Page 55 of Necessary Roughness

Sloane

Roman ended up being right. When I walked to my first exam on Monday morning, the treatment I received was completely different than it had been a week ago.

Some people waved as if they knew me. One student gave me a high-five in passing and said, “Conference champs, baby! Wooo!” as if I were a member of the football team.

Mostly, the Westview College student body ignored me. Football season was over, and the basketball team was getting a lot of attention. Not to mention the women’s swim team was apparently one of the best in the nation.

I was just another faceless student going about her day.

I grinned when I reached my exam classroom. That was exactly how I liked it.

My final exams proved to be trivial for me.

I crushed that first exam on Monday, then two more on Tuesday.

I spent the rest of my free time studying in the apartment I shared with Morgan, but it was mostly a formality.

I knew this material, and it was easy to focus now that my love life was stable again.

After my last final exam on Friday, I moved all my stuff back over to the football house. “How did your exams go?” I asked Knox as he met me by the curb. Bryson had an exam this afternoon, but he’d lent me his truck so I could transport everything in one trip.

“All Bs and a C,” he replied. “No problem at all.”

“What was the C in?” I asked.

“Art History,” Logan answered for him while joining us. He lifted a box out of the truck bed, peeked inside, then added, “You distracted him.”

“I did not!” I replied.

Knox smirked. “I may have missed some crucial lectures because I was busy stealing glances at you.”

“Don’t even joke about me being a distraction! That’s not funny!”

“GPA doesn’t really matter for us,” Roman said from the front porch. “As long as Knox is passing his classes, the teams in the draft won’t care.”

“Roman aced all his exams,” Logan muttered to me while carrying a box inside.

“And he’s been bragging about it nonstop,” Knox said.

Roman looked offended. “I’ve done no such thing. You’re the one who just brought it up to Sloane, completely unprompted.”

Knox leaned in close and whispered, “Roman posted the grades on the fridge. Like a six-year-old.”

“I heard that,” Roman said. “How’d you score in Physics?”

“93 on the final exam,” I said. “Which brought my overall grade up to a B-plus.”

Roman grunted. “If you’d gotten a perfect score on your final, you might have moved your grade up to an A.”

“Considering how the class started,” I said, kissing him on the cheek in passing, “I’m thrilled with that B-plus.”

Roman made a disapproving noise.

With their help, everything was moved back into my bedroom within a few minutes. But when I went back out to lock the truck, there was a man standing on the curb staring up at the house. He was wearing a baseball cap, so I didn’t recognize him at first.

“Can I help you?” I asked.

Behind me, Logan let out a soft curse. “That’s Zane. The assistant coach who’s always checking up on us.”

Shit .

“I just came by to see how my players did on their exams,” Zane said, eyes locked onto me.

He spoke formally, like he was in a Shakespeare play rather than having a casual conversation.

“But I see my suspicions have proven to be well-founded. You aren’t merely their study partner.

You have been living here all semester.”

“Not all semester!” Logan replied. “Just since we… uh, actually, I meant to say something else. She hasn’t lived here at all.”

“I watched her move out last week,” Zane replied dryly. “And I spent the last ten minutes watching you move her back in, discussing how happy you are to have her back .”

Knox and Roman stepped up behind me on the porch. “Zane, let’s all be reasonable here. We had an empty room. It doesn’t hurt anything for—”

“I take my job very seriously,” Zane hissed.

“I have access to your student records, and check your attendance and test results three times per week. I have spreadsheets dedicated to each player’s academic performance, spreadsheets analyzing areas of concern and areas that have room for improvement.

If you knew how much time I spent in these spreadsheets, watching over you without you knowing, you wouldn’t be so cavalier about moving your girlfriend in and keeping it a secret. ”

“Fuck. You’re right. I’m sorry,” Knox said. “But let’s not lose sight of the full picture. Since Sloane moved in, we’ve played great. We won the conference championship, the first time in school history!”

“Can’t you look the other way?” Logan asked. “Nobody is staying in her room in the spring semester. She’s not hurting anything. Nobody has to know.”

“She’s our good luck charm,” Roman added.

“Yes!” Knox clamped his hands over my shoulders and gave me a little shake. “You said it yourself a month ago: I shifted my performance into a new gear. Sloane is that gear!”

Zane looked at each of us like a mediator passing judgment, then lifted his chin. “If you’re caught, you won’t be the only ones punished. My rear end is on the line, too.” His gaze settled on me. “I cannot risk my job, my career, just so you can play sleepover. I cannot be held responsible.”

Crap. I could see we weren’t going to convince this man. He had a tiny amount of power, and he was going to wield it.

A car pulled up behind my truck, and then the last person I expected to see got out. “You forgot this,” Morgan said, voice thick with annoyance.

“A stack of paper plates?” I asked as she handed it to me. “You didn’t need to bring these over. You can keep them.”

“This is your trash,” she said haughtily. “I cannot be held responsible for it.”

It was almost word-for-word what Zane had said. He noticed it too, and was gazing at Morgan with fresh interest.

“Thanks,” I said, tossing the paper plates onto the porch. “Morgan, before you go, I want you to meet someone. This is Zane, one of the assistant football coaches.”

“I’m technically the assistant to the offensive coordinator,” Zane said while shaking her hand. “There’s quite a bit of data analytics involved.”

Morgan’s expression was one that I had never seen. Was that… attraction?

“You must work with a lot of spreadsheets,” she said.

“Indeed I do. I’ve been called a freak in the sheets… spreadsheets, that is.”

Both of them chuckled at the joke. I glanced at Knox, who gave me a look that said, what the fuck?

“Microsoft Excel,” Morgan asked, “or Google Sheets?”

“Both,” Zane replied smugly. “I appreciate the additional formula features that Excel offers, but prefer the online collaboration that Google Sheets provides.”

“What the fuck is happening?” Roman whispered.

Morgan stepped closer. “I have a spreadsheet to track how often I study for each class, with graphs to show a positive correlation between time spent and exam grades.”

Zane snorted. “I have a spreadsheet to track my weekly weight fluctuations.”

“Weekly, not daily? I suppose that’s fine, if you’re comfortable with an incomplete dataset.”

“Oh, I’ve been tracking it daily with a Smart Body Composition Scale since I was fourteen. The weekly average is what is displayed on my line chart.”

“That much data would create a lot of noise,” Morgan admitted. “The weekly average is probably sufficient.”

“Trust me, it is,” Zane said in a breathy tone.

I cleared my throat and stepped forward. “Morgan was my roommate before I moved into this house. With me gone, she has her place all to herself.”

“I like it quiet,” Morgan said, still intensely focused on Zane.

“Not too quiet, I hope,” Zane replied with a smile.

“I can get quite rowdy while listening to Vivaldi when I study.”

“His Four Seasons violin concerto is my go-to music when I need to focus.” Zane glanced over at us.

I imagined how we must have looked, the four of us staring wide-eyed as they performed their nerdy little mating dance, or whatever this was.

“Is it safe to assume your apartment is a better study environment without this woman and my football players coming over?”

“You have no idea,” Morgan replied. “One time they came over and watched Die Hard .”

“Unbelievable.” Zane shook his head, and glanced at me again. “Perhaps I will look the other way on her illicit residence here. Seeing as though it affects more than just the four of them.”

“This would immeasurably improve my quality of life,” Morgan agreed. “I would love to show you some of my spreadsheets… if you’re free tonight?”

“I was planning on driving home for winter break tonight.” Zane scratched his chin. “But I suppose I could delay that until tomorrow. I do love a good spreadsheet.”

As the two walked away, Knox shook his head and muttered, “Those two need to get a room.”

“A room filled with printed-out spreadsheets for them to have sex on,” Logan added.

I made a disgusted noise. “Can we please never talk about Morgan’s sex life again?”

“I also don’t want to imagine Zane in bed,” Roman agreed.

Knox’s phone rang. “It’s my lawyer,” he said, surprised.

We all drew quiet as he walked inside and answered the call.

“She’s going to tell him to settle,” Roman said when he was gone.

“But he’s innocent!” I blurted out.

“That doesn’t matter. Troy will be able to drag it out. Make it problematic for Knox. Hurt his draft position. Knox will save money by settling quickly. Think of it as an investment. A little down payment now, and a big payoff when the draft happens in April.”

Logan let out a growl. “This is bullshit.”

“That’s life.” Roman sounded resigned.

I shook my head angrily. It felt like Troy was winning. I hated it. But if a settlement meant we would never have to hear from him again…

“It’s not your fault,” Logan said, rubbing little circles into my back.

I put on a smile for him. “I love you.”

His face lit up. “I love hearing you say that.”

Knox returned to the porch, phone held at his side. He was frowning in concentration.

“Well?” I asked.

“That was my lawyer,” he said slowly.

“We know that, bro!” Logan snapped. “What did she say?”

“You’re settling, aren’t you?” Roman asked.

“She gathered all the video evidence from the students at the party,” Knox explained. I searched his face for some sign of how the phone call had gone, but he was unreadable. “Everything from social media, too. My lawyer is going to file a request for summary judgment.”

“Yeah, but will the judge agree?” I asked.

“Turns out it doesn’t matter,” Knox said, a smile flickering on his tight lips. “After seeing all the evidence, Troy’s lawyer has changed their request. They’re now asking that we pay Troy’s medical bills.”

“That’s it?” I asked. “Nothing else?”

A full smile now appeared. “That’s it.”

I squealed and threw myself into Knox’s arms. Fortunately he caught me, spinning me around and laughing as if he couldn’t believe what he’d just learned on the phone.

Logan wrapped his arms around us, and then Roman joined, too. We huddled together in a group hug for a few moments, then Knox let me down and turned to Roman.

“That’s not all. She talked to your lawyer.”

Roman frowned, then pulled his phone out. It was vibrating. “I… have to take this.”

As he walked down into the yard, Knox turned to us and said, “My lawyer went to battle for Roman, too. If I pay for Troy’s medical bills, they’ve agreed to drop the battery charges against Roman.”

I heard myself gasp. “Really?”

Down in the yard, Roman shouted something indecipherable, and pumped his fist.

“Guess he got the news,” Logan said.

Roman punched the air with excitement, then winced and cradled his bandaged hand like the motion had hurt him. The three of us on the porch laughed, which made Roman flip us off, which caused us to laugh even harder .

Things were going to turn out all right.