Gage (The Player Book 6)

by Nana Malone

  Avery waved her off. “You are not a laughing stock.”

  “I would have been. Yeah, well. So, I was stuck in the bathroom watching the two of them—”

  Avery leaned forward. “Yes?”

  Becker flushed. “She, well, she was giving him personal attention.”

  Avery's brows lifted. “So you were standing there, watching some girl give this guy a—”

  Becker scanned the area, to make sure no one was in earshot. “Avery!”

  Her best friend smiled. “What? I just want to make sure I have it right. So like, this girl sinks down to her knees. And you do what? Watch?”

  “When you say it like that, it sounds like I was being dirty. But I was sort of trapped.”

  Avery laughed again. “Right, trapped. Wait… Who was the guy? Was he cute?”

  Becker flushed again. “Does it matter? I mean it's not like he and I had some love connection or something. You know, as another girl had her mouth on his man parts.”

  “Hell yes, it matters. Because you're blushing. Which means the guy had to be totally hot. Who was he?”

  “No. I don't care. Remember, he was getting a blow job from someone else.”

  Avery rolled her eyes. “Yes, okay, but it was a party. Maybe she was a hook up?”

  Becker shrugged. “I don't know. He didn't seem that into it, though.”

  Avery groaned. “Oh, so he's gay, you think?”

  Becker nearly choked on her coffee, as she thought back to that night. The way his gaze had locked on her. And how he became a lot more enthusiastic when she was watching. She swallowed hard. “No, I don't think so. He turned his head, he definitely saw me.”

  Avery stopped right in the middle of the court. One or two students bumped directly into her. “Are you kidding me right now? Like saw you, saw you?”

  “I'm not sure. I was in shadow. The light in the bathroom was dim. The light in the bedroom was dim. I'm not sure what he saw.” But she knew. She'd been seen. The way he'd watched the door, knowing she was there. And then, running into him just now after her appointment. She hadn't said anything. Maybe he hadn't recognized her. She sure as hell had recognized him.

  “Oh, my God. This is juicy. Why didn't you tell me?”

  “Because you were busy getting a guy's number. And then we were dissecting if and when you were going to call. And if and when he should call. There was no time to talk about this.”

  “I feel like I live in the twilight zone. We should have discussed this first.”

  “Well, we're talking about it now. And, I suppose now would be a good time to tell you that I just ran into him.”

  Avery stopped her again. This time, dragging her off to the side of the walkway. “Speak. Leave nothing out.”

  Becker recounted the meeting with her advisor, and then bumping into Gage right outside. When she was done, Avery stared at her.

  “Mind. Blown.” Then Avery laughed. “No pun intended.”

  Becker ground her teeth together. “Avery. That was the worst.”

  Her best friend chuckled. “I couldn't help myself. Okay, so on to serious topics. Are you sure you want to play tutor to a bunch of athletes?”

  “Well, luckily, it's not only athletes that need help. There are plenty of others who need extra help, too.”

  Avery watched her carefully. “You seem in good spirits about it. So I'll be cautiously optimistic, too. Maybe you'll get some really cool people that just need a little help. And that way you can make some cash.”

  They resumed their walk back towards Becker's dorm. Her friend was quiet for a moment, then asked, “So, voyeuristic tendencies notwithstanding, how do you think the first party went?”

  Becker shrugged. “I think in order to get more comfortable with them, I need to do more of them.”

  Avery nodded. “That's a good idea. Matter of fact, I know just the place. We'll go this weekend.”

  “What's with you, man? You look like someone stepped on your puppy.”

  Gage wrinkled his nose at his roommate. “Hey man, leave the puppies out of this.”

  Chris shrugged and flopped on his bed. “So what's your deal, anyway? You've been moping around since the party the other night. Where did you even disappear to? I didn't see you once we got there.”

  That's because he'd been immediately waylaid by Crystal. Hell, he hadn't even wanted to go to the party. But he knew it was expected. Two of his teammates were in that house, so he had to at least show his face. His intention had been to go, stay for an hour, then bounce out.

  No way he was telling Chris what happened with Crystal. Or that other girl. Hell, Gage didn't even know what that was. All he knew was that he heard something in the bathroom and flickered his gaze towards the door, and her dark gaze met his. Next thing he knew, his body was firing on all cylinders. All of a sudden, that blowjob he hadn't been that interested in felt like the best fucking thing he had in his life. And shit, at this point, he'd had a lot of blowjobs. Crystal was just one in the line of many who were more than willing to get with him for a various number of reasons. His name, his position.

  Most of the time, it wasn't really about him. Hell, he even caught some of his older brother Dax's castoffs. Girls who were so desperate to get with his brother again, they thought sleeping with one of his younger siblings would be a good idea. It was one hell of a weird way to get inducted into sex, but he’d learned a lot. He supposed that at some point he should think Dax.

  And normally, Gage didn't mind groupies. But he'd been nothing more than a number that night. Until her. That girl hiding in the bathroom. She’d been watching. And for some reason, her eyes on him had lit him up like a Christmas tree.

  And then, like a total moron, he hadn't put two and two together today until it was too late. That girl, the food cart. That was her. The way she looked at him, all wide-eyed shock, the way he felt when he touched her. It was the same girl. Of course his brain had been too stuck on the shitpile that was his grades, so he had focused on that. But now that he knew, he wanted to find her.

  For what? Didn't you hear the academic advisor? Your grades are shit. The last thing on earth he needed was a girl. It didn't matter that having her watch him was the first hint of excitement he'd felt in ages. That was irrelevant. A girl was not part of the equation right now. It didn't matter what his dick thought.

  “Yeah, sorry. I just wasn't feeling it, you know?”

  Chris chuckled from his bed. “You weren't feeling a bunch of girls crawling all over you? Man, have you ever been on this side, you know the normal-guy side, where your last name wasn't Coulter, or you weren't an athlete? Most of us just take what we can get.”

  Gage bit his lip. He got what Chris was saying. He didn't really know how hard it was. In so many ways, he had it easy. But in so many other ways he didn't. And now he had to play catch-up. He needed to get his grades out of the shitter, posthaste. Everyone was expecting him to be a starter. That's what he needed to be. The last thing his family needed right now was to worry about him. He needed to keep the ship tight, together.

  His phone rang in his pocket, and he dragged it out. Echo. Of course. Right on cue. When he didn't want to talk to anyone. “Hey Echo.”

  “Hey, little brother. I'm just checking in. Since, you know, you don't call me. I just wanted to see how you are.”

  That was Echo for you. Totally like a second mother. Always there when he needed her. Most guys didn't wanna spend too much time with their big sisters. But Echo was cool. And Gage really liked Cole, her fiancé. “You know how it is. Classes are full-swing now, so it's been a bit busier, trying to get everything done with school and practice.”

  “Yeah, I remember. You're okay though?”

  He could hear the question in her voice. Did she need to worry about him, too? For months, their parents had relied on Echo to keep the truth of their father's illness away from the rest of them. And she had done it. It was unfair that she had to. But even after she'd completely lost her shit on the wh
ole family and told them all where to get off, she still acted as the glue. The one who checked on them all. The one who made sure they were okay. The one that understood things they were dealing with.

  “I'm good.” He lied smoothly. He was far from good. If he didn't get his act together, he wouldn't be starting. And everyone expected him to start. The last thing on earth he was going to do was disappoint their father. The guy had been through too much. “Yeah, totally settling in. Classes are great. And practices are hard. All good.”

  They chatted for a few more minutes before he let her go. He would have loved to catch up with her on how her new clothing line was going, but he had something more important to do. Something that would solidify his future one way or the other. He had to find a tutor.

  Four

  After his conversation with Echo, Gage needed air. He loved his family, but honestly, they weren't helping. He felt like he lived in a perpetual pressure cooker. Heading for the courtyard, he sat on one of the benches and swung his legs up so that they stretched out over the length of the bench. His height was an asset on the court, but it could be an uncomfortable inconvenience when it came to things like sitting in public areas where things just weren't designed for his size. Leaning against the back, he sighed and stared at the list of tutors.

  Everyone in his family had been so enthusiastic about his scholarship to Billings. He’d been excited about it. Getting ready for freshman year, packing and shipping his clothes and the things he would need for his dorm room, emailing back and forth with his new coach and teammates, picking out his classes, he’d been a mess of nerves and excitement. A chance to strike out on his own.

  But it was different from what he’d expected. He was freer than he’d ever been before. He loved his family, but even being two hours away was a freedom he’d never known.

  It was also an unexpected weight off his shoulders. As the youngest in a family of overachievers, Gage hadn't realized how much pressure he felt to perform, both on the basketball court and academically, until it was gone.

  Though it wasn’t really gone. The pressure was still there, but the steady hands guiding him weren't there. And by steady, he meant stifling. The problem was, he had no one telling him he was doing too much, either.

  Some of that pushing had been good for him. The private school his parents had enrolled him in, which his brothers and Echo had attended first, had been indulgent when it came to their student athletes. Schedules and teachers worked with the demands of practices and games. He'd never had to worry about whether to practice or study because there had always been time for both. Now, despite the fact that he only had to take two or three classes a day, he never seemed to have the time to get his homework done. And the resources his professors provided weren't nearly as helpful as being able to use his siblings as resources.

  Echo's notes were incredibly detailed when it came to content, and Bryce had the individual teachers' preferences for test and pop quiz formats nailed. Dax and Fox weren't as helpful on the classes, but knew the best excuses to get extra time on things, and by the time the teachers got to Gage, they knew how to handle Coulters. At home, he'd had his parents, his father in particular, pressing him to finish his homework before this, study for the test he had coming up before he did that.

  Apparently, those pushes and that extra help had made a bigger difference than Gage ever gave them credit for. This was his own fault, and he'd fix it. He just had to figure out a way to make it all happen. There weren't enough hours in the day.

  He'd expected to be at least a little homesick, but even with his brothers and Echo all moved out, he had been surrounded by comparisons to the other members of his famous family.

  There were plenty at Billings who had heard about the Coulter family and their various athletic abilities, but the chances of running into anyone who knew one of his siblings or his parents or grandparents personally were slim. The comparisons to his father were the most common, he not only looked most like his old man among his siblings, he was the only one of them that had taken up one of the two sports his father had played professionally.

  Since the announcement of his father's illness—which had been kept strictly among the family and his father's doctors until it was time for Brent to step down from running the family business, Legacy Sports—Gage found it easier to ignore the realities of his father's health when he didn't have to see it on a daily basis. No…not 'ignore' exactly, but it was easier to pretend it wasn't serious, to picture his father as he’d been even three years ago, instead of the drawn and perpetually tired man he'd become. It had been ages since the two of them had faced off against each other on the basketball court, and Gage missed it. He wished he could go back and enjoy that last game again; the chances of his father being able to play even a brief game of one-on-one again were unlikely.

  Gage realized there was a lot about what was going on back home that he'd been trying to forget about or distract himself from. The problem was, he'd been doing too good a job, and had distracted himself from his classwork too.

  He was pretty sure that he could buckle down on his own and figure things out, pull his English grade back up without the help of a tutor, but could he risk it alone? What if he was wrong? What if he didn't have the self-discipline necessary to get himself in shape enough to play on the team? What if he lost his athletic scholarship because of it? What would his father say?

  His gut curled in on itself.

  To make matters worse, he wasn't the only freshman trying to start at point guard. It was like freaking Highlander or something. There could be only one. Daniel Sanchez also wanted the spot. So far, Gage was edging him out in practice, but he had to get his grades up or he’d never even have the chance. You will beat out Daniel. All you have to do is find a tutor and keep away from the parties and keep your dick in your pants.

  He glanced at the list of names Dr. Brooks had given him. The names each had an email address or a cell phone number next to them. When it came to English, he could grasp the deeper themes of what he read, but only after the teacher or his classmates pointed them out in class. Maybe having someone to discuss them with beforehand would help, especially on the comprehension quizzes Professor King was so fond of surprising them with as they entered the classroom.

  He had missed a few quizzes outright because of practice, but he hadn't done a whole lot better on the ones he'd been present for. There just wasn't enough time for someone who was a slow reader like him to get through everything in the time he was given. And a second set of eyes going over the slew of essays they had to write wouldn't hurt. There were so many of them: persuasive, analytical, active voice, passive voice, with citations in AP style, Chicago, MLA.

  Becker Johnson was the name at the top of the list for English tutors. With a heavy sigh, Gage resigned himself to the prospect of enlisting the help of some AV nerd with bottle-rim glasses and a deviated septum that made him wheeze when he breathed. Gage pulled the phone from his pocket and dialed the number, cringing as he worked through how he would word his appeal.

  “Hello?” a female voice asked on the other end.

  “Hi, I'm looking for a Becker Johnson, please,” he answered mechanically.

  “I'm Becker,” the woman said, with a tone Gage thought might be intended as a mockery of his own.

  “But you're a girl,” Gage answered reflexively, hitting his closed fist against his thigh at the stupidity of his remark.

  Sure enough, her reply was dripping with derision. “Observant and evasive. If you don't tell me who you are, I'm going to hang up and block your number,” she informed him.

  “Sorry,” he apologized. “Uh, my name's Gage, Gage Coulter. Dr. Brooks gave me your name on a list of English tutors.”

  There was a long pause on the other end of the phone before Becker confirmed, “Yeah, I told her I would be interested in maybe tutoring someone in English. Is that what you're calling about, then?”

  “Uh, yeah,” he paused, uncertain. “How doe
s the next part work, exactly?” Gage asked. “I've never had to hire a tutor before.”

  “It's my first time tutoring too,” she told him, her voice losing a bit of its wariness. “Why don't we meet at Jitter's Café, to see if we mesh?” she suggested. “I don't think either of us wants to waste our time. If that goes well, we can hammer out the details as far as pay rates and method, as well as a schedule for where and when we'll meet for sessions.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” Gage said, relief washing through him.

  “Are you free tomorrow morning at all?”

  The team's practices were staggered during the week around the majority of the players' class schedules: mornings three times a week, afternoons the other two, and Saturdays. Sundays, they had off. The next day would be an afternoon practice, but with a class at eight, Gage dreaded those days. It left too much time to think about everything he was avoiding.

  “Sure. I'm out of class by nine-thirty. You?”

  “I've got class at eleven, so nine-thirty should give us plenty of time,” she agreed. “Oh, and bring your syllabus with you.”

  “Will do. I'll see you then,” he promised before hanging up. He had a plan. That was what mattered. He just had to stay on task and keep the distractions at bay.

  “Wait, you're going to tutor whom?” Avery stared at Becker.

  “Gage Coulter? The guy from the party.”

  Avery stared at Becker she had two heads. “The guy from the party was Gage freaking Coulter?”

  Becker stared at her friend. “I'm sorry, you keep saying that like I'm supposed to know who that is.”

  Avery flopped on Becker's bed. “I love you so hard, but I swear to God, sometimes it's like you live on a different planet. Gage is a Coulter. The big, huge, Legacy Sports family. His grandfather was like some major track star and football player. His father played football and basketball. Oh wait, maybe that was baseball and basketball. Whatever. All of his siblings play a major professional sport. Or, at least, they did. There's a tennis player, football player, hockey player, and I think he has a sister. She runs in the Olympics or something.”