To Professor, with Love (Forbidden Men #2)(24)

After class, I filed out with everyone else, refraining from glancing her way. I waited until I had a moment alone, away from people, before I ducked into a bathroom and trapped myself in a stall. Just to make sure it still had an A on it, I dug my paper back out of my bag. It didn’t have a plus sign next to it the way Sidney Chin’s essay had, but it still had that beautiful scarlet letter slashed across the top.

I glanced down to make sure it was the same paper I’d turned in, and I finally saw little grammar marks she’d made, correcting commas and misspelled words. No notes were scribbled in the margins until I flipped to the last page. After my final, closing paragraph, she’d penned in the line, Much better. I knew you could grasp the concept of the assignment.

I blinked. Was that it? I had told her about the time one of my mother’s men had beat the shit out of me when he’d gotten high in our living room. I’d told her about all the hiding places I’d found for my brothers and sister whenever my mother had drank too much and was pissed off. But the mack daddy of all, I’d told her how I’d saved up all my money to pay off some geek from high school to fix my GPA in the school’s computer system so I had a better chance at receiving a scholarship.

I was a fake and a liar who didn’t belong here. And now she knew it. If she wanted, she could make everyone else know it, too. She could ruin me.

I had no idea why I’d incriminated myself like that. She could’ve gone to the administration and turned me in. But my transgressions had eerily reminded me of that f*cking Gatsby character in her book and how he’d cheated and lied to get everything for the woman he loved. I’d done just that for the three people I loved most in the world.

And all Kavanagh had to say about it was much better?

Jesus. What did that mean? Was she going to keep my secret? Was she going to use it as blackmail against me? Was she even going to mention it to me at all?

I flipped back to the front page and stared at the letter she’d given me. I had a feeling she wouldn’t have written in an A if she’d had any plans of getting me kicked out of Ellamore. She could’ve taken the paper straight to her sour-faced boss. But she had given me an A. And she’d handed the evidence back to me.

I blew out a breath, and finally, the muscles in my stomach relaxed.

Shit. She was giving me another chance. I was back in the game and actually felt good for the first time all semester about the possibility I just might succeed in all this.

***

I was still floating from the high of that amazing score the next morning when I saw Coach Jacobi in the training room.

“Hey, Gam!” he called in his booming coach’s voice. “How’d you do on that make-up paper you wrote for your literature class?”

I paused and tilted my head to the side. How the hell did he know I’d managed to talk Kavanagh into letting me redo a paper? “I got an A,” I murmured, curiously. “How’d you know about that?” Oh, hell. Maybe Kavanagh had gone to him after all and told him I’d cheated on my high school grade point average.

My coach merely grinned. “What? You think I don’t keep tabs on my star player? Jesus, Gamble, I’ve been watching your score slip all semester in that class. Thought it was time to have a word with Frenetti, the dean of the English department. Glad to see they’re finally snapping themselves back into shape.”

My mouth fell open. I couldn’t f*cking believe this. I knew Kavanagh had been forced to give me another chance by her dean, but I hadn’t known... Fuck, my own coach? Et tu, Jacobi?

And here, I thought I’d actually earned that A. It had taken enough out of me to deserve an A. But...

Maybe she really had tried to tell someone how I’d cheated to get my scholarship. Maybe no one had listened to her. Maybe…

Feeling suddenly sick, I half-assed my way through the rest of my weights. If she’d been forced to give me a good score, then what had I really earned on my paper? Had it just been another D?

Since I’d stepped foot on this campus, I’d played it straight. I’d worked my ass off to be a good player, a good, honest student, and a good employee at Forbidden. But if others were lying and cheating for me, did that mean I was incapable of improving, doomed to be a fraud for the rest of my life? Was I still a great big nothing who just happened to have a good throwing arm.





CHAPTER EIGHT




“Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter, and those who matter, don't mind.” - Bernard M. Baruch



ASPEN



Friday morning, I arrived early to work. I liked reading in my office before class. It settled my nerves more than anything else could.

My big date with Philip was scheduled for tomorrow, making me as antsy as hell, and I’d broken down and tried to call my mother this morning. She’d refused to answer the phone, so I had no idea about my father’s prognosis, if he still had two legs, or what.

After glancing over the curriculum I wanted to go through in each class, I let out a little sigh of relief and opened my ereader, eager to escape into some juicy fiction. But a tap on my doorframe had me gritting my teeth.

I needed some alone time here, people. Why did—

All thought process stalled in my head when I saw Noel Gamble.

“Wha…?” I didn’t know what to say. I simply gaped. His hair was wet and face gleamed as if he’d just stepped out of the shower or he’d been sweating profusely. Skimming my gaze down his athletic body, I noticed he was wearing gray sweats, running shoes with no socks, and a wrinkled, maroon Ellamore Vikings shirt that hugged his defined chest.