Page 11

Tobie

“Uh, are you waiting for something?” I ask while holding the door open.

“I’m waiting for you to put shoes on.”

“Because?”

“I’m taking you to see Doc about your head.”

He’s really serious about this. “But my head is fine.”

“Then it shouldn’t take long for Doc to confirm it. He’s used to seeing concussions.”

He waits.

Letting go of the door, I stuff a pair of sneakers on and turn to leave.

He scratches the back of his neck. “You have a coat?”

I blink.

“It’s cold,” he says gruffly, not meeting my gaze.

Beneath that big, gruff, sexy exterior lies the heart of a softy. With how bruised and battered my heart is, I’ll take all the soft I can get.

I pick up my coat and put it on, dipping my head so Caleb misses my smile.

I’m reaching for the door when he beats me to it, holding it open. “Thanks.”

He nods like it’s nothing, but it’s not nothing to me.

I’m locking my door when I notice we’re not the only ones in the hallway.

The building is mixed, but there are girls or boys on each floor.

Lisa is staring in my direction. I’m not sure if the redheaded junior majoring in music was coming or going since she’s wearing her coat and has her keys in her hand.

“Hi, Lisa,” I call out.

Her eyes slide from Caleb to me and back again. Without a word, she opens her door and walks inside after another long look at Caleb. Seconds later, I hear muffled voices from behind her door.

I turn to Caleb. “Do you usually have this effect on girls?”

“Yes,” he says, perfectly serious. “You ready to go?”

The same thing keeps happening on our walk across campus toward the arena. Girls stare at him, then at me, then at him again like they’re working out an equation, and it doesn’t make sense, so they have to recheck their work.

I get it.

They’re wondering what he sees in me.

Maybe the staring will stop when Javier has turned me into the sort of girl a guy would want.

“Is something wrong?” Caleb asks.

I snap my head toward him. “Why would something be wrong?”

“You’re tense.” He studies me for a beat. “As tense as you were watching Javier with that book he picked up.”

I have to hide that book the next time those guys come to my room. They cannot know about page 179. I’d never be able to look them in the eye.

“You’re blushing,” he says, his eyes sharpening. “Why?”

I immediately look away. “No reason. I thought the doctor was in another building.”

After a probing look, he says, “He’s just our doc, so he has a small clinic in the arena.”

Lamont University wasn’t my first choice, but Marc and I were high school sweethearts from Lawrenceburg, our tiny Nebraska hometown. We spent years mapping out our future together.

After grad school, he was going to be an attorney at his dad’s practice, and I was going to be the town librarian. By the end of my first year of majoring in library science, I realized I’d made a mistake.

Meeting the professors, seeing them teach, and remembering how rewarding tutoring had been in high school was all I could think about. Even now, I still think about it.

I didn’t want to teach in my old school. I wanted to be somewhere I could decide who I wanted to be instead of October Myers, the quiet and studious girl everyone called Tobie, whose mom died when she was in the eighth grade and whose dad never remarried.

I might regret my major, but I don’t regret coming to Lamont.

There’s a direct flight to Nebraska, so going home is relatively straightforward, and the campus isn’t overwhelmingly massive. Gravel tracks weave around pretty gray stone buildings, and there is enough greenery that it’s soothing and calm, even though we’re in a city.

I glance up at a building I swore I would never set foot in ever again. It looks closed, which I guess makes sense with most of the team’s games happening on a Friday or Saturday night. “And you’re sure he’s still here?”

“It’s Division 1. Everyone always works late.”

He holds the arena door open for me after swiping a card he pulls from a lanyard around his neck. I thought jocks were all hard, partying womanizers, but Caleb seems nice. A little gruff but nice. I trail him inside, and he leads the way to a door that requires another swipe of his card to enter.

After a short walk down a white hallway with corkboards jampacked with notices, he knocks on a door with a silver sign on it— Dr. Douglas Andersen (Team Doctor).

“Doc, you got a minute?”

“Come on in, Caleb. Tight muscles again?” An older man asks as Caleb twists the handle and opens the door.

“Not for me. It’s for…” Caleb looks at me like he’s struggling to find a word to describe me. “Tobie. Tobie Myers. She fell the other night and has a bump on the back of her head. It could be a concussion.”

“Does she have a headache?”

Caleb glances at me.

I shake my head. “No. I feel okay.”

The door opens a little more, and I catch a glimpse of the doctor.

He’s an older man who looks to be in his mid-fifties, sitting behind a large walnut-brown desk.

He has salt-and-pepper hair, a smooth jaw, clear blue eyes, and enough lines around them that I know they’re not just a result of old age but from smiling often.

“Usually, we know pretty soon if it’s a concussion. You’re standing, have no headache, and you’re not green,” he says.

“I was a little dizzy before. It went away quickly, but Caleb said it was important to get checked out.”

“Can’t hurt to double-check these things. Hop on the table, if you won’t mind, and take off your glasses.” He gets to his feet. I thought being a doctor, he’d be wearing a white coat, but he’s in black sweatpants and a navy Wolverines’ sweatshirt.

Caleb parks himself against the wall, those powerful arms folded as I perch on a black leather examination table I hadn’t seen from the door. I slide my glasses off my face and place them beside me, my world instantly blurry.

He does a similar, but more thorough, exploration of the back of my head.

“I feel it. Can you follow my finger with your eyes?” He lifts his index finger, and I track it as he moves it from left to right.

When he nods, I assume all is well. Then he picks up a small torch from his desk. “Mind if I briefly blind you?”

“Go for it.”

He shines his torch into both eyes and hums. “Pupils are fine. Head is fine. That lump should go down in a day or two. If not, come back and see me. You’re a little dented, Miss Myers, but nothing is broken.”

I smile as I put my glasses back on. “Thanks, Doc.”

“How’d it happen?”

I glance at Caleb, who tilts his head, as interested in my answer as the doctor is. He knows I knocked myself out in the bathroom stall, but I will never reveal the utter stupidity of what led to it. That shit is going to my grave.

“Uh, just by accident. A freak accident.”

“Well, be careful out there. Here.” Doc offers me a red, plastic-wrapped lollipop with a flourish.

“Thanks.” I glance at Caleb as I take it. “Doesn’t he get one?”

Doc returns to the other side of his desk and the stack of papers we must have distracted him from. “When he takes a day off. Has that happened yet?” he asks Caleb as he pulls his chair to the table.

Caleb straightens. “Let’s go, Tobie.”

Doc mutters something as Caleb leads me out of the room. Just before the door slams closed, he shouts, “That’s a doctor’s order. Take a day off.”

I bite the inside of my cheek to hide my smile as Caleb scowls into the distance. “Come on.”

“That’s a first.”

He glances down at me, his eyes snagging on my lollipop as I peel the plastic off. “What?”

“A doctor ordering you to take a day off. And this.” I lift my lollipop. “My doctor never gave me one.”

“Not even as a kid?”

“Nope. Think he had a thing about sugar.” I offer him the lollipop. “Here. You should have it. You’re the one who brought me to get checked out.”

As he shakes his head, his eyes dip to my lollipop, making me think he does want it. “It’s yours, Myers. And those are bribes. Doc thinks if he has candy, it’ll encourage us to go see him for all our ailments instead of ignoring them.”

“Does it work?”

“Only with one of us.”

I pause before stepping out of the arena door he holds open for me. “ Myers ?”

He shakes his head. “Sorry. I get used to calling everyone by their last name.”

“I don’t mind.” It feels like a nickname, and no one ever gave me one of those before.

As we walk back across campus, I do my best to ignore the female stares as I lick my lollipop. I try even harder to ignore the occasional look I feel from the six-foot-four hockey god that is Caleb Boucher walking so close beside me, our shoulders brush.

Hoping I’m not drooling everywhere, I cast a surreptitious glance his way.

And catch his eyes on my mouth.

“Did you want a lick?”

“ No !” he blurts out, wrenching his head away, saying gruffly, “It’s yours, Myers.”

I kick myself.

What am I? Five ? Offering him a lick of my lollipop.

Of course, he’s going to say no. What guy would say yes?

“You don’t have to walk me back to my room,” I tell him, embarrassed.

“Yes, I do.”

Because of this fake-date thing?

It’s barely even started, and already it’s working. Within moments of stepping out of my room with Caleb, Lisa was staring. Surely, it’s only a matter of time before Marc finds out that the girl he cheated on is hanging out with hockey players.

Not just hanging out.

Dating three of the guys responsible for the team about to win their first championship in seventy years.

And he loves the team. Never misses a game.

This is going to eat him alive.

My cheeks are still burning by the time Caleb has walked me up the two flights of stairs to my floor, and almost every girl finds a reason to step into the hallway as I unlock my door.

Cindy is standing outside holding a dustpan and brush.

She’s literally just holding it as she rubbernecks for all she’s worth. I’d laugh if it weren’t so ridiculous.

“See you tomorrow, Tobie,” he says softly.

I’d ask if he’s coming to the mall, but with a dozen eyes spearing us from all directions, now doesn’t seem the time to get into the specifics of our fake relationship.

I smile. “See you tomorrow, Caleb.”

He hesitates, his eyes flicking to my lips. My fingers tighten around my lollipop, and I hold my breath because is he seriously going to kiss me like we just returned from a date?

He nods firmly, then backs up and walks away.

Yes, I check out his ass, but so does every girl on my floor.

The second the staircase door slams shut, Maxine, or Max, because she will murder anyone who calls her Maxine, comes out of nowhere and tackles me into my room so hard I drop my lollipop.

“ Spill . No word is unimportant, Tobie Myers. All of it. I need to know everything .”