by Amber Heart
“There’s no reason why she should be,” he answered in a level tone.
Surprise flashed on Logan’s features. “I thought she was your new tutor.”
“She was,” he confirmed, still speaking in a level voice. “Coach assigned me to her yesterday. I told her to find someone else.”
Logan leaned against the bunk bed, seeming to relax. He shook his head with a sad smile. “I should have known.”
“Known what?”
“I got a call from Claire last night. A few calls actually.”
“About me?” Chase asked in surprise.
“Yeah. She was saying that you were hitting on her...saying that you said you didn’t get why I left her. That maybe she should go out with you instead.”
Chase shoved his chair back and stared at Logan. “I never said anything like that,” he said firmly. “I went in, found out that she was my tutor, told her to get me someone different, and left.” And he’d thought almost nonstop about how pretty she was. It made him feel twice as guilty now. Why the hell had he ever felt sorry for her? And why had she used him to try to make her ex jealous? “I barely spoke to her.” That part was true, at least.
Logan dropped down onto the bottom bunk and looked down at his hands. “I really should have known. That’s just how she is. And I know that.” He gave a bitter half laugh. “It’s still so damn easy for her to play me. I guess I still...I don’t know. I guess part of me still loves her.”
“Makes sense,” Chase said. “I felt like that about Maria for a long damn time.” It was only lately that he’d even thought of dating someone else. Really only after seeing Claire in person, but he wasn’t about to mention that. “It’ll take some time.”
“Yeah.” Logan leaned back, looking much more relaxed. He gave Chase a grin. “How about you forget the homework and come out with us? I’ll buy since I was a jerk.”
“Appreciate it, but I really can’t. I’ve gotta get this grade up.”
“I thought you said you were getting a different tutor.”
“I am, but--”
“So why strain your brain beforehand? Come on. Two dollar beer night and this place never checks i.d.”
Chase glanced back at his notes. They didn’t make any sense, which was a bad sign because he was the one who’d written them. He felt exhausted by the thought of trying to understand it on his own.
“You know what?” he said, smacking the book closed and standing up. “Let’s go.”
****
When Chase’s phone rang the next day he groaned. He reached out sluggishly and fumbled for the nightstand. The phone wasn’t there so he dug through the tangle that was his sheets instead.
He’d clearly forgotten to plug the phone into the charger last night, which wasn’t surprising. It had been nearly dawn before he’d stumbled back to the dorm. All he’d managed to do was take off his boots and his jeans before he’d fallen into the bed and into sleep. When he finally managed to find the phone, it had already rung three times. Three brain jangling times. He made a mental note to find a softer ringtone.
“Hello?” he rasped.
“Ooo, little brother sounds rough.”
He stretched and rubbed his face, trying to wake up. “It was a late night, Syd. Cut me a little slack.”
“Must have been good. It’s after 3.”
“Yeah, it...” Chase sat up so suddenly that his head spun. “Wait. What time did you say it is?”
“3:06 to be precise.”
“Oh shit.” He swung his legs out of bed and grabbed his jeans. “Can I call you back?”
“Hot date?”
“At three in the afternoon?”
“Hey, I don’t know your life. Who is she?”
“Nobody. Just my trig tutor.”
“This sounds interesting. Call me back when you’re done, okay?”
“Sure thing.” Chase disconnected the call, pulled a tee shirt over his head, and hopped toward the door as he yanked his shoes on.
He turned back only long enough to snag his notebook before he made a run for the student center. By the time he got there his stomach was churning, his head was pounding, and he was well aware that his sock was twisted inside his shoe. And he was 5 minutes late. He ducked into the cubicle the receptionist pointed out and sat down, catching his breath. He hoped his new tutor would take it easy on him. He'd be doing well to remember 2 + 2 today.
“Hello, Chase.”
He jerked his head up, stunned to see Claire walk into the room. She was wearing black jeans and grey tee shirt. Her hair was pulled back into a low ponytail. She looked great and it pissed him off that his first thought was how sexy she was.
“I'm sure you're surprised to see me,” she said. “I--”
“No, not really.” He hated feeling so manipulated, both by her and his own reactions to her.
Claire looked at him in surprise. “Did you talk to your coach?”
“No. I did talk to Logan, though.” He looked at her, waiting for her to come clean.
She frowned in confusion instead. “I’m sorry, but I don't have any idea what you're talking about.”
He scoffed. “Sure you don’t. You don’t have any idea what you told Logan about me. Don't you get it? This isn't a game to me. This is my career, this is my life! And you're lying about me just to get back at him? And to make it worse you think you can...what? Trap me here with you? Keep using me to make him jealous? Because I hate to break it to you, Claire, but I couldn’t be less interested in you.”
Claire stood up, her dark eyes flashing. “You know what? I have had enough of this!”
“Enough of what?” he asked, standing and facing her across the desk. “Being called out?”
“No, being lied about. You need to get your facts straight,” she hissed. “After you stomped out of here like a total jerk last time, I went and tried to get you traded away and I wasn't allowed! So don't flatter yourself, because I'd be thrilled if I never saw another football player in my entire life!”
“Why? Because Logan dumped you?”
She laughed. “Wrong again, genius. I dumped him. And you know what? I don't care what Coach Davis says, or how amazing your stats are. I'm done with you too.”
And with that, she turned and walked out. Chase shoved his hands through his hair and groaned. His head was pounding even more than before. He grabbed his notebook and headed back to the dorm, wanting nothing more than some headache medicine and quiet.
****
As he swallowed the pills and closed the curtains so that absolutely none of the hateful late afternoon sun could get into the room, he thought back to what Claire had said. For one thing, the fact that she knew his stats made him feel kind of good.
But more importantly, and as much as it bugged him, he didn't think that she was lying. Her voice, which she’d kept low to avoid drawing attention to their fight, had been absolutely sincere and she’d looked him directly in the eye when she spoke.
He dropped down onto the bed and sighed in relief as his body finally relaxed just a bit. His brain wouldn’t shut off though. Nothing about the situation made any sense.
Logan had no reason to lie to him, and Claire did. It was that simple. And if she really was manipulative, didn’t it make sense for her to be a good liar? So why did he want to call her and apologize for the tears he’d seen in her eyes as she walked out?
The door opened, throwing a shaft of light from the hallway fell right across his face. He groaned and threw his hand over his eyes.
“Close that!” he ordered gruffly, not peeking out from between his fingers till he heard the click of the door. “Oh. Hey, Ricky. I thought you were going out with Sarah.”
“Not at 4 in the afternoon. Are you still hungover? What kind of cowboy are you?” Ricky demanded.
“I’m not a cowboy,” Chase said from between clenched teeth.
“Obviously. You can’t even hold your liquor.”
“It wasn’t liquor.”
�
��That makes you even more pathetic.”
“I know.” He rolled cautiously over onto his stomach and looked across at his roommate. “Hey, I’ve got a weird question.”
Ricky sat down in his desk chair. “Okay.”
“Did you spend much time with Claire?”
“Claire?” Ricky asked in confusion. Then, with dawning comprehension, “Logan’s ex, Claire?”
“Yeah.”
“Not a whole lot. She came to the games, but I really only saw her at parties and stuff.”
“So she was a party girl?”
“I mean, that’s what Logan said.”
“What’d you think of her?”
“She must be good at hiding the crazy, because she always seemed really nice to me. Has Logan told you some of the stuff she pulled?”
“Yeah,” Chase said. “I guess. I mean, he’s talked to me about her. But I wanted someone else's opinion.”
“Why?”
“She’s my math tutor. Probably not anymore...but she was.” He cleared his throat. “I don’t know. She seemed...well, she didn’t seem anything like what Logan said.”
“And she’s hot.”
Chase shrugged and tried to sound casual. “You think so?”
Ricky laughed. “Are you always a shitty liar or is it the hangover?”
“Okay, yeah, she’s gorgeous. I’m bad at math, but I can see just fine. I was only curious because I never really saw them together. And I need to get this math grade up.” Not that she was going to help him now.
Ricky shrugged. “She usually stuck close by him and she was pretty quiet. Like I said, I thought she was nice. But why would Logan lie about her?”
Chase rolled onto his stomach. “I don’t know.” But he couldn’t stop himself from wondering.
Chapter 5
“So,” Chase said after practice the next day. His hangover had finally vanished, but his questions about Claire lingered. Especially given what Ricky had told him. “I gotta ask you something.” He knew that it wasn’t exactly his business, but he’d ended up in the middle of it anyway somehow and he felt like he deserved to know the truth.
“What is it?” Logan asked.
“You said that you broke up with Claire.”
“Yeah?” Logan stopped, looking hard at Chase. “Why?”
“Well...because she says that she broke up with you.” And I believe her. Try as he might, Chase couldn’t get her face out of his head. And Claire might be a lot of things, but he didn’t think Oscar winning actress was one of them, no matter how manipulative she was supposed to be.
Logan shrugged and looked across the field. “Sure. I mean, obviously that’s what she’d say. Who wants to admit that they got dumped?”
“Nobody,” Chase agreed. “At least, not at first. But it seems like a weird lie to keep up.”
“Did you miss the part where I told you that she’s crazy?”
“No...but why stay with her for so long if she’s nuts?” That was another thing that bugged him. He and Logan weren’t close, but he knew that the other guy didn’t take any shit. He couldn’t see him being manipulated by anyone, no matter how sexy that person was.
“I made a mistake,” Logan said, his voice growing cold. “You’re headed toward making one yourself.”
Chase felt his muscles grow tense, but he didn’t want the situation to escalate so he simply nodded. “Look, all I’m trying to do is pass math and stay on the team. I just don’t wanna be in the middle of the drama.”
“She put you in the middle of all the drama, not me.”
Except that Claire had never mentioned Logan. At least, not until Chase had thrown some accusations at her. Frowning, Chase ducked into the shower and then headed for Professor Porter’s class.
Once he was there, something happened that made him forget all about Logan. He even forgot all about Claire which had proven harder to do over the past few days.
“Take a seat,” the professor called. “We’re going to have a little quiz.”
His heart dropped down to the soles of his shoes.
****
Chase wasn’t even surprised when a text from Coach Davis came through about three hours after math class had ended. As a matter of fact, he’d skipped his other two classes and gone straight back to his room to wait for it.
There was no way that his coach wasn’t going to find out, even if the professor hadn’t called him to the front of the room for another talk. He’d seen the look in her eyes as he’d left the room. It had been a combination of pity and sternness. In other words, it didn’t bode well.
He opened the message. Maybe Coach Davis would just throw him off the team without meeting up with him at all. That way he could just pull the covers over his head and pretend that none of this was really happening.
“My office.”
Okay, apparently it wasn’t going to be that easy. Chase pushed himself up from his bed where he’d spent the last few hours and walked over to the office. He didn’t see the need to hurry to his execution, even though he knew that the coach would only be more pissed off to be kept waiting.
As he trudged, he contemplated. What else could he do with his life? He wracked his brain but absolutely nothing came to mind. His degree was in general studies, for God’s sake. What was he supposed to do with that?
Football was pretty much the only thing he was good at. Innately, instinctively good. And now he was going to lose it all because of...his thoughts stumbled to a halt and his shoulders slumped.
There was no point in trying to lie to himself on top of everything else. It wasn't anyone else's fault. He should have called Sydney the minute he knew he wasn't getting trig. He shouldn't have taken his anger out on Claire, or let himself be caught up in Logan’s issues with her. As much as it sucked, all of his problems were pretty much his own fault.
Chase squared his shoulders and walked into Coach Davis's office. At least he could go out like a man. The coach looked up at him and then leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms over his chest.
“We seem to be having some sort of failure to communicate, Franklin.”
Chase stopped just inside the door, shifting from one foot to the other, getting a little more nervous. The coach hadn't even asked him to sit. Was he planning to make his dismissal that fast? Now that he was here, Chase wanted an opportunity to explain himself, to fight for one more chance.
“No,” he said. “I got what you were saying--”
“You just didn’t do it? You haven't seen your tutor since the first day!”
Chase nodded when the coach paused, but he knew that the coach wasn’t done. He was proven right by Davis’s next spurt of speech. He didn’t say much, but when he did it had the rapidity of a machine gun burst, and it was just as pleasant.
“Care to explain why? Why the best damn wide receiver I’ve ever seen at this level of the game is willing to throw it all away over a math grade?”
Change felt a minor glow of pride. Coach Davis had seen a lot of college football and he never blew smoke. He really thought that Chase was the best.
“Wipe that smile off your face,” his coach snapped. “It doesn’t mean a damn thing now, because--”
“No!” Chase burst out. He couldn’t let him say it. If he said it, it was final. He needed to be able to speak before the sentence was handed down.
“No?” Davis asked, staring at Chase in surprise.
“Please. Just let me explain--”
“There’s nothing that you could say to excuse yourself,” the coach said tiredly. “I gave you as many chances as I could.”
Chase caught his breath, his throat going tight. His voice was rough when he spoke again.
“I know that I screwed up. And I'm not blaming anyone but myself. Just...please give me another chance. Please. This is all I've got.”
Coach Davis leaned back in his chair and looked at him. Chase bit down on his lip till he tasted blood.
“Fine,” Davis said after a moment. “
And sit down before you fall over.”
Chase dropped into the chair gratefully. His knees had gone weak and his heart was beating too fast.
“There’s one thing you’ve gotta understand,” the coach said, looking Chase in the eye. “I’m sticking my neck out for you. You screw this up and you’re gone. No ifs, ands, or buts. I will not do this again, do you understand?”
