When Gracie is humiliated after following her best friend's brother to college and finds he's moved on without her, she grows closer to his rival--the captain of his basketball team--the infamous Kalen Rush, and suddenly Gracie wonders just what len...
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"Gracie, I'm so glad you decided to accept both positions, especially with your heavy course load this semester. I'm honestly surprised you'll have enough time for both."
"Thank you, Mr. Rhodes. I'm not taking an on-campus job this semester since my scholarship pays for my housing and my meals, so I'm just using my savings and my personal loan for any expenses this semester so I can really focus."
Mr. Rhodes adjusted his reading glasses atop his head before nodding once and striding to his desk at the front of the class just as the first few students trickled into the large auditorium style lecture hall.
"Perfect. Well, I'll just need you to use this answer key and grade these assignments on the online portal during class, and I've already emailed you the schedule and who to report to at the museum after you're done here."
It was by some stroke of pure luck that the museum had decided to accept my terms for my working hours of noon til closing time at seven on Tuesdays and Thursdays, especially considering my classes were the other three days a week and I wouldn't have time to work and Mr. Rhodes had me as his TA from seven in the morning until I had to leave for the museum.
Distraction was key. It always had been in my life.
Listening to his instructions, Mr. Rhodes logged me into his online portal and then the rest of the first class was spent in droning overtones, my mind latching onto some of the information I wouldn't be learning until my sophomore year, where I'd technically have the same amount of credits as a junior at that point.
The goal was to graduate early, if everything lined up, and to continue on for either a Master's or a doctorate degree in history.
During the last class of the day, a familiar entity entered the lecture hall and my entire being seized up as his eyes locked with mine, and then it somehow got even worse.
The majority of the basketball team walked in together into Mr. Rhodes class and like a magnet, the eyes of Kalen Rush fixated onto mine, like he owned the traveling gaze, like he commanded my attention above all else.
Colby was an afterthought as he strode to his seat in the middle row, right at the very front.
Where did Kalen sit, however? As if he were trying to punish me for my attendance in his class, he chose a seat to the very left of the front row, his teammates and friends crowding around him like they would be lost without him.
As he sat directly in my eye line, I held his stormy gaze as if rainclouds writhed within the depths of his grey eyes, his long form stretched out in front of him while he studied me harshly—like I was the cause of everything bad and evil that had happened to him in his life.
I searched the length of his neck for that golden chain that had once been strung around my own neck for so many years, but couldn't see anything beneath the black of his t-shirt.
