Higher (The University of Gatica #3)

by Lexy Timms

  Jani frowned. Carter was probably twenty-one now, that would make Lily only eleven. She couldn’t imagine living in another town from her parents at that age, let alone halfway across the country. “She’s all by herself?”

  “She’s at a boarding school. With other kids. She’s not alone.”

  “Does it bother your mom?” Her own mom hated that Jani was on the east coast in the US and her home was the west coast in Canada.

  “Nah. My mom’s happy being a wife. She didn’t have kids because she wanted them. She had them because we fit the military lifestyle.”

  “That sucks.” She couldn’t imagine his life growing up. There had never been an ounce of consistency in his life. It made her want to be around him more. She was glad she’d skipped her essay to hang out with him. It was worth it.

  He shrugged. “It’s no big deal. I’m in my fourth year of university, made All-American a bunch of times, and will graduate next year from school. Five years here is longer than I’ve ever lived anywhere else. This feels more like home. I’m talking with my coach about staying on for grad school so I can keep competing, maybe make a national team and assistant coach here so I don’t have to pay for school.”

  She liked the idea of him hanging around here longer, and not just for selfish reasons. She was in her third year now.

  “What about you? How did you get into the high jumping?”

  She shook her legs and pointed at them. “These are kind of hard to miss.” She smiled when he chuckled. “In grade nine, or as you Americans say, my freshman year—”

  “Or ninth grade.” He winked as he teased her.

  “I was fourteen and tried out for the varsity volleyball team in high school. The coach who did volleyball also happened to run the track program. I was tall at the beginning of grade nine, but by the end, I was still growing. He talked me into trying high jump. Said all I had to do was jog up to the bar and fall over. Sounded simple enough.”

  “You make it look simple. I highly doubt it is.”

  She smiled, loving his compliment. He had watched her compete even though he had never told her directly. Cool. “There’s a good track club in Vancouver so I joined and by the time I finished high school, I’d won Provincials, Junior, and Senior Nationals. Not a ton of under seventeens jump one eighty-three.”

  “One eighty-three?”

  “Sorry. I’m thinking metric. Six feet. It’s a big jump for a high schooler. It opened a lot of doors down here in the States and since Canada doesn’t have athletic scholarships, I came over here. Coach Maves has a record for good high jumpers. All the recruiting trips I went on, Gatica had the best program suited for me.”

  “You won Canadian Nationals?”

  “First time was when I was seventeen.”

  “Wow. That’s impressive. Did you go to World Championships then?”

  She laughed. It came out perfectly sarcastic. “Canada doesn’t work like that. You have to make A standards and B standards and all that jazz. Winning doesn’t guarantee anything.” That was part of the reason she was happy to jump ship and head down here. “It’s funny though. Everyone back home warns you that the US system is going to gobble you up and spit you out. Burn you out before you have a chance to peak. I’ve never had that. I love the competitive indoor and outdoor season. Maves trains us hard but it works. Last summer I went home for nationals, nearly made one-ninety,” she paused when his eyebrows popped up. “I mean, six foot three. So close. This year’s going to be even better.”

  He shook his head, obviously impressed. “I can’t imagine jumping that high. I’d need a pole to get up there.”

  She giggled. “I’m sure there’s a pole vault pole Drew might not be needing this indoor season you can borrow.”

  “Drew? Oh, that dickhead who sucker punched Zach?” He snorted. “What an idiot.”

  “He deserves getting his butt kicked by a couple of football players.”

  “It won’t happen.”

  “You don’t think?”

  “Nah. Drew’s one of those guys who knows how to use the system to his advantage. The ass’ll make an enormous deal out of it. Some footballer will lose his scholarship and it’ll look bad for the program. He’ll get away with it.” He shook his head. “I wouldn’t mind helping Zach out in the payback.”

  “You wouldn’t!” She pictured him losing his scholarship. That probably wouldn’t sit well with his military dad.

  “Nah. I wouldn’t. Doesn’t mean I don’t want to.” He punched his window. “It pisses me off that guys like Drew get away with shit like that.”

  “You think he’s going to get away with it?” She hoped he got in trouble by Coach Maves. She was pretty sure Coach Anderson, the track head coach, would have something to say about it. “He’s probably in hiding, terrified of all the big defensive backs.”

  “Shit like that happens all the time. The footballers can’t do anything to risk the strength of the program.”

  “Tyler said Coach Philips wasn’t going to discourage anyone for retaliating.”

  Carter looked surprised. “Really? He said that?”

  Jani felt her cheeks burn. “Maybe not in those exact words. I’m kinda gossiping. Aileen told me and I’m just repeating it.” She stared out the front window at the campus lights, regretting opening her mouth.

  Carter watched her. She could see him from her peripheral vision. He straightened and closed his near empty box of pasta. “So is your family dysfunctional like mine?”

  Bless him for changing the subject. “I’m an only kid. My mom’s an accountant. My dad’s a pharmacist.”

  He whistled. “You didn’t need no scholarship.”

  “It’s different in Canada.” She couldn’t really argue with him. Her parents could have afforded paying for her university, they just didn’t offer. Her dad had come from nothing and said they would help with school but not pay it all. He believed Jani wouldn’t go places if she didn’t have to work for anything. Instead of begging or arguing with him, she signed a full scholarship to UofG. He had been very proud of her when she told him.

  “At least you come from brains. I just got endurance genes from my folks.”

  “I must have regressed towards the mean.”

  He made a face. “Huh?”

  She laughed and shifted over to sit closer to him. “You know that saying, two beautiful people have a child, and they have a high chance of having an ugly child? It’s because the average regresses towards the mean.” She didn’t really know what it meant, but had heard it in some class once. “Ugly people had a better chance of having a cute kid.”

  Carter laughed and reached over to take the food container off her lap. “That’s bullshit. You’re hot, athletic and smart.” He opened the truck door and dumped their leftovers into a nearby trash can.

  She kissed him when he came back to the truck. He thought she was pretty, sporty. She wasn’t about to tell him she lagged in the smarts department. It didn’t matter. When she finally pulled away from his luscious lips, she ran her tongue over hers, enjoying their roughed up feel from his slight stubble.

  He leaned back, obviously enjoying the rush his touch could give to Jani. “When do you start competing?”

  “There’s a meet before Christmas break. It’s like an invitational. Nothing big, but a good way to test out where we are before the season starts in January. Then we’re basically every weekend till Conference. With a week or two break before Nationals.”

  “We’ve already started our season. NCAAs are the third week of March.”

  March seemed a long way off. “You guys have a long season.”

  “Not really. Some track athletes compete all year. Cross-country, indoors and outdoors. That’s a forever season.”

  “Running more than three laps around the track is too long,” Jani joked. “Our season is broken up by indoor nationals, outdoor nationals, even cross country runners get a chance at three national titles. You only get one.”

  “Makes ou
rs worth that much more.”

  Jani rolled her eyes. She liked that he could handle bantering back and forth with her. It was fun. “Know what we need to do sometime?”

  “What’s that?” Carter rested his arm on the back of the seat. His fingers traced lightly over the skin on Jani’s neck.

  She resisted the urge to close her eyes. His touch had a unique power over her. She concentrated on what she had been trying to tell him. “Have a competition. Just you and me.”

  He raised a single eyebrow and his fingers stopped moving against her skin. She’d caught his attention. “What kind of competition?”

  “Like a mini Olympics. You vs. me.”

  Carter laughed. “It can’t include high jump, you’ll kick my arse.”

  Arse? That didn’t sound like an American word. She shook her head. “Then no swimming, either. I can barely doggie paddle.” Though she wouldn’t mind seeing him in his swimsuit. She tapped her fingernail against the door handle. “Do you golf?”

  “Not really.”

  “Neither do I.” She laughed, warming up to the idea. “You have a meet this weekend, right?”

  “Friday and Saturday. It’s here.”

  There was no way she would miss watching him compete. “What about Sunday? If the weather’s good, we could play nine holes.”

  “What does the winner get?” His fingers found their way to her shoulder and over her collarbone.

  She swallowed, her throat suddenly dry. “Whatever they want?” She kissed his knuckles and then pretended to bite him. “And choose the next event.”

  He pulled his arm back and then quickly came back to tickle her ribs. “I like this challenge. I’m game. We’re still golfing if it rains, by the way.”

  “You can’t golf in the rain!”

  “Why not? Your skin not waterproof?”

  She wasn’t going to win this argument. “Fine. Rain or Shine. We golf.”

  “Or snow. We golf.”

  Crap. It had better not snow.

  Chapter 6

  Jani wished the digital clock by her bed was lying when she walked into her room. Two am. Really? Carter’s truck horn honked a quiet toot. She watched the truck’s headlights float past her window. How had time flown so fast?

  She grinned and touched her swollen kissed lips. She knew how time had flown.

  The laptop on her desk caught her attention. Guilt mixed in with her blissful exhaustion. She could sit down and pull an all-nighter to finish the paper. It wouldn’t be an excellent paper but at least it would be finished. She sat down on her bed and pulled her shoes off. A long yawn interrupted her intentions. What if she set her alarm for five and got up then to work on it? Three hours sleep would at least give her a clearer mind to work with.

  Right now, all she wanted to do was curl under her covers and dream about Carter’s hand on her, his lips, his toxic touch. She crawled the little distance to her pillow and dropped her head onto it. She reached for her storm trooper alarm clock and changed the alarm from its usual seven wake up to five. She rolled over, too tired to care about changing her clothes or even brushing her teeth.

  She knew she was smiling as she drifted off. Who wouldn’t smile after kissing hot Carter?

  Rain drummed annoyingly against the windowpane in her room. Jani buried her head under her pillow and shut her eyes tight. At least rain meant dark skies. She could sleep a bit longer and never know if it were day or night.

  Her eyes popped open under the pillow. She froze a moment before jumping out of bed and twirling around in a confused not-fully-awake-not-sure-what-to-do moment. She grabbed the storm trooper digital alarm clock.

  9:20!

  Why didn’t it go off? She double-checked the alarm. She remembered setting it for five. “Shit!” She’d bloody set it for five PM! “Crap! Crap! Crappity-crap!!” Now she had no essay, she had missed her weight workout and was already late for her first class – the one with the paper due.

  She dashed out of her room and called out, “Aileen! You still here?” She stopped by the tikka bar where a note hung from the one side where the two of them always left messages for each other.

  Jani,

  I tried waking you up to lift weights, but you were out.

  You were like a bear in hibernation. Lol.

  I’ve got classes all day so I’ll see ya at practice at 3:00.

  Later, Aileen.

  Both of Jani’s hands flew to her head. She was so screwed. If she showed up late for class, the professor would single her out and ask for her paper. She shouldn’t have left it till last minute. Next time she needed to start as soon as she had the project in her hands. Today her best bet was to just skip class and show up tomorrow, fake a bad cold or the flu or something. Then she could hand it in tomorrow.

  She yawned, tempted to crawl back in bed but decided against it. Probably not the best idea. She would be better off jumping in the shower to wake up and then sit down for half an hour and work on her paper till she had to head to her next class at ten thirty. She forced herself to ignore the tightness in her chest that hinted at the anxiety of things to come. “This isn’t going to snowball,” she scolded herself as she headed to the bathroom.

  A quick shower and a bowl of cereal after, she sat down and wrote a page of the essay before grabbing her raincoat and backpack for her next class. She packed her laptop and slipped the case under her raincoat. She would have preferred to drive the two blocks to school and park by Wavertree Fieldhouse, but with the rain and now the time, there was no way she would find a parking spot.

  Her kinesiology major put most of her classes right beside Wavertree. She planned most of her last classes of the day to end up close by. She had a nutrition class closer to home first where she sat at the back of the class, pretending to take notes but spent most of it staring out the window and thinking about Carter.

  It tore at her insides that he had a lousy childhood. It wasn’t terrible, but he obviously didn’t get along with his dad. Carter was soft on the inside but had an edge to him. He didn’t care about ticking people off. She couldn’t figure out if he was a player. He seemed to genuinely like her, but then again, he could also just be trying to get in her pants. She giggled out loud at the thought and quickly covered her mouth when the professor stopped lecturing and looked in her direction. She faked a cough and pretended to clear her throat.

  It took forever for the boring class to end. She trudged to the library in the rain opting to skip lunch to try and get another couple hundred words written. She settled in a red leather chair by one of the fireplaces and set her computer on her lap. One thousand words. She had no idea what she could talk about for two thousand more. She reread what she had written and added a bunch of adjectives just to up the words. It gave her less than a hundred more.

  A blue light flashed on her phone letting her know she had a message. She reached into her backpack and pulled it out to check. She smiled. Carter.

  Hey gorgeous. Skipped class this morning.

  Too tired. How about you?

  An image of him lying in his bed with just a pair of boxer briefs popped into her head. She could totally picture him half sitting against his pillows with one hand resting behind his head, his muscles taut and rippled through his stomach, over his chest, and along his biceps.

  She sighed and shifted away from the warmth of the fire. It was getting hot in the library. She replied to his text:

  Slept thru first class 2. At the library now. Had fun last night.

  The screen on her laptop turned black from inactivity. She ignored it when her phone vibrated again.

  Just fun? I need to work harder to impress.

  She smiled. He didn’t need to do anything more. He knew what he was doing. She wanted to ask him but was too embarrassed to ever bring the conversation up; she wondered if he was good because of experience or simply natural talent. Maybe he liked to watch stuff on the internet and had learned it all from there. She was never going to freakin’ ask him to fin
d out. Some things were better left unsaid. She wasn’t going to complain. He could throw her focus into overdrive with a single look or touch. And he acted like it was nothing!!

  Her phone vibrated again. She slid her thumb on the face to read his new message.

  What time do you finish practice?

  Around 5.30.

  I’m done about the same time. Come by the pool when you finish.

  Why?

  It’s a surprise. Bring your bikini. Or nothing.

  Ha ha. I’ll bring my suit. Where do I meet you?

  Text me when you’re on your way. I’ll tell you where to go.

  Should she tell him that tonight wouldn’t work? She needed to finish her stupid paper.

  I’ll try and make it.

  She held her phone in her hand, half expecting it to start ringing. Maybe playing hard to get wasn’t something he liked. He didn’t seem like the type of guy that had to wait for anything or anyone.

  You’ll be there. I know you will.

  She scoffed at his message and then laughed when “JK” showed up on the next line of the phone. Teasing or just pretending to tease her? She stuffed her phone back in her bag, refusing to look at it again. Let him wonder if she had read the last just kidding line. She could play the flirting game almost as well as he did.

  Her watch beeped just as she went to turn her laptop back on. She glanced at her wrist in surprise. Time to go to her next class already? She couldn’t skip this one as attendance to it was mandatory. That’s why she had signed up for it this semester since next semester she would be gone loads of Fridays.

  She shut the laptop and hurried as she headed back into the drizzling rain. Halfway to class she realized she couldn’t meet Carter, she didn’t have her bathing suit on her and she was going straight to practice after school. She didn’t have time to head back to the house to grab it. Maybe she could just stop by and say hi and just watch him swim. Sports bra and bikini underwear didn’t count as a bikini. Plus, after practice she’d be all sweaty from working out. She might have to shower before going to meet him at the pool complex.