The Coaching Hours (How to Date a Douchebag #4)(70)

“Sure. Makes sense.”

“You’re stone cold, do you realize that?”

“I am? How so?”

“Most girls would be embarrassed to be sitting with me, and they sure as shit wouldn’t want to be talking about it. You humiliated me.”

“You had it coming.”

“You’re right.”

I stare. “Did you have a come to Jesus moment this summer?”

“Something like that.” He laughs, stretching his legs out in front of him, slouching in the desk.

I eyeball his jeans and raise my brows. “No more khakis?”

“No more khakis,” he confirms.

“Wow, Gunderson, you really have changed.”

“That’s pitiful.”

“What is?”

“That the main thing you’ve noticed about me is that I’m not wearing beige-colored pants anymore.”

He sounds so disgruntled.

It has me laughing all over again. “Sorry, but they were kind of your trademark.”

“Guess I’m giving up a lot of shit I used to be down with.”

“Has it been a rough few months?”

“At first. I was getting paid to be the team manager, and since basically being fired, I had to get a job off campus, which—whatever, it’s not a big deal. Then obviously this summer I had to break the news to my parents. They were real proud of my position, you know?”

“I’m sure they were.”

“Summer was hell, if you want to know the truth, not that I expect you to care since that whole bet thing exploded in my face.” He studies me anew, studies my face and eyes, the set of my mouth. “Don’t take this the wrong way, Anabelle, but you don’t look good.”

“I…have a lot on my mind. It’s been a really rough week.”

“Looks like it. What a pair we make.”

I smile because he’s right. We really do make an odd pair: a wrestling team reject and the knocked-up coach’s daughter. It’s almost like a friendship with Rex Gunderson was destined.

“Did you hear?

“Hear what?”

“That dickhead Zeke Daniels is getting engaged.”

“How did you hear that?”

“I heard the buzz before getting kicked off the team. Elliot had to have told you.”

“Elliot is gone.”

“Where’d he go?”

“Grad school. Michigan.”

“Oh. Well. I won’t complain if I have you to myself without him wanting to punch my lights out.” When I blanch, he reaches an arm around me with a laugh. “Relax, I’m kidding. At least you weren’t dating him or anything—long distance sucks.”

If that wasn’t the understatement of the year, I don’t know what is.

“Wait, rewind.” I gape at him. “When did Elliot threaten to punch your lights out?”

“That night we went on our date. You left to go to the bathroom and he got all up in my face and told me to keep my hands off you. I thought it was extremely over the top considering you were just roommates.”

“You thought he was being over the top?”

“He was definitely acting jealous, that’s for sure.”

“I’m sure he was.”

“Were the two of you dating before he left?”

I feel a blush creeping up my chest, splotchy on my neck and staining my cheeks. “You could say that.”

“Ahh, okay. Now I see how it is.”





Somehow, after class, I let Gunderson take me to the university’s small coffee shop, huddle in a corner booth. I’m just not ready to go home yet and instead drown my sorrows in a hot chocolate with extra whipped cream.

Laugh at all Rex’s stupid jokes (and they’re all stupid), letting him make me forget all my troubles, even if just for a little while.

“I have a confession to make,” he’s saying now over his iced coffee or latte, or whatever drink it was he ordered. “I’m shocked as hell you came here with me. I thought for sure you’d shoot me down when I suggested it.”

“As weird as it sounds, I actually don’t mind your company.”

“That sounds oddly like a compliment.”

Laughing, I snort. “It was…I think. Do you not get those much?”

“Not very often.” He grins, biting down on his straw, a big toothy smile that has me smiling, too. “I’ve spent the last year getting my ass handed to me.”

In another life, under better circumstances, Rex Gunderson might have been someone redeemable enough to date.

But they’re not better circumstances; they’re worse than they were yesterday.

I am pregnant.

I am single.

I am a broke college student.

My small circle of friends in Iowa includes Madison, who is barely around and only wants to party, Elliot, who moved to Michigan, and Rex Gunderson, who had a bounty on my vagina last semester.

Still…

I have a lot on my mind and no one to talk to, and he’s right here, sitting in front of me, watching me intently, like he knows what’s going on inside my head.

For all I know, he does.

I worry my bottom lip, suddenly thinking about my parents and what’s going to happen when I tell them about…