Copyright © 2016 by, Kristen Flowers
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the author. Reviewers may quote brief passages in reviews. This is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or business establishments, events or locals is coincidental.
By Kristen Flowers
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Table of Contents
Free Bonus Novel- Hayden, I Hate You
I snuck a gaze over at the large clock hanging on the back wall of the tutoring center. It was about a minute until 2 o’clock. I tapped the eraser of my pencil on the blank notebook page while Micah, my student, finished up a problem with a proud smile on his face.
“Got it!” he beamed, grinning as he pushed his paper toward me so I could check his work. I quickly skimmed over it and nodded.
“And right on time,” I muttered, stuffing the worksheet in his file after making a check mark next to the problem he just completed. He reached out and shook my hand, something that threw me for a loop since it was only our first session together. Then he quickly gathered his things before walking out the front door. I stared off after him and spaced out for a couple minutes before coming to and looking down at my schedule. There was a new name in my 3 o’clock spot.
It was a student named Landon Bryce. He was in his junior year of college, which meant he’d either be very motivated or incredibly difficult to work with. In my experience, the juniors rarely fell in the gray area between the two. I sighed and sat back to wait, but the minute hand on the clock seemed to move slower and slower. I hated sitting and waiting. Time always felt like it crawled at a snail’s pace. It was an eternity of boringness. The least I could do was talk to my co-worker and friend.
“Stella,” I said in loud whisper, head poking off the corner of the desk she sat at.
Stella looked up from her cell phone she was lazily reading and gave a nod to ask what I needed. She must have been bumming around until her next tutoring session also. It couldn’t hurt to ask the bubbly and boy crazy Stella knew who my newest student was.
“Do you know who my next student is?” I asked, pointing at my schedule. She clutched her phone and walked over to take a seat where Micah was and looked across at my schedule.
“You have a 3 o’clock? That’s new.”
“Yep.” I picked up the paper and double checked the name. “His name is Landon Bryce?”
Stella’s jaw dropped to the floor. She placed her phone down and leaned forward to snatch the paper right out of my hand, eyes honing in on Landon’s name before she looked back at me in complete disbelief.
“I. Can’t. Believe. It,” she said, slowly and with emphasis on each word.
“What?” I took the paper back and looked at his name as if I would suddenly be able to see the reason she reacted with such shock. Maybe he’d have some asterisk next to his name saying he was the nerdy-billionaire-prince of England or something equally as exciting.
Nope. Nothing.
Just—Landon Bryce.
I ran my thumb over the Bryce name before setting the paper back on the desk, upside down, and looking back up at Stella. I was beyond puzzled and my face looked the part.
“Well, for starters, I can’t believe you don’t know who Landon Bryce is,” she told me dryly.
“I take it I’m supposed to?”
“Obviously,” Stella muttered. She leaned forward and clasped her hands together on the desk, eyes darting around to make sure nobody was eavesdropping on our conversation. “He’s only the star running back of our football team!” Stella quickly placed a hand over her mouth and looked around again because, in her excitement, she’d spoken a bit too loudly.
I was unimpressed. I didn’t really care if this guy was anybody on the football team. All I cared about was him not being a pain in the ass to work with. But now knowing he was a jock, my hopes for that were quickly diminishing.
“I also can’t believe he’s actually coming in for tutoring.” She puckered her lips and tapped them with the tip of her index finger, eyes looking up at the ceiling. “You know, he has a reputation for coasting on his charm and ridiculous good looks so it’s weird he’ll be coming in to get help.”
I let out a heavy sigh. I would have much rather it be the nerdy-billionaire-prince of England. I already heard everything I needed to know—it wouldn’t be fun to have Landon Bryce as a tutee.
“Oh well,” I muttered, clearly disappointed.
“Oh well?” Stella giggled, eyes brightening. “Maybe you’ll get lucky and he’ll coast through tutoring instead,” Stella whispered, winking and biting her lower lip. It was pretty obvious she was under his spell, like I imagined many other young women at university were. It certainly didn’t help Stella was boy crazy to begin with.
I shrugged. “Not with me.”
I pulled my laptop closer and opened up the school directory, curiosity getting the best of me. I wanted to look him up. The last thing I wanted to deal with was a football player getting huffy because I didn’t recognize him. I wasn’t one to play into people’s ego trips, so I knew I was doing something unusual. But it was for my own peace of mind. It didn’t take long for his name to pop up, but his records were kept pretty private.
No real information that wasn’t football related was up on the school directory. What he did have was a link to his press and media page, hosted by the school’s website. I thought I was odd, most students didn’t have a personal press page. I grimaced. I was in for it. I could practically feel the bad news coursing through my veins. I clicked around a bit more, looking at some photos of him and skimming some articles. Finally, I opened up the contact info page on the tutoring center’s website. It was restricted but I had access.
“Worth a shot,” I said with a shrug as Stella egged me on. As the page loaded, I noticed the time. I gasped. “He’s going to be a no show, isn’t he?”
Stella’s eyebrows arched, “Guess he thinks it doesn’t matter. Guy always gets a free pass so why would he think this is any different?”
I could sense the words, “cut him a break,” on the tip of Stella’s tongue but she knew better than to actually utter them. They would really set me off. I was always a stickler for the rules.
“Maybe I should call him,” I said, pointing at the phone number on the screen. Stella agreed enthusiastically, but did so for all the wrong reasons. I picked up my phone and called. I was taken aback when the voice of an older man answered the phone, rather shortly, so it took me a few seconds to speak up.
“My name is Ivy and I’m with the tutoring center. This is the number I have on file to contact Landon Bryce, is he available?”
“What did he do now?” the man asked gruffly, clearly irritated.
“He hasn’t shown up to his tutoring appointment and the hour is nearly up. I was trying to get ahold of him. Being a no show would reflect poorly on him given his, uh, current academic standing.”
“Probation,” the man chuckled as if it were all a big joke. It was beyond obvious that he was pretty much done with anything related to Landon. The man’s attitude had already given away who he was. But if there was any doubt in my mind he cleared it up, “Graham Bryce here, his father.” There was a brief pause before I heard a loud metal slap that sounded a lot like someone smacking the roof of a car. It was so loud I flinched over the phone.
“I’ll take car
e of it.” He huffed.
The line went silent. He had been curt and I was pretty sure some of the man’s attitude rubbed off on his son. The more I learned about my new client the more of a nightmare situation it appeared to be. I pulled the phone away from my ear and stared at the screen in disbelief. Him being so rude to me was bad enough, but the fact that he was so involved in Landon’s life was unthinkable to me. Just how much did my newest student, the school’s football star, still rely on his daddy even as a grown man in college?
“Seems like your celebrity crush, Landon, is going to get in big trouble with daddy,” I quipped.
Stella gave me a blank stare before asking, “You spoke to Graham Bryce?”
I couldn’t resist the strong urge to roll my eyes. “You’re either stalking the guy or–“
“Ivy,” Stella interrupted, shaking her head, “Graham Bryce is one of the school’s biggest donors.” There was a long pause where the two of us stared at each other. “Are you really telling me you haven’t even noticed the name of the stadium?”
I opened my mouth, but said nothing. The truth was I had never been to the stadium. There had never been a reason for me to stop by and I couldn’t see that changing any time soon. Sports might as well have been on a different planet to me. I lowered the screen of my laptop. I pursed my lips and looked back up at the clock. Landon Bryce was officially a no show. To make matters worse, it was our very first meeting.
“I’ve never been to the stadium,” I finally told Stella nonchalantly. Stella sighed in exasperation and stalked off to her desk, making a remark about me being clueless and hopeless. I didn’t care one bit. My mother was absolutely right—universities were shifting their focus from academics to sports. It was awful. I didn’t understand why a university would place such an emphasis on sports and give special treatment to athletes when the university was supposed to be in charge of molding the next generation’s intelligent, young minds. It was completely unfair, to say the least.
Some called me snobby for not appreciating the athletic culture, but I preferred to think of it as having my priorities in place. I was told I had no school spirit, but I was always quick to reply, “I have plenty of school spirit in the area of academics.”
That was yet another reason people sometimes thought I was a bit of a nose-high-in-the-air kind of girl, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. I was quite humble. I just didn’t appreciate the shifting focus for the party scene rife with young women fawning over men for their athletic abilities rather than their intelligence.
I preferred to form bonds from study groups or dedicate my free time to making extra money, not that I had much free time to begin with. Between going to school part time, working, and taking care of my ill mother, my plate was kept full. Someone once claimed it was my mom who had brainwashed me into having disdain for the shift away from academics, but I begged to differ. Sure, my mom had pointed it out, but I was smart enough to form my own opinions on the matter.
The little incident with Graham and Landon did absolutely nothing to change my point of view.
I was pulled out of my thoughts when Stella tapped me on the shoulder. “My 3:30pm client just cancelled,” she chirped, showing me her cell phone screen.
What would have caused me stress was cause for celebration to Stella. She dropped down in the chair next to me and pulled the laptop toward her, opening it up fully and typing Landon’s name into a web search. She clicked on a photo that looked like a headshot, but had Haywood University’s emblem on the bottom right-hand corner.
“You can’t say he isn’t good looking,” she mused, leaning forward to rest her chin on her hand as she continued to stare at the photo. I didn’t want to engage in the conversation. Stella looked over at me and rolled her eyes, “You really are hopeless.” She clicked out of the photo and looked around before leaning in and whispering, “Just imagine tutoring Landon Bryce. Landon Bryce!” She bit her lower lip and giggled, cheeks turning pink. “Truth be told, I’d much rather him tutor me. I’m sure there are a few things I want that man to teach me.” She giggled again and covered her mouth.
My eyes rolled so far I thought I’d never see straight again, but I couldn’t help but smile at my friend’s giddy excitement.
There was no way this Landon Bryce would be THAT special.
The sun filtered through the wooden shutters, casting lines of light on the large and plush bed at the center of the room. My small snores filled the room. With a loud snort of my nose, I jerked awake and draped my arm on my forehead, shielding my eyes from the sunlight.
“Fuck…” I muttered as I tried to wipe away the sleep from my eyes. Mornings were never easy for guys like me. Between the girls, drinks, and partying; who has time for sleep?
I yawned and stretched out before flipping over to lie down on my stomach, two fingers fidgeting with the corner of my comforter. If it weren’t for the housekeeper my dad hired, the room and the entire house would have been a complete wreck.
My dad bought the house as a special gift to the football team, but it was no secret he didn’t want his son living in the dorms. The only stipulation to donating the house for the entire team was that I had to have a private room, and a master suite at that. Of course nobody objected, not when a free house was involved. It was a place filled to the brim with testosterone and a host of many, many drunken parties.
I rolled onto my back and shut my eyes. I wasn’t asleep, but I was daydreaming, at least until my phone rang so loud it hurt my head. I groaned and pushed a pillow over my face. I didn’t want to bother with the call, but I had to at least take a look at who it was. I reached for the phone without looking, blinked a few times, and squinted my eyes at the bright screen.
It was my father. I bolted upright and answered.
“It’s always something with you!” was the first thing he practically shouted at me. I opened my mouth to ask what happened now, but I wasn’t able to get a word in edgewise. “It’s not enough you can’t even manage to keep a 2.0 GPA to clear for football, now you miss your tutoring session! Your first session, at that! What’s your plan? Flunk out of school and not have a shot at any sort of professional sports career? Do you think you’re going to just live off my money forever?” He paused long enough to suck in more air that would to be used to hurl more complaints my way. “You need to get your shit together. You go to that tutoring center and figure out a way to make this up. I’ll be damned if I allow you to be kicked out. You’re already on probation. Probation! For fuck’s sake Landon. One more bad semester and you’re done.”
I heaved a loud sigh to make sure my dad heard it. I wasn’t in the mood to deal with this. Tutoring wasn’t even my idea, yet I was the one dealing with my father chewing me out for not showing up. I wished I hadn’t answered the phone. I would have still been peacefully lounging in bed. Instead I had to imagine my father red in the face as he spewed his fatherly warnings to me over the phone.
“Don’t worry, dad,” was all I came up with. Given that I didn’t care to calm him down beyond how it affected me, I didn’t put much effort into the conversation—just like I was used to doing in pretty much all aspects of my life. I noticed the shift this year and saw my grades slipping, but I wasn’t ready to admit my usual charms weren’t going to get me off the hook this time around.
"I don't understand Landon,” he said in a much calmer tone. One dramatic sigh from me had been all it took to soften him up, true to form. “We just want what is best for you and I think even you know college is an important part of the formula."
I groaned and threw my head back against my fluffy pillows, staring at the ceiling and wishing this year could be like all previous years of my college career. Keeping my minimum 2.0 GPA had never even crossed my mind as a problem. In fact, I hardly thought of academics at all. My focus was entirely on football and my sports crazed father did nothing to remedy the situation. All he ever did since the whole probation debacle started was issue empty threats, blow up mo
mentarily, and then go right back to sympathizing with me.
“College is an important part of the formula,” I echoed. It sounded as if I was agreeing with my father, but it was really just another one of my tricks. In reality, all I wanted was to smooth things over with him to end the call.
“Right-o! You know how proud of you we are, especially me, what with your accomplishments in football. But you’ve got to–“
“Stay the course,” I interrupted.
My dad was practically reciting things now and if I completed his sentences it really seemed like I was taking his words to heart. I wasn’t foolish enough to think I didn’t need to graduate from college to earn that degree, I just didn’t see why I had to work hard for it… or, really, work for it at all.
My future was in football so the degree was more of a formality for me. If I could see that, everyone should. So I couldn’t understand why my free pass was no longer working. I brought enough status to Haywood University with my stellar plays on the field to merit being able to coast through the academic portion of college.
Fourth Down and Dirty: A Bad Boy Sports Romance Page 1
