Total pages in book: 78
Estimated words: 74103 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 371(@200wpm)___ 296(@250wpm)___ 247(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 74103 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 371(@200wpm)___ 296(@250wpm)___ 247(@300wpm)
“Good, getting ready for the game this weekend. You need to beat Blackthorn. This is a very important game, Son. I’ve spoken with your coach, and he said there are scouts coming. You need to win, show them why they should sign you.”
Every damn game is important to you.
“I know, Dad. We’ll win. We always do.”
“You better. This is your fucking chance to get into the NFL. You want to be a star player, boy? You want to make the big bucks doing what you love?”
What I love? Ha.
“Sure,” I say without thinking.
“Sure? Are you giving me an attitude? You ain’t too old for me to kick your ass.”
“Sorry, I was talking to someone else,” I lie, gritting my teeth.
“You better have been, I’ll drive down to North Woods and put you in your place, boy. You might be big, but the bigger they are, the harder they fall.”
I roll my eyes at the expression.
“Okay, Dad, I’ve got to go,” I say and hang up the phone before he can say goodbye.
Sometimes, I think he just calls because it’s a thing he should do, not because he actually cares. At least, not about me. He does care about football; he just doesn’t care about anything else. He never asks how I’m doing, or if I’m okay. Everything is about football.
In an even worse mood than before, I head to the library for my tutoring session. After the disaster from my first session, I make sure I get there ten minutes early today.
When I walk up to our session room’s closed door, I hear voices inside, letting me know she is already here but tutoring someone else. Leaning against the wall adjacent to the door, I wait for them to get done.
Just when I think I can’t get any more annoyed, I hear the other person–who is clearly a guy–say something to make Blair laugh so loud she snorts.
What the hell is so funny, and who snorts while they laugh?
Constantly checking my phone, I wait until it’s exactly five o’clock. As soon as I see the five and two zeros light up my screen, I open the door and walk into the room without knocking.
Blair jumps out of her chair, a loud, high-pitched scream ripping from her throat while the guy sitting next to her simply stares at me wide-eyed. He looks familiar too. I’ve seen him at parties before, Frank or Frankie, I think.
“I’m on time,” I announce. “You, out. It’s my turn.”
I motion for the guy to get up, and he does almost immediately. I’m not surprised. He’s at least a head shorter than me, and I’ve got about forty pounds of muscle on him. He’s not an athlete, I know that much, and we don’t run in the same circles, but he’s somewhat popular and definitely not a nerd. I watch him as he gets up and walks past me without a word, even though he looks as if he wants to say something.
When I turn my attention back to Blair, she is still standing with her hands clutched to her chest.
“You didn’t have to be so rude,” she finally says.
“Says the girl who dumped a drink on my head,” I quip and flop down on a chair.
“Great, you’re in a chipper mood today.” She takes the seat next to me, looking uncomfortable as hell.
I sigh. “I’m sorry, okay. I’m in a bad mood, and I shouldn’t take it out on you.”
“It’s okay.” She nods, pushing her glasses up her nose like she always does. “Did you bring your books this time?”
“I did.” I pull out all my schoolwork from my backpack and put it on the table between us. “You didn’t answer my texts last night. Did you not like my jokes?” I would never admit it, but I was a bit scorned by the fact that she never replied.
“They weren’t that funny.” She shrugs.
“Well, you have no sense of humor then. Because those jokes were hilarious.”
“You have my number for tutoring questions, not to be friends. Can we just go back to the way it was before, where we were simply ignoring each other?”
“Why can’t we be friends?”
“I just don’t want to be your friend, and let’s face it, you don’t want to be just friends anyway.”
“Ouch.” I’m just going to forget she said that.
“Let’s take a look at what you are working on.” She looks down at the books with a twinkle in her eyes, like a kid walking up to the tree on Christmas morning. Does she actually like to do this kind of shit?
She opens one of the books, and a smile tucks on her lips, then she sucks in an audible breath as if she is enjoying the smell of the pages.
I’m floored, I always thought nerds just do this stuff because they are good at it, or because they care so much about their grades that they are willing to sacrifice their social life. I never thought that they could actually enjoy studying—enjoy math! Or the smell of fucking books.