Tutoring the Player (Campus Wallflowers #1)(9)

“I’m fine. I overslept. No big deal.”

I let him go, but now I’m more worried than before. He wasn’t in his room when I left. I know because I checked. I needed a clean pair of shorts. But why the hell would he lie?

At the end of practice, Coach stops him.

“Price. Do you want to tell me why you were late today?” Instead of waiting for his answer, he continues. “You’re late, you’re missing passes, you’re slow on your feet. If you keep it up, you’re going to find yourself next to me during games.”

“It was my fault.” My chest heaves as I struggle to catch my breath. “I shut off his alarm before I left. I thought he was up.”

Coach’s mouth falls into a hard line.

“It won’t happen again,” Liam promises.

“Good.” Coach motions with his head toward the locker room. “Get out of here.”

When we sit in our stalls, my buddy finally speaks. “Thanks.”

“Where were you?”

“I told you. I overslept.”

“I know you weren’t in your room.”

His brows pull up toward the blond, matted hair on his forehead. “Checking up on me?”

“I forgot to do laundry again,” I admit. I pull the band of my hockey pants down to show him the shorts I borrowed.

He chuckles lightly. “I was in the library. I passed out with my head on the desk trying to look over econ notes.”

“I should have known.”



Despite the lousy practice, Liam seems to be in a better mood when we get back to the dorms. I’m playing video games, and he brings his laptop out to the living room to work on an assignment.

“I’m thinking of asking out our lab partner,” he says without looking up from the screen.

“Who?”

“Daisy. The girl in our physics lab.”

“Right.” I ponder that, not liking how it sits with me. “Really?”

“She’s nice.”

I pause the game. Liam hasn’t really dated in the three years I've known him. He hooks up so infrequently it still surprises me when I wake up to find him walking a girl out. But something tells me him asking out Daisy wouldn’t be like that. It’d be real. They’d go on actual dates and shit.

“Won’t that be weird if shit goes south, and we have to team up with her twice a week for class?”

“Look at you all glass half empty.”

“I’m just saying, maybe now isn’t the best time to start something.”

The insinuation is clear, and he pulls his bottom lip behind his teeth and bobs his head. “Yeah. You might be right about that. I’m one screw up away from Coach benching me.”

“Of course, I’m right. When have I ever steered you wrong?”

He cocks a brow.

“Okay, yeah. Don’t answer that, but dating is distracting. You can trust me on that.”

“And partying and hooking up four or five nights a week isn’t?”

“You’re not me. You have to ease into being as awesome as me. Maybe try getting a polite hand job at a party or something first.”





Thursday, during our physics lab, Daisy joins our table again. She and Liam fall into easy conversation, and I take my usual role, reading through the steps and calling them out. It’s how Liam and I always worked. I learn better by writing things down, and he’s a hands-on guy.

A pit forms in my stomach as I watch my lab partners interact.

Liam would never intentionally sabotage the team. He’s too good of a guy for that, but the way Daisy is looking at him with hearts in her eyes sends warning bells off in my head. She isn’t the kind of girl you take out once, hook up, and then maybe call for a repeat a few times in the future when your schedule is clear.

Daisy is the kind of girl that would have someone like Liam wrapped around her little pinky finger. She’s the perfect sweet, smart, naïve catnip for him.

We’re doing a projectile motion lab that involves launching a ball onto carbon paper. It’s an easy lab, and as Liam loads up the ball in the launcher, Daisy smiles and moves the carbon paper a few feet away, which brings her closer to me.

“It’s probably easier if I sit in the middle,” I say.

She hesitates, then looks between Liam and me.

“I can walk around to the other side of the table,” she says.

I fight a smile. She wants to be near him. How cute.

“You know what.” I drop my pencil. “Give me a turn on that thing.”

On my feet, I step toward Liam and the launcher.

“Yeah?” he asks with an apprehensive smirk.

“Looks fun.” It absolutely doesn’t.

He tosses the silver ball at me and takes my seat.

Since I’ve read the handout, I’m already adjusting the angle to thirty degrees and preparing to fire when Liam gives me the instruction.

“Ready?” I ask Daisy.

Her blue eyes flit over me through the safety goggles, and she pushes them up higher on her nose.

The ball shoots out and bounces onto the paper, then directly at her. She tries to catch it, misses, and a series of metallic pings ring out as it bounces along the floor.

Her cheeks are pink as she circles, trying to capture it. Liam and I both move to action. He gets there first, snatching it up and holding it out for her. He winks. On anyone else, it would seem like a skeevy move, but he pulls it off, and Daisy swoons at his feet.