Teach You to Love Me (Lindon U #4)

Chapter Thirteen

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Rachel

H alloween feels different without the silly pranks the former players used to pull on each other, and the fun decorations they’d go all out putting up in the hallways and offices. I swear, I still find fake cobwebs in my office from last year.

I’ve only seen a couple of the players wearing goofy costumes since getting here a few hours ago to start one-on-one meetings with the team. One of the starting wide receivers was dressed in a cardboard box made to look like a nightstand with a sign that said, “Your favorite one-night stand,” which made me laugh and roll my eyes. The quarterback who replaced Ricky Wallace was in a dragon pajama onesie representing Lindon’s mascot. And one of the running backs just wore his uniform all day.

I remember my first Halloween with the Dragons. Everybody dressed up. Some of them went all out more than others, and they asked me to judge them on the top three. Except, whoever won had to buy everybody pizza and wings instead of the other way around. I’d felt bad when I decided Daniel won after stapling various shades of gray paint samples to his shirt and saying he was Fifty Shades of Gray .

As I’m preparing for Dean Avery, the team’s tight end, to come in for my last meeting of the day, I can’t help but think about the last two months.

When Matt saw me at the start of the semester, I understood where he was coming from. Not seeing the team had been foreign—almost disappointing. I’d gotten used to their antics. They were charming and harmless—well, mostly harmless—and I enjoyed their company.

The new team keeps to themselves. Maybe they were asked to after everything that’s happened over the last few months. Lindon doesn’t want any more drama, and I get it. The number of emails I’ve gotten from HR reminding me of the rules has been plenty of reason to try keeping to myself too.

Still, seeing the defeated look on Matt’s face makes me feel bad for withdrawing. I’ve seen him around campus, and he hasn’t looked much better. I can tell there’s a weight on his shoulders that I feel a little blame for.

But what can I do? Nothing. Especially not what I’m sure he’d love for me to do, which crosses a lot of the ethical lines that HR has been highlighting in their emails to Lindon staff about very much not stepping over.

Lately, it’s felt like I’ve been failing a lot of people. Caleb would barely talk to me about his father. Everything is so fresh and chaotic for his family right now, so I don’t blame him. They’re trying to help his dad by making him as comfortable as they can. The best I could do was tell him I would be available anytime he needed to talk because I knew what it was like from coping with my mother’s illness. He thanked me, and I haven’t heard from him since. I’m not going to push or pressure him. He’s still absorbing what time he has left with his family, and I know firsthand how important that is.

And Matt’s predicament…well, I wonder if I could have pointed him in a different direction. One he would have been happier pursuing. I know he loved playing, but I didn’t think he ever considered it a long-term dream. He’d always been so unserious whenever we met—focused more on flirting than planning ahead. If I’d known he felt otherwise, I could have tried harder to push him in a different direction so he wasn’t stuck somewhere he wasn’t happy.

His parting words echo in my head, and I decide to push them far, far away. Because we do deserve to be happy, but I know I can’t be the person who makes him that.

Not right now anyway.

The thought gets interrupted by a harsh knock on the door before Dean appears at my doorway looking less than pleased being here. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen the twenty-year-old smile once since meeting him in September.

“Hi, Dean,” I greet. “Come in.”

The sophomore grunts as he walks in, dropping into the seat and staring at the floor.

One thing is for sure.

I’m determined not to fail this team.

*

I see the scowl from across the quad. Pinpoint it with a worried frown, even with the tens or twenties of other faces going to various buildings for classes. Matt usually doesn’t look that way unless something, or someone, got under his skin.

The last thing I should do is head over there, but my feet don’t seem to get the message.

Veering off the path that will take me to the Sports Complex where I’m supposed to have a meeting with Coach Kelly about a few of the Dragons struggling to keep up their GPAs despite my best efforts to help, I head directly toward the former wide receiver whose face is shadowed over.

As if he senses me, he lifts his gaze and turns it a fraction until we lock eyes. I stop a few feet away, moving off to the side, when a group of girls pass by. I notice how one of them gives Matt an appreciative once-over, making my eyebrow twitch.

“What’s wrong?” I ask, cutting right to the chase. I’m sure we both have places to be, so I don’t want to hold him hostage. Especially since the mid-November weather has made the temperature drop to uncomfortable digits, making the air prick my face.

He evades my eyes, rubbing his lips together like he doesn’t want to tell me.

“Matt,” I say softly, taking another step closer. “You can talk to me.”

His instant response is, “Can I?”

Flinching at his tone, I stifle a sigh. I guess I deserved that, huh? I’ve been avoiding him, and he’s reluctantly respected the space I’ve put between us. “Yes, you can. I know I haven’t made it easy, but…”

It’s for the best , is what I want to say. But I don’t. Because his scowl deepens, carving his face with irritation.

No. He doesn’t need me to say that. He already knows.

I shiver when I’m hit with a chilly breeze, watching as a few more leaves fall off the trees that become even more naked as each day passes. I’ve always struggled this time of year. I was built for sunshine and warmth, not clouds and cold. Fall is pretty here in Lindon, but it’s also a reminder of what’s to come for the next six months.

Eventually, Matt huffs out a sigh. “If I don’t pass my midterm in Gomez’s class, I’m screwed.”

Understanding has me nodding. “Okay. That’s not the end of the world, right? You just need to do a little more studying. How bad can your grade be?”

The look he shoots me tells me all I need to know. Pretty bad.

Popping my lips, I try being the glass-half-full type of person. “Midterms don’t start until next week. That gives you plenty of time. Maybe you can make flashcards like you’ve done in the past. Those seemed to work for you.”

Resignation drops his shoulders. “But I also had people to study with. I can’t do it on my own. You know how distracted I get.”

He does. There were a few times I wanted to rip my hair out whenever his undiagnosed ADD would make him focus on anything but the task he needed to get done.

“There’s the tutoring cen—”

“No way. Only nerds go there.”

I wince at his judgmental comment. And, okay, maybe I was a tiny bit offended. Because I used to go there my sophomore year of undergrad when my math class was kicking my butt. Basic math I’m fine with. But anything other than that is a struggle I hate admitting.

“Matt, I’m trying here.” He’s not making it easy to give him suggestions.

When those gray-blue eyes lock on mine, I know they’re pleading for silent help. He’s stressed. More than he usually is. I know grad school hasn’t been what he expected, and part of me still feels slightly guilty for that.

So…“I don’t have a lot of free time this semester,” I tell him. I graduate with my master’s degree in the spring, so the workload has been gruesome. Between that and the team, my free time is limited. I don’t mind it. I like keeping busy. But it means not having much of a personal life outside of Lindon. “But I’m sure we could find a couple days this week to study together.”

Matt perks up. “You’ll help me?”

“I’m only going to help you study, Matt.”

The warning look I give him probably doesn’t do much, but he nods anyway with a new shine of hope in his eyes. “You’re the best, Rach.”

I look at my smartwatch, trying to hide the concerned expression weighing down my lips. I really hope I don’t regret this. “I need to get going, but stop by my office tomorrow at six. We can work on the flashcards and set up another day to go over them a few times.”

“I’ll bring us food.”

“You don’t have to—”

He’s already walking away. “I’ll see you tomorrow at six.”

And, thankfully, he does.

The next night, he shows up at 5:59, holding a paper bag with Fiesta’s logo on it. It smells delicious, especially since I hadn’t had time to eat more than a slightly stale granola bar that I found in my purse.

He lifts it with a wink. “I hear the mole dip is good, so I got extra.”

Sighing, I push off the flirting. “Let’s get started, okay?”

He sits down and pulls out his notebook, setting it on my desk next to the food. “Anything for you, Ruby Red.”

Maybe it’s a sign I should put a boundary up—draw a line and make sure he doesn’t cross it. Because the next night, he comes back to my office at six p.m. on the dot with a brown bag full of subs. An Italian for him, and a chipotle chicken for me. I stare at the order I used to get every time I went to the local sandwich shop and remember when he crashed another date I had there.

He remembered at least a third of the material we put on the cards and went back and forth on for an hour and a half.

The night after that, he brings a small pizza to share from Dante’s, the pizzeria in town that I used to go to with the Dragons to celebrate their victories. I haven’t been since the night he came back with me to my apartment, and the food tasted nostalgic in my mouth. It also distracts me as I remember what preceded the celebration. After two hours, the food is gone, and he remembers almost all the flash cards.

A day before his exam, he brings coffee and doughnuts from Bea’s Bakery. We go back and forth for an hour and forty-five minutes until he gets every single card right. We high-five, then he hugs me and thanks me for helping him. That hug is the closest I’ve let him get since the day he graduated.

Because I don’t trust myself or the gentle buzz that is always there, settled under my skin, wanting more.

The day before Thanksgiving break, there’s an exam taped to my office door, with a Bplus circled in red permanent marker at the top. I know whose it is before seeing Matt’s name written in the corner.

I smile to myself.

When I peel the exam off the door, a Post-it note flutters to the ground. Bending down to pick it up, I recognize the chicken scratch scrawled across it. Well, the numbers written.

A phone number.

No name.

There doesn’t need to be.

What I should do is put it in the trash, not in my bag. But that’s what I do. And not only do I put it safely in my purse, but I tuck it into the only internal pocket there is with a zipper, where I usually keep extra cash, or my credit card, or sometimes a tampon. The important stuff.

I think about it the rest of the day, even when Coach Kelly comes in and asks me if I have plans for dinner since I don’t have any more meetings on my work calendar.

“I’ve noticed how busy you’ve been,” he says, leaning in the doorframe. “All those extra meetings at night you’ve had must make it hard to have dinner.”

He’s usually not around when Matt is, but he’s noticed. Cement settles into my gut. “I manage,” I tell him, smile wavering.

“Let’s go out to dinner,” he says. “Celebrate all you’ve accomplished.”

Coach Kelly is nice. Attractive. There’s no reason not to tell him yes. But I do.

“I can’t,” I lie and tell him I have a lot to catch up on at home before seeing my family for Thanksgiving. I’m already packed, and my car is full of gas.

But the less he knows, the better.

“I’m sorry.”

And I am.

That little voice in my head tells me to change my mind. Say you’ll go , it prods, poking me with its invisible finger until guilt creeps into my stomach when I see the shy smile the interim coach offers me after my rejection.

I don’t accept the offer.

I thank him for it.

Tell him another day.

But, deep down, I don’t think that day will come. And I tell myself there’s a hundred reasons why, but they’re all bullshit. Because I know it has everything to do with the number inside my purse from the boy who shouldn’t be in the back of my mind.