Page 136 of His Reckless Freshman

I feel sick, and it’s getting harder to hide as I sit downstairs with my basketball family and try to pretend that everything’s okay.

Jolie doesn’t want anyone to know—fair enough. It’s hardly news you want passed around. She’s sitting next to me on the couch, talking to Charli and forcing a brightness I can tell she’s not feeling.

Her voice might be light, but her body is tense. It’s taking everything for her to hold it together, and she’s gonna break soon. I should really take her out of this place. Maybe up to my room—nah, you’ll just start arguing over how to handle this again.

I really didn’t like that.

But if she brings it up, I won’t change my mind. She can’t go sneaking into his office. It’s too dangerous… plus all of the legal implications. She didn’t seem too happy about me saying that, but I really can’t give a shit. I won’t let her put herself in harm’s way.

So what are we supposed to do, then?

“Let’s get out of here.” Darian pops off the couch, throwing down the gaming controller. “I’m feeling a game of pool at Offside. Anyone in?”

“Yeah, sounds good, man.” Sawyer stands tall, then reaches down to tug Charli up as well. “It’s about time I whoop your ass again.”

“Shut up.” She shoves him with a laugh, then frowns when he doesn’t even budge.

He smirks at her and she scowls up at him, trying again to at least get the guy to shuffle his feet, but he’s taller and stronger. She may not like it, but it’s the truth. If he doesn’t want to be pushed around, he won’t be.

I’m just waiting for their standard play-fight tussling to ensue, but Darian cuts that shit off with a soft bark. “Not now. Let’s go.” He then looks down at me. “You guys comin’?”

I look at Jolie, seeing what she wants to do.

“You want to go?” she asks.

I nod. It’d be good to get out of this house, shake off our argument. A change of scenery is probably just what we need.

She smiles at me, her eyes softening, before her expression puckers. “I really suck at pool.”

“We don’t have to play.” I grin at her, tucking her hair behind her ear. “We could just watch or dance or… whatever.”

Her smile grows even wider, and she whispers a soft “Okay” before pecking my lips.

And the tension uncoils just a little. Not completely, but maybe we can forget about it for a bit. Maybe not thinking about this problem will help me come up with a solution. It’s amazing how that happens. It’s like switching off conscious thought flicks on a different part of your brain, and a solution starts brewing in the background.

Standing tall, I rest my hand on her lower back and trail her out of the house.

We end up piling into my ride because it’s got the most seats. I don’t know where Mac and Jimmy are tonight, so the five of us head out. It’s a good bunch. The three amigos are always happy, and the banter between them makes Jolie laugh too. By the time we get to Offside, I’m feeling even more relaxed.

We get to the table, order some drinks, and sit back to watch the bustle around us. There’s a football game on TV, and my eyes keep getting drawn to it. My family isn’t football crazy, but we still enjoy the sport. I wonder how our Cougars are going to do this year. Zander Donahue is QB again, and he had a pretty good season last year. He’s a senior now, and people keep saying he’ll get drafted for the NFL. He’s probably got a solid chance. So does Wily Wilson. It’ll be interesting to see what they achieve this year.

It’ll be interesting to see what we achieve with this new coach.

We had our first official game of the season on Monday night. The stands were sparsely filled—no big surprise there—although I swear there were more people than last season, and I thank Jolie’s article for that. She was sitting basically courtside—it’s not hard to get a good seat at one of our games—and she was decked out in my red-and-blue Cougars hoodie. She swims in that thing, but she loves it, and I loved glancing into the stands and seeing that splash of red. She sat with Charli, who was obviously explaining the game to her, and I threw everything into it.

We played pretty damn well and ended up losing by only three points.

Only three!

That’s triumphant when you’re playing a team that consistently ranks high in our conference every year. They ran onto the court thinking they’d demolish us, but we fought hard and had them stressing. It felt like a win. We celebrated like it was a win… and our new coach seemed fired up. He even told us he was proud of our performance.

So we’re heading into Friday night’s game feeling good. It’s another home game, which is nice. I’ll be traveling the week after and hope my girl will be okay while I’m gone.

Glancing at her, I brush my hand down the back of her hair. She’s swaying to the music while watching Charli play pool with Darian and Sawyer—who is now flirting it up with a girl at the table next to them. Charli frowns and pokes him in the back with her pool cue. I don’t know what she says, but it makes Sawyer laugh, and then he goes back to chatting up the girl with the massive rack, which she’s obviously very happy to show off if that low-cut top is anything to go by.

I focus back on my girl, watching her sweet face, worry eating at me as I take in the tension around her eyes. She’s thinking about scummy Kieran again, I can tell.

Shit, I don’t want to leave her when she’s going through this shit. Maybe I can convince her to come with me. I could pay for her flights. She could stay at a hotel near the college and… She’ll miss all her classes. You can’t expect her to do that, man.