AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Chapter 1
Benched.
It wasn’t the way I wanted my freshman football season to end at Covey U, but it was exactly how I found myself. I’d been taken off as the starting quarterback, and it was only now, as I sat in the library attempting to read a textbook, that I realized just how screwed I was.
Words jumbled together, and I couldn’t get my mind off all the implications of failing. If I didn’t get my grades up, then I wouldn’t play again, and then it would be goodbye Covey U. Goodbye NFL. Goodbye the life I had planned for myself.
Focus, Tanner.
I kept trying to hype myself up, but it was no use. I couldn’t read the words. Sighing, I tugged at my hair until I felt pain and crushed my eyes shut. Pain was good because it helped stop the words from jumping across the page, or jumbling together until they made no sense. I’d been staring at the same chapter in my textbook for the last thirty minutes. Or wait, maybe it’d only been four minutes. Who was keeping count? Either way, it was always the same with me when it came to classes.
I was a dunce, and I’d just never get it.
Keeping my eyes closed, I focused on the pain radiating from my temples to my eyeballs. When it got to where I could feel my hair being pulled out, I opened my eyes, and widened them, hoping that did something. Looking back down at the passage in my textbook, I tried to read it one more time.
Why is that music so loud?
When I looked around to find the person trying to blast their ears off with rock music, I couldn’t find them. Fine. I must have been hearing things, so I focused back on my textbook. But then, someone sniffled so loudly that I almost felt the snot going back up their nose, which made a shiver run down to my toes.
Then someone’s chair squeaked.
A girl giggled.
Why the fuck was everyone being so noisy today?
I relaxed into my chair, willing myself to concentrate, but when I dropped my hands, I found clumps of my long, blonde hair in them.
“Great,” I whispered, laughing bitterly to myself as I shook my head in disappointment. I’d spent years growing it out because it had been my good luck charm throughout high school, and now I was ruining that too. Not that it was helping me right now.
Could things get any worse?
Of course they could.
That was when I heard footsteps shuffling in my direction, and I just knew they were for me. Word got out that I studied here, and it seemed like people were unable to contain themselves. I ground my teeth together because if it wasanotherdude asking me about football, I might just shove the one I carry in my bag down his throat.
Don’t get me wrong, when I wasn’t trying to study in the library, I liked talking to other students about the game. Hell, I even took part in that stupid dating event, The Draft, when I got here and I spent four hours there, just talking to people. However, things changed drastically when I got benched. Mainly because that was all anyone wanted to talk about. They’d try to hide it at first by asking me about the team and our strategy, but once they thought they’d gained enough of my trust, they’d wheedle in a question about my benching.
Like I wanted to talk about that with anyone other than Coach and my teachers. Because what was worse than being benched for failing Sports Marketing? Everyoneknowingyou’d been benched for failing Sports Marketing. It was like someone had written the word ‘dumbass’ on my forehead with a permanent black sharpie because I couldn’t even get through the most basic of courses here.
They’d always give me that fake sympathetic look too, as though they thought I didn’t realize I was only here because I could lead Covey U to the National Championships. Only problem - I wasn’t exactly leading anyone on the bench, and that had become one of the hottest topics of conversation within the school.
Are you as good as everyone says? Were you worth benching Aiden Matthews for? Do you think you’re going to be a first-round draft pick like Chally Sports said?
All questions that I’d been asked floated in my mind, like a taunt because the answers to all of them were a big, fat, ‘No.’ Clearly, I wasn’t, because this school wanted brains and brawn. Something I didn’t have. I wasn’t smart, like my roommates, Matty and Adam. And I didn’t have the money to pay off my professors like Aiden. I was just here, on a scholarship, trying my hardest to play a game I’d loved since I was five.
“Um, excuse me.”
Fuck.
As if my mood couldn’t get any worse today, it did because it wasn’t a dude bro coming to ask me humiliating questions; it was way worse. A jersey chaser. Her voice reeked of desperation, and she’d only said a sentence. “Are you Tanner Joyce?” Her voice was high with just enough raspiness in it that it sounded like she’d swallowed ten gallons of salt… Not a euphemism.
“I’m Rachel, your new tutor.” I hadn’t looked up yet, but her hand was squarely in my vision, and I could already tell that she dressed up for the occasion. “It’s nice to meet you.”
Why did they all raise their voices five octaves when they talked to me? Did they think that kind of thing would make my dick hard? It didn’t. In fact, it usually had the exact opposite effect, sending my balls shrivelling to safety.
When I finally dragged my chin up to look, I had to stop myself from rolling my eyes because I knew it. Perfectly styled, long blonde hair with lips that looked as artificially plumped as her chest. She tried to hide her smirk, but I was trained to read faces, and I knew exactly what she was thinking. She thought I wanted her. I could see it because her ego was the size of California.
Dropping her hand, she said, “We could always start with biology.” Her tongue flicked out as she emphasized the last word, and her hips swayed gently. Then her eyes dropped to the table, right where my crotch would be if the wood wasn’t covering it. What exactly was she planning? A show and tell? Because I didn’t have a problem with biology. I knew exactly how things functioned.
