Page 58 of Lovesick (The Minnesota Mustangs #1)

THIS IS GOING TO HURT

KNOX

H aving Coach Lawson scream into my ear at nine in the morning wasn’t exactly how I wanted to start my day. Neither was slamming a five-hour energy after running on three hours of sleep.

I’m so fucking late, and traffic isn’t helping. I spent all night studying for my algebra exam, and if I don’t get above an eighty percent on this test, there’s gonna be a doghouse waiting for me with my name emblazoned on the goddamn front.

I thought I had set my alarm, but between a sleep-induced fog and thoughts with the comprehension of incompatible Scrabble pieces, my fatigued body woke up ten minutes before class time. My professor closes the door once all the exams have been distributed. I live twelve minutes from campus.

This isn’t the first time school has been a pain in my ass. I’ve been struggling this entire semester. I’m not…academically gifted. Learning is difficult for me, even at the baseline class levels. And with my parents hounding me to get better grades, the pressure has only grown tenfold.

I speed through the intersection like a madman, garnering aggravated honks from unfortunate cars that have been caught in the crosshairs. The frenetic movement of my steering jostles both my anxiety and the sour acid in my stomach.

“Mulligan, we agreed that you’d play as long as you kept your grades up,” Coach Lawson barks through my phone’s speaker, his stentorian, brass-wrapped lilt filling the interior of my Porsche.

My threadbare voice rises in response, wearing a false coat of confidence. “I know, Coach.”

“Your professors have informed me that you have an overall grade of sixty-five percent. Do you understand why I’m upset with you?”

“Yes, Coach,” I grit through strained teeth as I white-knuckle the steering wheel, my frustration cut with something stronger—indignation, maybe.

A fatal warning that my ever-growing resentment will mutate into something uncontrollable, unbridled, unholy if the right preventive measures aren’t taken.

A sigh unravels from Coach Lawson’s chest. “You know I don’t want to have this conversation with you, kid. But the bottom line is that if you can’t turn these grades around by the end of the grading period, I’m going to have to bench you.”

“Please, sir, I—” Praying that it’s not obvious I’m driving and talking, I swerve out of the way of an oncoming car, my heart halfway up my throat. “I know I’m not doing well, but I can fix this.”

“You said that the last time we talked, and nothing has changed. Just because you’re a talented player doesn’t make you exempt. Being on this team is a privilege, not a right. I made that very clear to you.”

His disappointment is deafening, and if I wasn’t entertaining this preposterous conversation, I’d have a warranted breakdown in the comfort of my own car right now.

It feels like my nerves are being plucked like untuned violin strings.

My exhaustion has been playing a sick game of catch and release with me for the past ten minutes.

I’m mad at myself, I’m mad at the situation. No matter how hard I study, I never make any progress. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. All my peers seem to understand. All my hockey teammates are keeping their grades up. I feel like I’m the only one struggling.

I’m still in my junior year of college. I can’t fathom…fuck, I can’t fathom not graduating. I have my whole future planned out, you know? I’m going to play in the NHL, and nowhere in the schedule does “becoming a super senior” belong in the fine print.

I want to argue with Coach. I want to prove to him that I’ve earned my spot on the Minnesota Mustangs, but the man is unswayable. He’s my superior, and I have to respect his decision at the end of the day.

Hockey is my lifeblood. It’s the one thing that keeps me sane in this world, and it’s apparently the only thing I’m good at.

I’ve never pictured myself doing anything else.

I don’t have the patience or facilities for a nine to five.

I’m likable, sure, but I have a low tolerance for most people in the world.

Plus, my father would disown me if I didn’t make a career out of my “extracurricular,” as he so calls it.

Since I’m not following in his footsteps to become a lawyer—a laughably ridiculous ask of me, by the way—I have to do something with my life that brings “honor” to the Mulligan name.

My dad is the senior managing partner of one of the most prestigious law firms in all of Minnesota, my mom is an investment banker, and my older sister, Adelaide, is a psychiatrist. Dropping out of college and making a minimum wage isn’t an option for me.

Oh my God, I think I’m spiraling. At 9:05 a.m. on a Tuesday. This is it, folks. This is my pathetic, pitiful rock bottom, and life is burying me alive in an unmarked grave, shoveling earth onto my nowhere-near-cold body .

There’s a congested mass of tardy student drivers ahead of me, hindered by a mocking red stoplight. Cursing beneath my breath, I’m allocated the time to choose between reassurance or vulnerability, and the latter is yet another topic I’m not well-versed in.

“I’m studying my ass off. I’m doing everything I can to bring up my grades, but I just…the curriculum is difficult this semester.”

A half lie that tastes bitter on my tongue.

The truth is, I’m struggling. I hate to admit it.

I hate giving people the impression that I’m not capable.

I shun vulnerability as much as the next guy—it’s basically a direct pipeline into my tissue-scarred heart, and there’s a reason I’ve got that bad boy locked up with deadbolts and latches.

Weakness isn’t something that the Mulligan men deal with.

Toxic? Maybe. My upbringing? Unfortunately.

“You need to get a tutor. As soon as possible,” Coach demands, and I quite literally feel my body cringe at the suggestion.

I can’t, Coach. Mostly because having anyone know that I’m universally bad at anything involving critical thinking makes me want to throw myself onto train tracks.

Come on, Knox. It’s either a tutor or bon voyage, hockey. There’s a lesser of two evils here, and honestly, you don’t really have much of a choice anymore.

9:08 a.m. I’m not going to make it. Fuck. FUCK! Professor Hardwin doesn’t allow retakes. I already have a C in Intro to Literature. An incomplete on an exam is sure to bring me down to a D. I guess it also doesn’t help that I constantly skip his class.

Coach keeps blabbering my ear off. Everything he says is warbled, staticky, refusing to root into my brain and curate some sense.

His cautionary tales are drowned out beneath the knocking of my heart against my ribs.

There’s a feverish fire rolling through my body—slicking my palms in sweat and loosening my grip on the steering wheel—and an impending sense of doom circles me like a flock of crows scared from a grove of evergreens.

When the light finally flashes green, I’m hightailing it through the intersection and swerving into the lip of the parking lot by Reber Hall, glancing down at my phone that now broadcasts a stomach-dropping 9:10 a.m. on the home screen.

“Hello? Kid? Are you even listening to me?”

With my focus split between two places and hope letting from my body like blood, I don’t see the bicyclist that crosses in front of me.

The moment I glance back up, there’s a sickening thud that reverberates in my eardrums, and the force of the collision jars the entire carapace of my car.

I catch the tail end of a blurry form flying over my hood as I slam on the brakes, screaming in blind terror.

Oh my God. I THINK I JUST HIT SOMEONE.

Why wasn’t I looking where I was going? What happened to all those PSAs you watched in high school about texting and driving, Knox? Did those mean nothing to you?! Forget spending your future behind a desk—you’re going to be behind bars.

A swarming sea of pedestrians stops to assess the damage, and a build-up of cars all halt in their tracks, causing a pileup in the parking lot.

Hanging up the phone and jumping out of my vehicle, I race over to the poor casualty of my reckless driving, shoving through a throng of spectators that all murmur in collective concern. It feels like steel wool is scratching at the tissue of my guilt-ridden heart.

Please don’t be dead. Please don’t be dead. Please don’t be dead.

When I breach the inner ring, I’m met by the sight of a (thankfully) conscious girl on the cold asphalt, a bleeding contusion nestled underneath her raven-black hair, and a mosaic of scratches marring her limbs.

My first thought is that she’s the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen.

Her bike has been capsized and tossed to the wayside—wheels still spinning from the momentum—and her backpack is in an equally destructive state, spilling out papers and books from polyester innards. Despite there being a decent-sized crowd, nobody moves to help her.

I frantically crouch down to her level, praying to a God I don’t believe in that she’ll be okay.

She groans, her eyes half-lidded and lashes brushing the hills of her cheekbones, skin a sickly shade of ivory, and splayed body reminiscent of a chalk outline.

The image churns my empty belly and calls nausea to the scene of the crime.

“Fuck,” she mutters.

I press two fingers to her wrist, assessing the sluggishness of her pulse. Each beat is slower than normal, but it seems steady. She’s probably in shock.

Exhaling in relief, some of the tension boiling in the pit of my gut flatlines into a fizzle. “Someone fucking call 911!” I shout at the spineless bystanders.