The Ten-Year Game Plan

Chapter 2- Josie

I whirled on him and exploded.

"God! It's none of your business, okay?! You want to just rub in the fact that I haven't heard from any school yet? Fine! Tell everyone! I don't care."

His brow furrowed. "Josie, I—"

"All I know, is that I hope that wherever I go to school is as far away from you as humanly possible. I don't want to be anywhere near you. I'm so excited for the day that I don't have to see you anymore."

My cheeks were flushed and I was breathing heavily as I stared at him. His crisp blue eyes narrowed drilling into my green ones, and I wondered what asshole-ish thing was going to come out of his mouth.

"Fine," he said, "if that's what you want."

He brushed past me toward his house without another look in my direction, shoving my headphones back into my hands. I stared after him for a second, a mix of emotions in my stomach.

Oddly enough, my anxiety was gone.

That night I got my acceptance and scholarship offer to South Harmon. It was the same night that Donovan signed his letter of intent for a school that would be 2,018 miles from me.

•••
PRESENT DAY
•••

So... I ran into him.

Ran away from him would actually be a more apt description.

The summer in between semesters was always my favorite time. Cam, Gisele, and I would stay in our apartment and spend our summers working and partying in Hammond, the college town right next to campus. Usually, it was only locals, kids who didn't want to go home to their parents, and athletes starting their preseason that stayed in Hammond during the summer.

Nobody studied, nobody stressed, nobody had to deal with wasted college freshmen. But everybody still partied.

Gisele was the most outgoing of all three of us so she always knew someone who knew someone who knew where the best parties would be. She seemed to have a sixth sense over which parties had the right vibe with the right people and which would likely be broken up by cops or campus security. I never doubted her instincts before, so when she told us about a Phi Lambda party that Friday, I trusted her.

I shouldn't have.

The frat parties in the summer were always so much more fun because they were less packed than they were during the semester. They were usually thrown by the less douche-y brothers or, at least, the more mature ones. If you could call them that.

"I think you should make out with someone tonight," Gisele said to me the moment we crossed the threshold into the house. Then again, maturity wasn't really in the air tonight.

I snorted, glancing at her. Three guys were already looking her way... and I was about to tell her the same thing and that she'd be able to accomplish that in ten minutes. Five if she moved quickly.

All three of us had pre-gamed, maybe a little too hard beforehand. I was giggling at everything. I usually didn't party hard during the semester—or, at least, I told myself that I didn't— so I had to get it all out before classes started back up again.

"I'm going to find Patrick, you wanna come?" Cam asked and I nodded.

Giselle had found some of her friends, and I shook my head in disbelief. I'd never seen these people before in my life but she acted as if they were best friends. She was undoubtedly one of the best connected people at South Harmond.

We maneuvered our way through the straggler students that remained on campus during the break. Some of them were vaguely familiar, and some I'd never seen before. It really was a big school. Maybe I wouldn't see—