Rook—they pile on.
“Well?” Rook extends his palm. “Are we doing this, or are you all talk?”
The smart play is to laugh it off. Double back. Take Mike’s exit ramp. But they’re all watching and waiting, and there’s no way in hell I’m backing out of this now. So my hand moves on autopilot, gripping Rook’s and shaking, his palm dry with confidence while mine is slick with panic.
“You’re on.”
The range erupts.
“This will be beautiful,” Rook says, releasing my hand.
The golf mockery? Ancient history. I’ve given them something better, because Maya doesn’t do relationships, doesn’t do feelings, and absolutely doesn’t do love. She does one-night precision strikes where her eyes make you feel like the only person alive, then forgets your name by sunrise.
And I’ve just bet $600 I don’t have that I can rewrite her code.
Think, you colossal idiot. THINK.
But all I can see is Maya in those yoga shorts. That surgical wit that dissects me every time. The way she’s looked at me a few times, real heat in those dark eyes for one cardiac-arrest second, before she shuts it down. The way she smells, the way she laughs…
And, suddenly, I decide to go for it.
Why not?
I’m Maine fucking Hamilton, and it’s game on.