Change My Game: An Emotional Second Chance Romance (North Haven University Book 2)

by Kelsey Clayton

  I walk up to the receptionist desk and smirk as the young secretary does a double take. Her eyes widen, and she licks her lips just enough to get my attention. I give her my best smile, making her melt right where she sits.

  “Jace London.”

  “Hannah Bailey,” she responds with a flirty grin.

  I cock a brow and glance over at her computer. “You’re cute, babe, but I was telling you my name so you could check me in.”

  Her cheeks turn bright red as she realizes her mistake. “Right. I’m sorry.”

  She focuses on the screen for a minute before grabbing a clipboard and handing it to me. I can faintly hear the sound of her instructing me on how to fill it out, but I can’t be bothered to listen. These forms aren’t brain surgery. I grab the pen and walk away while she’s still speaking.

  It takes a little less than ten minutes before I’m done and handing her back the clipboard. The corners of her mouth raise as she tells me to take a seat and that Dr. Litman will be with me in a moment.

  If I wasn’t in such a pissed-off mood, and itching for a pill or three, I’d probably spend the wait flirting with her. She’s not exactly drop-dead gorgeous, but I’ve slept with worse than her. But I’m just not in the right frame of mind to entertain some chick who thinks that you need conversation and feelings before jumping into bed together.

  Whatever happened to just a good time? There’s nothing wrong with some no-strings-attached sex. Hell, you’d think with the trust issues all these women have that they’d be fully on board. You stay guarded and unharmed while still being able to get off. What’s so bad about that?

  Then again, it’s not like I’ve been able to sleep with anyone lately. I just can’t get into it enough to make the effort. Not since everything went down.

  “Mr. London?” a female voice calls.

  I look up from my lap to see a woman standing in the doorway. She looks no older than mid-thirties. Her black hair compliments her olive skin tone, and if cougars were a thing for me, I might have taken my shot with her. She smiles warmly at me, but I just raise my brows in return.

  “Are you ready?”

  Standing, I roll my eyes. “No, but I guess I don’t have much of a choice.”

  The two of us go into her office, and she shuts the door behind us. Even this room looks like Doc’s got some major OCD. The books on the shelves are all color coordinated, and the little knickknacks are perfectly spaced. A part of me wants to fuck with it all, just to see if I could get a reaction out of her, but I don’t. Instead, I take a seat on the couch and chuckle at how cliché this all is.

  “It’s nice to meet you Jace,” she tells me. “I’m Dr. Litman.”

  “So I’ve heard.”

  I don’t mean for my tone to be so cold, but I’m not about to apologize for it either. Unfortunately, she seems unfazed by my disdain.

  Dr. Litman sits down on the chair across from me and grabs her notebook. Without looking up from where her pen slides across the page, she starts evaluating me like some kind of lab rat.

  “Tell me about yourself, Jace,” she says.

  My brows furrow. “Like what?”

  “Anything you want. Your hobbies. Your dreams. What you had for breakfast. I just want to know a little about you.”

  The last thing I want to do is tell this woman anything meaningful, so instead, I decide to have a little fun with this. “My hobbies are my ant-farm and feeding my pet aardvark, Marcel. I dream of marrying him one day. He’s a truly good lover, and I can’t believe animal-human relationships aren’t accepted yet. Oh, and I had a bowl of kittens for breakfast.”

  That seems to make her finally look up from her notebook. “You’re mocking me. Your father told me you might do that.”

  “Did he now?” Figures.

  “He did,” she confirms. “He called me yesterday to warn me that you’re a little less than thrilled at the idea of therapy.”

  Because that’s not the understatement of the century. “I just don’t think you can help me. That’s all.”

  She tilts her head slightly to the side. “You don’t think you’re capable of healing?”

  No. “People heal in different ways, doc. Not everyone needs someone with a PhD to tell them how to do it.”

  “Maybe so, but has anything else you’ve tried lately worked?”

  The pills sitting in my car right now pop into my mind, and I instantly become more on edge than I was before, if that’s even possible. I stand up from the couch and start pacing the room, taking in everything while she watches me.

  “I’m not saying I have some magical cure for life, Jace,” she tells me as my eyes rake over the multiple framed degrees on the wall. “I can’t take away your pain. What I can do, however, is provide you with the resources and the support to rid yourself of it on your own.”

  It sounds like she’s reading straight from a textbook. Psychology 101. Besides, I know someone who can give me the resources I need to take away the pain. His name is Rinaldo, and he seems to be the only person who isn’t trying to keep me from the one thing that helps.

  My gaze lands on a plaque sitting on the desk.

  Dr. C. Litman.

  I can’t help but smirk when I see it. “Your parents actually named you Clitman?”

  She tries to remain neutral, but I can see the faint hint of a scowl. Jackpot. “It’s Dr. Litman. The c stands for Cassidy.”

  “Oh, come on. They had to know naming you anything with a C would officially make your last name go from Litman to Clitman.”

  It’s clear that everything I’m saying is getting to her as she balls her fist. “We’re not here to talk about my name or my parents. We’re here to talk about you.”

  Yeah, I’d rather not. I turn and lean back against her desk, crossing my arms over my chest. “You know, I’m a bit of a clit man myself.”

  “Jace.”

  Biting my lip, I smile. “I say we spend the next hour doing something a little more fun than wasting our time talking about things that don’t matter.”

  She places the notebook on the coffee table in front of her and stands. Her heels tap against the floor as she walks toward me. For a second, I think my distraction tactics may work. I mean, she’s not exactly my type, but if it means not having to talk about my feelings, I’ll suck it up.

  Unfortunately, when she’s only a few inches from me, she reaches for something on the desk and presses it against my chest. It’s a picture frame. I grab it and pull it away, only to see a wedding photo of her and another woman.

  “You’re a lesbian,” I murmur.

  Of fucking course. Carter made sure she was hot, but my dad knows me better than to send me to a therapist I could seduce. Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if being gay was a requirement for him.

  “And happily married,” she confirms. “Now, if you think you’re the first guy to come in here and think he can distract me with blue eyes and a pretty-boy smile, you’re mistaken. I’ve been doing this long enough to know all the tricks. So, you can try them, but it’s not going to work. Your parents care enough about you to get you the help you need. Now maybe you might be willing to let them down by not trying, but I’m not.”

  Dr. Litman walks over to the door and knocks on it twice before focusing back on me.

  “I’m not sure what it is, but something traumatic has happened to you, and it’s eating you from the inside out. I’d like to stop it before it kills you, but I can’t do that alone.”

  The secretary from earlier peeks her head into the door, and once again, she blushes as soon as she sees me. Her boss, however, isn’t amused.

  “Hannah, schedule Mr. London’s next four appointments, please,” she instructs firmly. “His father paid in advance.”

  Fuck my life. “And if I don’t show?”

  Dr. Litman barely even acknowledges me before walking around and sitting at her desk. “That’s between you and him.”

  WAKING UP THIS MORNING, I thought that the whole therapist thing
would be a one and done appointment. Apparently, I was wrong. So very fucking wrong. This one might have been cut short due to me pissing off the doctor in a record-breaking fifteen minutes, but that doesn’t mean I’ll get myself off the hook for the next. This woman clearly has no intentions of letting me get away with anything.

  I slam my car door shut and push past the crowd of people hanging around in front of my dorm building. Ignoring all the assholes who try to get my attention, all because I drive a fancy car and have access to money, I make my way inside and up the stairs until I reach my door.

  To my surprise, as I step inside, I find Carter sitting with none other than my little brother, Brax. They’re laughing together and talking. My presence doesn’t even get their attention until I shut the door louder than necessary. That causes both of them to look in my direction.

  “I take it that didn’t go well?” Carter asks.

  I huff. “That’s one way to put it.”

  “Was she at least hot? Please tell me she was hot,” Brax begs. “I’ve got a doctor fantasy I’ve been looking to fulfill.”

  Carter lightly smacks him on the back of the head. Brax whines as he rubs it but doesn’t dare to fight back. Carter has known Brax since he was a toddler. He has just as much of a right to knock some sense into him as I do.

  I walk around the couch and plop down with as little grace as possible. “She was, but she likes pussy just as much as you do.”

  My brother’s eyes widen. “A lesbian? Do you think she’d be interested in a threesome? I mean, I could knock two things off my fuck-it list in one go!”

  “You know, something tells me even if she was, it wouldn’t be with some pre-pubescent, seventeen-year-old boy with a “fuck-it list,” Brax,” Carter snaps back.

  Brax jumps up from the couch. “Pre-pubescent, my ass.” Reaching into his pants, he literally rips out more pubes than I ever needed to know he has and throws them at Carter. “Suck my dick, Trayland.”

  I can’t help but laugh as Carter scrambles off the other side of the couch to escape the gross onslaught of Brax’s pubic hair. Honestly, I’m not even sure how he managed to pull them out without flinching.

  “What the hell are you even doing here, dude?” I ask him.

  He looks over at me and shrugs. “It’s a Friday night. I want to go to a college party.”

  “Absolutely not.”

  “What?”

  I shake my head. “No way in hell am I bringing you to a party. You’re seventeen.”

  Brax snorts like I just said the world’s stupidest joke. “Like you didn’t throw a million parties when you were seventeen. Don’t be such a damn hypocrite.”

  He has a point. In high school, I was constantly throwing parties. Being as our parents were rarely ever home, too busy traveling the world to be raising their kids, our place made the perfect party house. And if I wasn’t throwing one, I was going to one. But that’s not why I don’t want him to come.

  It’s bad enough that I constantly have Carter watching me like a hawk. I really don’t need Brax doing it, too. Rinaldo will be at the party tonight, and I have to be able to sneak away for a second to refill.

  “I don’t give a fuck what I used to do,” I growl. “You won’t be going to any parties at NHU. Not if I have anything to say about it.”

  Brax takes out his phone and groans as he types. “Damn. I thought with Paige back in town you’d be in a better mood.”

  The sheer mention of her name has my entire body tensing. “She’s what?”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I can see Carter motioning for Brax to shut the fuck up, but he doesn’t.

  “Her cousin is in my biology class, and she said Paige is living back with her parents,” he says, as if it’s not throwing yet another stick of dynamite into my mess of a life. “I thought you knew.”

  My upper lip curls in disgust. Paige McAllister is the last person I expected to come back to North Haven after just a year of university, and the last person I want anywhere near me. If she knows what’s good for her, she’ll stay far as fuck away from me.

  I lean my head back against the couch and try to remember how to stay calm. “I’ll make you a deal, Brax. You can come tonight, but you have to promise never to mention that bitch’s name to me ever again.”

  Have you ever been doing something, but it's as if you're not actually there? It's like the whole world is moving around you, and you're moving too, but your mind is somewhere else. That's how I feel as I walk through campus with Charlotte. I can hear her talking, but nothing that comes out of her mouth is actually registering. Instead, I'm too focused on my lunch with Carter.

  It went well, I guess. The restaurant was nice, and a part of me was really glad to see him again. However, that doesn't mean my stomach didn't churn at having to talk about Jace. He's a topic that I've done my best to avoid for the better part of two years—since I came to terms with the harsh reality that I'll never mean as much to him as he did to me.

  Carter wouldn't say exactly what's wrong with Jace. Apparently, it's not his business to tell, and I can respect the way he refuses to betray his best friend's trust. But I can tell by the look in his eyes when he talks about him that there is something seriously wrong. Carter is genuinely scared, and that alone is worrisome to me. Though I still don't know what I can do about it.

  Jace and I haven't talked in over a year and a half. Granted, it's entirely my fault. I am the one who cut him out, but I had to. His claws were in too deep. At the time, it was the best decision for me. Now, however, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't completely rethinking that.

  It's not that I'm not worried about him, especially with the way Carter was talking. I'd be stupid not to be. After all, we were friends for almost a decade before we went our separate ways. But that doesn't make knowing I might have to talk to him any easier.

  Charlotte smiles down at her phone, and, judging by the mysterious glint in her eyes, I'm not going to like the cause. After spending the last two hours in a lecture about a million things I could have gone my whole life without knowing, I need a damn nap. We're just getting to our cars when she stops me.

  "So, I hear there is this massive party tonight at Casa Bronsyn-Donovan. You should come."

  The names are ones I'm used to. Zayn Bronsyn and Easton Donovan used to go to the high school that was across the street from my private one. To be honest, the only reason I know that is because my friend Delaney, much to Carter's dismay, ended up with their best friend Knox. Apparently, though, they've made quite a name for themselves here for throwing the best and biggest parties.

  It's tempting, and a part of me wants to tell her I'm in, but there's that small voice in the back of my head. My dad's voice. A reminder of exactly where I'm needed. This weekend needs to consist of him and my school work, just like all the others.

  I give her my best sad smile. "I would, but I don't think I can make it."

  She clearly isn't surprised by the response, but she sighs. "Paige, you can't keep being such a homebody. You've got to get out more. Parties are fun."

  I'm well aware of that. Hell, in high school and all throughout my freshman year of college, there weren't many parties I wasn't at. The energy, the mood, the music…I lived for it. But times are different now. I don't get to put myself first. Not anymore.

  "I know, I know." I run my fingers through my hair in an attempt to make myself more comfortable. "Maybe next time."

  "Whatever you say, hun."

  She wraps her arms around me and hugs me tightly before the two of us go our separate ways.

  I'd be an idiot to think I can get away with no one knowing about my dad for much longer, but telling people isn't something I can handle right now. It makes it too real, like I'm speaking it into life. At least right now I can pretend everything is okay while I'm at school. For now.

  SITTING ON THE COUCH, listening to Friends play in the background, is definitely one of my comfort zones, and I have no intentions of leaving this spot any t
ime soon. Sure, maybe it's not the best way to spend a Friday night, but it's as good as I can manage. My dad is sleeping right now, but that doesn't mean he won't wake up at some point and need something. Mom needs a break. Lord knows she works her ass off making sure he has everything he needs.

  I'm scrolling through my literature notes when my phone vibrates and a text from Carter pops up on the top of the screen.

  Carter: It was really good seeing you today. I missed you, and I know Jace does too.

  I can't help but smile, because it really was nice to have lunch with him, but I think he has a few screws loose.

  Me: Pretty sure all those times you were tackled went to your head. That boy wouldn't come to my funeral if I died tomorrow.

  Harsh, perhaps, but I'd bet my life that it's the truth. When I stopped talking to him, it came out of left field, from his perspective. We had a heartfelt goodbye before the two of us went to different colleges all the way across the country, and we made a number of promises I never intended on keeping.

  It took a couple weeks for the phone calls to stop, and a few more for the text messages to die down as well. He even reached out to Becca a few times, but she always made up an excuse for me. Eventually, he got the point, and with one final message sent to my phone, he gave up.

  Jace: I can't believe you.

  It was hard, and there were times when I almost gave in and answered, but I knew I couldn't. Jace was always a player in school. He and Carter used to have competitions at parties on who could hook up with the most girls. I guess I could have been different, especially when he stopped looking at other girls when he and I started fooling around. But I always knew in the back of my head that he meant so much more to me than I meant to him. If he had ended it with me for someone in Florida, I would have been irreparably damaged. Not that there was even anything to end, really—we never even made anything official.