Stone Creek by Davis, Lainey (reading diary .TXT) 📕

you’d jump at the chance to prepare these athletes for competition. Hands on…”

I bite my lip. He knows I always go to the SCU home games and sit in the family section to support Baxter. Is Justin right, though? Should I be focused on my own career? After all, Baxter will play his best whether I’m there the whole time or not.

I look at the schedule again and decide that, if I hustle after the meet, I can make it to the stadium before halftime.

“No problem,” I say. “I was just surprised is all.”

“Good,” Justins says, and there is no mistaking the sharpness in his tone.

Across the hall, I see the new quarterback talking with Tim, my injured swimmer. It’s unusual for these particular sports to inter mingle, but before I can think too hard about it, Tim saunters into the room, pulling off his shirt.

“I’m ready for my daily torture,” he tells me, grinning. “Hook me up to the juice.” I laugh at his description of the treatment, but get him situated on the training table while Julia checks out the notes on his chart.

“This is all really good work, Olive,” Julia tells me. She looks down at Tim on the table. “You should be competing this weekend, no sweat.”

He grins and tries to pump his fist without tangling the wires on his back. “Well,” he says, “I hope I’m sweating from working hard.”

I finish up his treatment, get him all set with the ice and stretches, and I can’t help but smile because I know that I really have been helping him. It feels good to have so much impact on someone’s recovery. Through it all, though, I can’t help but feel uneasy.

At dinner, I sit with Tia and Elyse and listen to them talk about their plans for after graduation. They’re going to rent an apartment together in the city, hoping they’ll have jobs lined up by May. “I can always wait tables again,” Tia says, telling us about how she worked in a diner growing up. “Speaking of,” she says, “if you really want to get laid, you just need to waltz into a diner on a Friday wearing tight jeans.” Tia shrugs. “The after-bar crowd will be more than happy to cream your donut.”

“Ugh, gross, girl.” Elyse throws a fry at her roommate. “You can’t get a drunken diner dude for your first time. Especially when you’re trying to fuck a crush out of your system.” She gestures at me with another fry. “Don’t even try to tell me it’s not a crush. You’re totally smitten and I think it’s ridiculous that you don’t just open up about it.”

I open my mouth to argue, to tell her that theory is ludicrous, but Tia nods. She says, “I actually think this plan is better than the bang-a-stranger-to-get-it-over-with idea.” She and Elyse launch into a detailed theory about how we could rock friends with benefits or even just burn out in a blaze of orgasms leading up to graduation and the pro football draft.

“Then,” Elyse says, “He’ll go off to Buffalo or wherever the hell and you’ll get a full ride to Berkeley and the distance will be a buffer.”

I see the merits in what they’re saying, but the idea of losing touch with Baxter horrifies me. It’s not just about physical proximity. He calms me, supports me, grounds me. Is my barometer when I’m afraid or upset.

“No,” I tell them. “I can’t cross that line with Bax.”

They look at me, a bit sad, and we finish our meal in silence.

CHAPTER NINE

Bax

This is probably the longest I’ve gone without speaking to Olive in 12 years. I saw that she texted me the other night, but I don’t feel like opening it. I have to get my head on straight. A redhead on my lap at the bar didn’t help. Neither did sprinting on the track the next day or tackle practice this afternoon.

It’s Friday, and the team is quarantined to a hotel before our game. Team bonding is Coach Burns’ reasoning, but really he’s just holding us here so we don’t get our asses in trouble. He’s been around for awhile. He knows what a bunch of athletes in their 20s would rather be doing on a Friday night in a town where we’re revered as gods.

Poor guy doesn’t know that half the undergrads covet internships at this hotel so they can bag a football player during fall semester. Most guys on the team have gotten a blowie in the hot tub.

So this would probably be at least entertaining if not tolerable…except that Coach has me bunked up with Kevan Pence, the transfer QB who’s starting for us this weekend since JT has a fucked up hand.

Smarmy dude spent half the evening in the supply closet and he’s climbing out of the shower now like he wants to tell me all about what went on in there.

I don’t give a shit, though, and I’m in a pissy mood. “Will you quit making that face like you’re so damn pleased with yourself?”

He raises an eyebrow at me. “What’s your problem, Morgan?”

I snort. “You, man. I don’t know you and you don’t know me and neither of us is going to be here long enough for that to matter.”

“Dude,” he says. “We’ve got a whole season to go. You want to tell me anything specific?”

He flops onto his back on the bed and stares at me. I roll my eyes and turn off the light, punching my pillows. “Just quit staring at Olive.”

“The girl from the training room? She your girl? Is that what this is about? Look, man—”

“She’s off fucking limits,” I grunt, pissed that nobody made this clear to him. Pissed that he can’t take a hint. Just pissed. I saw him smile at her