But now... Now...
A cold sweat leaked down the center of my back. I didn’t hear a word of the discussion going on around me. I could only stare in bleak doom at that closed black briefcase.
As soon as she dismissed class an hour and a half later, I shot out of my seat, determined to rectify this. Darting past other students to catch her before she left, I found her still at her desk. She’d barely re-opened her case to set her notes inside when I reached her.
“Dr. Kavanagh?” Totally out of breath, my voice caused her to start. She looked up, and I held out my hand impatiently. “I just remembered something I forgot to put on that paper. Can I have it back?”
With a lift of her eyebrows, she taunted, “I don’t know. Can you?”
I barely refrained from rolling my eyes. The woman unknowingly had the power to crush me into nothing sitting innocuously in her briefcase, and she wanted to stand around, correcting my fucking grammar? It figured.
“May I?” I ground out obligingly. I’d play her way as long as I got that paper back.
“I’m sorry, but no.” Sending me a tight smile, she slapped her briefcase closed, the sound echoing through my chest and tightening my muscles with dread.
No? What did she mean by no?
As she grasped the handle and pulled the case off her desk to leave the room, I dogged her steps. But she didn’t seem to notice, so I dodged around her to block the exit. “But I forgot to proofread it. Give me another few hours, and I’ll have it right back to you. I swear.”
She shook her head. “It’s too late, Mr. Gamble. I already gave you more opportunity to fix your grade than anyone else in the class. This is the last time I’ll accept anything for this assignment.” She began to walk around me.
“Then I’ll take the original D,” I burst out, beyond frantic. Shit, what was I saying? I couldn’t accept the original D. But that had to be better than her reading my paper.
Dr. Kavanagh slowed to a stop. When she lifted her face to arch that damn eyebrow of hers again, I caved, ready to get down on both knees, begging.
“I was angry, okay.” The rasp in my voice revealed my desperation, and I hated that. But I kept pleading, needing her to give up my paper more than I needed my next breath. “You dared me, and I responded out of some kind of knee-jerk reaction. I didn’t mean to write all that shit. So...” I held out my hand cautiously, as if approaching a cornered and wounded, wild animal. “Just let me redo it. One last time. Please.”
She gaped at me, her green eyes wide with shock. Glancing at my seeking palm, she said, “Now I really feel compelled to keep this essay, just to see what you’ve written.”
“Damn it,” I growled. “Give me back the fucking paper. It’s mine!”
Without thinking, I reached for her briefcase. She skipped away, jerking it out of my reach. “Mr. Gamble! What do you think you’re doing?”
Realizing what I’d just done, I pulled back, only to lift my trembling fingers to my mouth and pinch my lips together, keeping in the instinctive urge to apologize.
But, Jesus. What the hell was I thinking? To tackle her just outside a classroom while hundreds of students—witnesses—streamed past?
I shook my head and closed my eyes, pulling my scattered wits back in around me. Get it together, Gamble.
When I opened my lashes, she still stared at me with wide, wary eyes. A hint of fear stirred in those green depths, and I experienced a profound regret I couldn’t even name. I opened my mouth to apologize, but once again, I stopped myself.
“Whatever,” I murmured, sliding a step away.
It was just words. Words were nothing. If she tried to make something of this, I’d just shrug it off and say I’d made it up. Only sticks and stones could break me, right? I’d make her meaningless response to my words slide right off my back.
Except an innate fear had already soaked in. I spun away before I could embarrass myself further.
But holy shit, this was probably going to break me. Not only had I given her the power to crush my spirit on a personal level, but I’d also handed her a very valid reason to get me kicked out of her university permanently.
***
“You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view... Until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it.” - Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird
***
~ASPEN~
I messed up. I opened Noel Gamble’s essay at work and read it in my office.
I just couldn’t help myself. The way he’d confronted me to get it back, to keep me from seeing what he’d written, had gotten me curious and left me a little too shaken. For the briefest moment, I had thought he was going to wrestle me down in order to retrieve it. He’d looked desperate enough.
Then his face had cleared, and he’d seemed so shocked and appalled by his actions, I’d been worried he was going to burst into tears. What was worse, if he had, I would’ve done something equally horrifying, like hug him. Or give him his paper back.
Thank God I’d done neither.
Because once I started reading his essay, I couldn’t stop. It was like witnessing a fatal car accident, watching his awful life unfold, one tear-jerking sentence at a time.
My chest ached as I finished the last line of the essay. Damn it. Noel Gamble wasn’t supposed to be like this. He wasn’t supposed to have such a tough childhood, or possess redeemable qualities, or make me feel any kind of compassion for him. He wasn’t supposed to reach into my soul and get a handhold of my heart or squeeze these feelings out of me, exactly as he’d just done. No one should be able to do that in eight double-spaced pages. But he had.
My cheeks were still wet from the tears that had fallen. From reading his stupid, amazing, well-written paper.
It’s possible he could’ve lied. He could’ve made everything up just to get the work done. But from the way he’d reacted after class earlier, I knew he hadn’t. These were his true thoughts. His true feelings. His true actions.
He’d broken rules, done things I normally would’ve been appalled about, but he’d done it for the noblest, sweetest, most amazing reason. His desperate love for his siblings had given him the determination to get where he was today.
I shivered, hugging his essay to my chest as the last of my tears dried on my face. If only someone had loved me the way he loved his brothers and sister.
Well, one thing was certain. Noel Gamble had achieved the impossible; he’d managed to completely revise my point of view of him.
Oh, hell.
CHAPTER SEVEN
"Your emotions are the slaves to your thoughts, and you are the slave to your emotions.” - Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love
~NOEL~
“So, what do you think I should do?”
Groaning, I closed my eyes and let the back of my head clunk against the weight lifting bench underneath me. Above me, the bar I’d just bench-pressed rested solidly in the chrome uprights.
“I don’t know, Caroline.” It was too early for this. I’d worked late last night, and I had ladies’ night to look forward to again this evening with still only four of us to man the entire bar. “How bad’s the bruise?”
“What do you mean, how bad is it?” My sister’s voice screeched through the phone. “It’s a freaking bruise...around his eye. You know that little thug gang of bullies gave it to him.”
I blew out an exhausted breath. We really needed a fifth bartender at Forbidden. Immediately. I loved the money working overtime brought, but this was going to kill me. “Yeah, probably,” I said halfheartedly, only to yawn.
“Oh, my God,” Caroline chastised. “Don’t pretend to care about us or anything. Our middle brother’s getting jumped by a gang. But poor Noel is tired so—”
“Christ!” I sat up, scowling across the training room as I cut my sister off. “I’m sorry if I’m not completely with it. I’ve been working my ass off to help support you, you know. Which reminds me, did you get the last check I
sent on Monday?” Or had our mother intercepted it again and bought more drugs?
“Yeah, it arrived yesterday, but that doesn’t help—”
“What do you expect me to do? Drive twelve hours to come home to kick the little punks’ asses? I don’t even own a car.”
“I wanted you to talk to him.”
“Fine.” I rubbed my aching temples. “Put him on the phone.”
“He’s sleeping right now.”
With a sigh, I closed my eyes. “Okay, then. I’ll call later today after classes and before I head into work. Now, what about Colt? Is he still feeling better?”
His fever had persisted for a few days after his episode with strep throat. Caroline had called me in tears on Saturday, just before my scrimmage game, to wonder if he’d ever get better again, but then yesterday, she’d finally reported he’d returned to school.
“Oh, he’s fine. You can’t even tell he was ever sick. I’m not sure why I was so worried.”
I smiled fondly. “Because you’re a born worrier. You’re probably worrying as we speak about that dance you have this weekend.”
“Am not,” she argued, but I could hear the grin in her voice.
I chuckled, only to fall sober as I asked, “Mom ever come home?”
It was a question I rarely bothered to voice any longer, but my sister seemed more stressed than usual. She needed some relief. And horrible parent that our mother was, her presence had to be better than nothing.
“She dropped in for a few hours on Tuesday night. Ate half the groceries in the fridge, then took a shower, and was gone again.”
I rolled my eyes. “Sounds about right.” At least she hadn’t brought some loser in with her to harass my siblings this time.
When a sigh came through the other end of the line, I felt the urge to make Caroline smile. She didn’t smile enough anymore. I could tell by listening to the sound of her voice.
“So, you got that new dress for the dance yet?” I asked, totally not caring about dresses, but loving my sister unconditionally.
“Yeah. My friends and I went shopping after school on Tuesday.”
I nodded. “What color is it?” When a right tackle on the butterfly press a couple feet away paused to send me an odd look for asking that question, I flipped him off. He could think whatever he wanted about me. I knew talking about dresses would cheer Caroline up.
And it seemed to. “Blue,” she answered, her voice brightening noticeably. “Well, teal, technically.”
I didn’t have a clue what color teal was, but that didn’t matter. Caroline kept rambling, describing its length and type of cloth and amount of ruffles.
“Sander even came over last night so he could see it and find a corsage to match.”
My eyebrows lifted. “He came over, huh?”
“Oh, my God. Nothing happened. I swear, you are the most overprotective brother ever. Colton was here the entire time. And he followed Sander around everywhere he went.”
“Just Colt? Where was Brandt?”
“I told you, he was out getting beaten up by that freaking gang.”
“Oh, right. I forgot.” Wondering what exactly I was going to say to Brandt to help him stay out of trouble, I yawned again. Damn, I needed more sleep. My brain had gone fuzzy. Closing my eyes, I envisioned my mattress at the apartment and wondered how long it would be before I could rest my head on my pillow again, curl up under the sheets, and just—
Unbidden, an image of my English professor popped into the scene. Her hair was all plucked up in its bun and her baggie blazer was tossed crumbled to the foot of my bed. When soft, phantom hands slid up my bare chest, I jumped and snapped my eyes open.
Jesus, it’d definitely been too long since I’d gotten laid.
Still sweaty and shirtless, lifting weights in the university’s training room, I noticed Quinn Hamilton approaching, probably wanting more throwing tips. I gave an internal sigh.
“I gotta go, Care. But I’ll check in with Brandt later today, find out what’s going on with him. Okay?”
She grumbled something I didn’t catch but finally consented and told me she loved me before hanging up.
The next half hour passed with more grueling exercise, running through different plays and scenarios with Hamilton, teaching him how to be a better player than I was. God, I hoped he didn’t turn out to be better than me. All this wasn’t worth it if I ended up losing my spot on the team and not even garnering the attention of NFL scouts.
Some days, I just wanted to give up, and sleep in, or skip work, or just totally blow off weight training and not even attend classes. But I had a sinking feeling that slipping, even once, would come back to haunt me. So I kept plowing forward with everything I had, hoping it would all come out okay.
But, God, I was so tired. Felt like there was a fifty-pound weight on my chest. If I could just unload all my crap onto someone else, talk to someone...
Caroline had me to listen to her problems, but I told no one about all my worries and concerns. Not even Ten. He had no idea what my life was like outside Ellamore.
Still half out of it after my sleepless night, I tromped to class. I was so far gone, I’d completely forgotten about my dreaded make-up assignment I’d turned in to Kavanagh on Tuesday. I didn’t think a thing of it as I entered the room on autopilot...until she called my name.
Damn, but her voice always did something to me.
I paused, my foot lifted to step up the first set of stairs to head toward the back of the class where I saw Ten lounging. Turning my gaze, I glanced her way, but she wasn’t looking at me. With her attention on a paper she was examining on her desk, she reached over and lifted another stapled pile off the top of her briefcase and held it out for me to come fetch.
My stomach dropped into my knees. Shit. She’d already read it?
I froze, unable to move an inch. She continued to read over the sheet on her desk for another ten seconds before she finally lifted her face and arched me a dry look. As she wiggled my paper in an invitation to come take it, I just stared at her, my entire life flashing before my eyes.
She’d read my paper, and now she knew. And, huh, I guess I’d unloaded all my problems on someone after all, hadn’t I? Shit, why did it have to be her? I studied her face cautiously, fearing the worst. But she gave away nothing except a half-annoyed expression because I wasn’t moving.
She just had to be one of those people who had a freaking good poker face, didn’t she? I couldn’t decipher a single thing she was thinking.
More concerned with what she must think of me now than I was worried about my actual grade, I took a step toward her, only to pause. God, I didn’t want to take it back. It had to be littered with red, telling me exactly what she was going to do with all her newfound knowledge about me.
Lowering my gaze to my paper in her raised hand, I strode the last few steps and slipped it free, only to roll it into a tube so I couldn’t see the score or all her comments in the margins.
My heart banged in my chest as I walked sightlessly to my desk. She’d read it. She knew. So what the hell did she think of me now? And what was she going to do about everything she’d learned?
“What’d you get?” Ten demanded as soon as I sat down. I glanced at him but I didn’t see him. Fear and anxiety completely fuzzed my vision; I could only feel the loss of my paper when he ripped the essay out of my hand.
“Hey! Fucker.” I snagged it back before he could unroll it. “Hands off, asshole.”
“Well, what’re you waiting for? The grade fairy to come along and magically transform it into an A?”
I set my jaw and sent him a look. When he merely stared back, waiting, I sighed and rolled my eyes. Trying to act as if it wasn’t the end of the world, I slowly unrolled the pages, hoping to God he didn’t notice the slight tremor in my hand.
When I saw an A staring up at me, my mouth fell open. I blinked, thinking my eyes were still fucked up. But the A didn’t go away.
“Holy shit.?
??
“What?” Ten ripped it out of my hand again, but I was too shocked to yank it back. “Holy shit,” he echoed. His mouth fell open too as he lifted his eyebrows my way. Then he leaned in to grin. “And you said you didn’t fuck her, you freaking liar.”
“Excuse me?” Instantly irritated, I jerked the paper back and cradled it to my chest. “I earned this score, thank you very much.”
He lifted his hands. “Hey, I’m all for fixing your grade with a make-up paper. But from a D to an A?” He glanced around before leaning in closer. “Man, that’s suspicious. What’d you have to do to get it?”
“Nothing,” I growled, scowling at him hard. “I had to re-write the paper.”
Ten lifted his eyebrows in disbelief. “Really? That’s it?”
“Yes.” Eyes snapping, I glared him down until he lifted his hands again and backed off.
“Okay, man,” he said, but his expression crinkled with mirth as if he knew better. “If you say so...teacher’s pet.”
“I do, goddamn it.”
When Dr. Kavanagh stood up and started class, Ten turned around to face the front of the room, but I continued to glare at the back of his head. I wanted to keep arguing with him, telling him how much it had taken to earn this grade. I’d damn well earned it too.
But like him, I also found it impossible to believe.
At the front, my teacher acted as cool and collected as always, as if she didn’t know everything about me I kept hidden from this town. Though I tried to keep inconspicuous about it, I watched her, waiting for the moment she’d look my way and reveal what she really thought of me now and what she was going to do about my turpitudes. But for the entire hour, she didn’t even glance in my direction.
I didn’t want to admit it, but that kind of stung. I’d shared something personal with her, and it hadn’t even seemed to hit her radar. Nothing about her had changed. Gritting my teeth, I glanced at the top of my desk, disappointed she didn’t seem as completely altered as I felt.