AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I grab a fistful of her hair and lean in close to her ear. “Oh, you were with me all the way, sweetheart.”
“Yeah, well, it was a mistake.”
“If it was, it’s one we’re going to repeat.”
She shakes herself loose from my grip and shoves me away.
“It was a mistake.” There’s more force in her tone now. “And so was what I did last night. You’ve got until the end of the day to tell Russ what really happened to his car, or I will.”
“Is that so? You don’t care about being a pariah at this school?”
“No.” She throws her hands in the air. “I really don’t.”
With that, she walks away. I’m tempted to go after her, drag her into the nearest empty room, and fuck her senseless, but I tamp down the urge. I don’t know where it’s coming from, this desire to claim her. It’s completely alien to me to want a girl this much. I need to get a grip on myself before I scare Willow away completely.
Grabbing my backpack from where I must have dropped it in the heat of the moment, I head for my history class. Professor Ames won’t give me a hard time for being late. She’s young and inexperienced and clearly ill at ease trying to control a bunch of rowdy freshmen.
I’m just about at the lecture hall when the Dean’s assistant, Mrs. Grayson, intercepts me. “The Dean would like to see you in his office.”
“I have class.”
“It can wait.”
She’s not the sort of person you argue with, so I follow the middle-aged harpie to the Dean’s office. It’s a big room with an enormous mahogany desk that he sits behind in his high-backed leather chair. He tries to convey an image of power but, in fact, he’s just the dean of a small private university in rural Virginia and not the godfather of some international crime syndicate. Coach Harrington is there, standing by the window. With his hands folded across his chest and a scowl on his face, I know this isn’t going to be good.
“Take a seat, Mr. Conley,” Thorpe says.
“Nah, I’m good.”
He purses his lips, but doesn’t press the issue. “As you’re aware, Coach Harrington’s car was vandalized last night.”
“Yeah, so?”
Thorpe glares at me. He hasn’t liked me from the moment I set foot on his precious campus. He’s not much of a sports fan and I get the impression he doesn’t like my family’s wealth either. That said, he’s perfectly happy to accept whatever donations my father wants to send to the university.
“So, we have footage from our security cameras showing what happened,” Harrington says, his anger palpable.
I try not to show my surprise. I hadn’t considered the possibility of being caught on camera. This is the perfect moment to demonstrate some contrition, to apologize and ask for leniency, but I don’t have it in me to beg.
“We know it was you who smashed the lights and windshield.” Thorpe doesn’t give me a chance to respond. “So you will pay Coach Harrington for the damage.”
“Okay, sure.”
“And you are hereby suspended for two weeks.”
“Two weeks?” It’s less than I expected.
“It would be a lot more,” Thorpe says, “but we appreciate the contribution your family makes to our fine institution.”
Of course he does.
“Okay, then.” I turn to leave, but Thorpe calls out to me.
“Conley, use the time wisely. If your GPA drops any lower, nothing will save you from being pulled from the team.”
I leave his office and head for the exit. My parents won’t be thrilled when they hear I’ve been suspended, but they won’t give me a hard time about it. There’s only so much shit they can give me from the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. They will insist I find a way to keep up my soccer training, but I’d have done that, anyway. Just as I get to the parking lot, Coach Harrington calls out to me. I stop and wait for him.
“That was really fucking stupid,” he says.
