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

focusing on my stats elective and leveraging this into my graduate school application? Here I am distracted by some guy with a hot body, sick of being SCU's oldest virgin.

But he gave up his bed for you, right after he'd had knee surgery, a small voice reminds me. I've seen a softer side of Talon Kelly, and I'm worried that I'm already expecting more from him than he'd be interested in giving.

"Why the hell is sex so complicated?" I shout to Alissa in the living room.

She's watching reality television while she finishes making flash cards. She shouts, "It doesn't need to be, Serena! Just go bang some dude from the baseball team if it's too weird with Talon. You don't want anything to do with football guys, anyway, right?"

I bite my bottom lip as I shove a spare outfit into my backpack with my stats stuff. She's right about that. I know all about that high stakes world of football. Late nights at practice. Long road trips. The pressure to win. I saw that all eat away at my dad for years. When he was admitted to the hospital, his big worry was not leaving a practice plan for his assistant coaches to follow with the team.

Maybe Alissa is right. I could go to any frat party and find some guy to sleep with and get it over with. But some guy wouldn't do those amazing things to my nipples…

"Well," I tell Alissa as I check myself over in the full-length hall mirror. "Here goes nothing." I'm wearing my usual: jeans, sneakers, SCU shirt. I have my hair in two braids underneath my green beanie. By the time I zip into my puffy coat, I look ready to root for the Otters at a football game.

Alissa rolls her eyes at me. "Please tell me you at least wore nice underwear," she says, putting a rubber band around her stack of flash cards. I stick my tongue out at her and head for Talon's apartment.

His roommate CJ opens the door when I knock. He looks like he's about ready to step out, but he eyes me and turns on the charm. "Well, how can I help you this evening?"

"I'm here to see Talon," I say. "We have stats together."

CJ looks surprised. "Talon invited you up here?" He opens the door wider and I step into the hallway of their apartment. "Yo, Claw," he shouts. "There's a chick here to see you."

I start to take off my coat--I see a coat tree in the corner--and ask, "Is it so weird for Talon to have a girl over?"

CJ laughs. "We have a rule about that. We never bring them back here." I remind him that Alissa and I were here a few weeks ago.

"Oh shit! You're the nacho cheese girl!" He laughs and I flush, but smile. "That was an exception."

Talon comes out of the bedroom and I can tell he's just showered. His curls are damp and he smells fresh and clean. He's wearing jeans for once and I catch myself staring at the way they hug his ass. I shake my head as he says, "Hey, Serena. You remember Smith. Smith, this is the chick I was telling you--remember? From the stats booth?"

He perks up at this and starts quizzing me, smiling when I can rattle off information about all the guys on the team. A few minutes later, Talon cocks an eyebrow at his roommate and CJ slaps him on the back. "Later, bro. Adventure awaits. Good to see you again, Nacho."

As he leaves the apartment, I set my backpack on the dining room table. "Am I going to be 'Nacho' forever now?"

Talon grins and sits down.

CHAPTER TEN

 

 

Talon actually pulls out a notebook. He slides a huge dish of nachos toward me and starts eating them as he explains, "I was thinking. You keep insisting you want to do biostatistics. I want to obviously do sports. What if there was a way we could both get what we want?"

"I'm listening." I hesitantly pick up the chip with the least melted cheese on it.

"First, you know you can't just report on the shit that Professor Jacobs studies, right?"

I flush and feel my shoulders tense. "I suppose you're right."

He slides a printout toward me. "I looked him up. He studies hospital-based infections. I totally get why you want to study that in grad school--because of what happened to your dad, right?"

I look into his eyes, feeling tears well up in my own. I can only nod. He keeps talking. "I mean, you want to come back from that whole incident in his office…you can't just do your semester report on just the stuff he does. That won't impress him, it'll skeeve him out."

"All right, all right, Talon. I get it." I really want him to stop talking about this. It's humiliating to remember what happened in office hours, and it's humiliating that Talon was able to see through what I wasn't conscious of. Ugh! What kind of freak crosses the line from fan girl into starstruck kiss up? "So what's your idea for our topic?"

When Talon smiles, his whole face lights up. His grin is mesmerizing, so I'm staring right into his eyes when he says, "We can do something about ACL repair and recovery. Something that interests me, obviously, and it's still related to biology and health outcomes, which lets you suck up to the professor."

I start to nod my head. "That's actually a really good plan." I reach for the nachos. "I like it!"

Talon pumps his fist. "Yeah? Awesome! I even did some preliminary googling to get us started. You will be excited to learn that female soccer players have more ACL tears than football players." As he describes his research so far, I find that I really