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

his solitary focus in life: football. He can’t take time to linger in bed with me, even with an injury. He doesn’t even remember what happened last night—just knows that he’s hurt and needs to get to the training room so he can be in shape to play by next game.

He needs to stay focused to make his dreams come true. Neither of us has the time or spare energy to create a relationship. I know this, and this morning, I feel it more than ever.

I slip out of his suite, careful not to wake his roommates, and head home for a quick shower before I’m supposed to be in the training room for the end of morning swim practice.

I don’t even have time to process all this or share with Tia and Elyse to get their take. I decide I’ll visit them later to see what they think, even though I know they both really think my sole focus this year should be having sex with Baxter to see how it shakes out.

Emily is in the training room when I arrive, bending one of the swimmers practically in half as she stretches out his long arms. She smiles as I check the roster.

Soon enough, Tim lumbers into the room, all lanky muscles and hairless limbs. “How’s the back?”

He grins. “So much better,” he says, stretching his arms above his head. “You’ve been an awesome help.”

“Well, that’s why they pay me the big bucks,” I say, laughing and patting the table. I get started stretching out his legs first, helping him to use the foam roller on his hamstrings.

“I’ve been wanting to ask you something,” he says, looking at me from underneath his arm.

“What’s up?”

“Would you want to go with me to the banquet next week? You know, the donor banquet?”

I freeze.

Tim is asking me on a date? I’m always Baxter’s date to the banquet. I sit with him during the dinner, smile at his side while he talks to the rich people supporting the athletic programs, and then watch from the sidelines while he leaves with a gymnast or a volleyball player.

He always makes sure one of his roommates walks me home…but the evening is generally a mixture of humiliation and sweet torture.

I’m close to Baxter, in public, but I’m not the one taking him home at the end of the night.

All the same, I usually go with Bax, and I know he’s probably expecting that I will this year. Though he hasn’t asked me yet… What would he think if I agreed to go with Tim?

Bax could just as easily take one of his fangirls and save himself having to find me a chaperone later.

Would it be fun to go to the banquet with someone actually excited to be there with me? Maybe Tim and I can have fun there together as friends. I shift my weight around, realizing I need to respond to Tim in some way or he’ll think I’m being rude.

“Just as friends?” He asks, raising a brow hopefully at me.

“You don’t have friends from the team who are dying to go with you?” I tease, stalling. But Tim shakes his head and explains that most people on the swim team are already paired off. He looks around the room—we’re the only ones still in here apart from Emily and the other trainer. “The person I really want to be my date…I can’t ask.”

Well, I certainly know how that feels.

“Ok,” I tell him. “Just as friends. Maybe we should grab a coffee now that your back is loose. I don’t really know much about you other than you have tight hamstrings!”

Tim laughs and asks me to wait for him while he changes in the locker room. I see him pull out his phone to fire off a text, and I smile, excited that someone is so excited to go on a date with me.

I wander over to Emily. “You hear any of that?”

She rolls her eyes. “Please. You know I know all the dirt about all these kids. I know exactly who is sleeping with whom on the swim team, soccer team, and lacrosse team thanks to my knee research.”

“What did Tim mean about not being able to ask the person he really wants to ask to the banquet?”

Emily doesn’t answer right away. She studies my face for a minute and sighs. “That’s not my story to tell,” she says. “Go on and get coffee. I’ll see you back here tomorrow before they all hit the weight room.”

I give her a fist bump and meet Tim outside. As we walk to the coffee shop, he tells me a bit more about his plans after graduation. He seems pretty set up to get a job right away in his field: finance. It shouldn’t surprise me that he has a whole 5-year plan mapped out. Work, MBA, promotion. All the athletes at SCU have to be disciplined and organized or they wouldn’t be competing at this level. It makes sense that this carries over to other aspects of Tim’s life.

“You don’t want to continue your swimming career,” I ask. I’m not used to this perspective, since all I’ve ever heard about from Bax is how football is his means to a different end.

Tim shakes his head. “There’s no future in swimming unless you’re heading to the Olympics or something. I mean, I’ll probably always swim to keep in shape.” We get to the front of the line and Tim orders his coffee black.

“Oh my god, how can you drink it that way?” I pour in 2 sugar packets and enough skim that my drink is more like coffee-flavored milk.

He shrugs. “Our nutritionist would spit fire if I started adding sugar to anything.” I say a silent prayer of thanks again that my college funding isn’t attached