Arriving five minutes late to class with my cousin and roommate, Jaxon, cost more than a glare. I was ordered to see him after class. That earned me a smirk from the teacher aide, Kyle Davis. I had to restrain the urge to walk over and punch the superiority off his face. Instead, I bared my teeth in a grin and gave him the finger as I took my seat, settling in for a nice, mind-numbing session on the need for ethics in the world of corporate law.
Davis has a beef with me. He was gunning for the wide receiver position in high school senior year and didn’t make the team. I did. Now he never misses an opportunity to rub my shitty grades in my face. Being Patrick’s TA this semester affords him the perfect opportunity to do so.
Giving up all pretense of taking notes, I lift my head. My gaze hits the berated student, not catching her reply as air leaves my lungs in a loud rush. She’s making her way toward the last available seat beside me. Her stride is loose-limbed, her long, slender legs toned. They weave around desks and bags on the floor with a fluidity that’s mesmerizing. My eyes rise further, watching her hips roll in a way that makes me want to hold on and take her for a ride.
My gaze reaches her face. It’s a tomato, flushed bright and red. She doesn’t catch my blatant stare. Her eyes are focused on her destination like she’s adrift in a wild storm and the empty desk beside me is her life raft.
She slumps in the seat on my right and the appealing scent of vanilla hits me hard. It’s sweet and tempting, and reminds me of eating ice cream on a warm summer night. Leaning over, she pulls books from her bag. Long tousled waves of honey-colored hair fall in her face. She straightens, tucking them behind her ears with an annoyed huff.
The sound brings me back to Earth. What in the everloving fuck? Vanilla? Honey? I write my response off as hunger. Fueling a body my size is a constant effort. I’m always eating, and when I’m not eating, I’m training. Between that, I should be studying because I’m on the fast track to failing my senior year of college.
Not a surprise. I scraped by the past three years—professors rounding up my grades by more than a single mark to see me pass their course. It’s to be expected. I’m starting wide receiver for the Colton Bulls. I’m also a top draft prospect. Suspending me from play for poor grades would be an extremely unpopular move.
In the long run it won’t do me any favors and I should care, but I don’t. The game is more important to me than breathing. Whatever it takes to play, I’ll do it.
It’s been that way since I caught the quarterback pass in peewee league and ran fifteen yards for my first touchdown. The exhilaration, the slaps on the back, and the acceptance bore down on me like a tsunami. It filled a void I didn’t understand was missing in my life. Sweeping me up, it took me along for a ride I never forgot.
So I kept at it. In training I worked harder, running until I thought my lungs would explode and my legs give out beneath me. I got better, and with it came more: more time on the field, more touchdowns, and more games. The back slaps got harder, the acceptance spread wider, and my love of the game grew hotter and brighter.
Now I’m facing the most important year of my life, the very cusp of an NFL career. I’m on the radar of several large sponsors, agents are taking notice, and the pros are calling. College football isn’t just something I do between classes for fun. It’s a full-time job. And this year I have a set of professors who aren’t like the ones of my past. There will be no favors and no bumping grades. The safety net has been pulled out from beneath me, and I’m worried.
If I tell them I have dyslexia it will help smooth my path, but the shame runs too deep to shake. All these years I’ve managed to make do, thinking it better for my teachers to make allowances based on my football ability rather than bringing the real issue to light.
My father is a high-profile politician, my mother a society wife, and both refuse to acknowledge I was born anything less than perfect. All my life they’ve put my failing grades down to simple laziness. If only I bothered to apply myself rather than waste time on the field, I would be an intellectual success, blazing political trails like my father wants. Instead, I’m an unwanted inconvenience. All I have is football, a game they don’t understand or support. Needless to say, my success in the sport remains unacknowledged in our house.
I was barely seven years old. We were seated at the table, finishing dinner, when my father first acknowledged my learning disability. “Your teachers seem to think you need some kind of additional tutelage.”
I didn’t know back then why I struggled to read and write. Other kids made it look easy, so when I met his gaze, the weight of his disappointment pushed me further down in my chair, and my feelings of confusion and shame intensified beyond repair.
Our housekeeper, Hattie, came in at that point, bringing with her my parents’ after dinner coffee and a glass of milk for me. I thanked her quietly and stared at it, feeling it curdle in my stomach before I’d taken a single sip.
“Is that what you think, Son?” my father prompted, not acknowledging Hattie or the coffee she placed before him. “That you should get special treatment because you can’t be bothered to read or write properly?”
There was no point telling him I wasn’t lazy. My father was stubborn and an egomaniac, even before my failings came to light, so I bit my tongue, preferring to draw blood rather than show emotion at his ruthless spiel.
“No, sir,” I replied quietly.
He gave a heavy sigh, not even happy when I gave agreement. “I’d tell you to try harder, but I don’t think you know how. God knows I want to wash my hands of this whole mess, but then imagine how I’d look if you ended up hauling trash for a living. You’re too damn stupid to do anything else, so you better make football count.”
Despite his shitty delivery, I can’t deny the ring of truth from his words. So I’m making football count.
As though she can hear my thoughts, the girl beside me lets out a deep sigh. I tilt my head and study her profile. There’s something wholesome and appealing about her that makes it hard to look away. Her skin has a tanned glow and her cheeks are flushed a deep shade of pink, making her the perfect advertisement for clean living.
Pausing her mad scribbling, she lifts her head to the whiteboard, and I see her eyes. The color is a clear, arctic blue at odds with the warmth her skin radiates.
If she feels my gaze, she doesn’t acknowledge it. She spends her half hour taking down the notes she missed earlier. When the lecture ends, she disappears into the herd of students and out the door.
With the room empty, I shoulder my backpack and make my way toward my uncle. All my classes are set in the mornings so I don’t have to rush anywhere like everyone else.
At noon I usually grab lunch from the dining hall, followed by an hour of watching film with the team. Around two in the afternoon we hit the field until six. Coach kicks us out after that, enforcing the NCAA rules that say we can’t officially train more than twenty hours a week. What we choose to do after that—hit some extra bags, lift weights, run a few more laps—is on us.
Reaching the front, Patrick looks me in the eye and gets straight to the point. “You’re going to fail senior year, Brody.”
Having my own fear verbalized makes the blood rush in my ears. My first instinct is deny, deny, deny. “I’m not going to—”
He interrupts me, his brow pinched. “You are. I was watching you today. You might have followed what I was saying, but you didn’t take notes and you didn’t do your assigned reading. I know because when I went over the case assignments your eyes glazed over.”
“I—”
“Don’t give me excuses. This has gone on far too long. God knows I’ve waited for your father to step in and do something, but I don’t think that’s ever going to happen.” My uncle folds his arms. “I’m organizing you a tutor. Someone qualified to help you.”