"Academic probation. Do I need to spell it out for you?" Coach Walker asks. "You think you're hot shit just because you had a good run last year? You don't get your fucking grades up, you're ineligible in the fall. Which means you don't play."

I mumble my protest. All of the mouthy shit I can get away with when it comes to other people definitely doesn’t fly with Coach.

“Skipping classes, not turning in assignments, partying …” he goes on, ticking off my list of sins. His face turns redder and redder as he gets louder and louder. “The university isn’t tolerating that shit anymore.”

“It's not like I need English 212." I blurt it out without thinking. I had an amazing fall. I’m shit hot and I could go pro early if I wanted. Fuck this "finishing college" bullshit.

“You need it because I say you need it. You’re going to get with the tutor I assigned you, and you’re going to learn some goddamn discipline.”

The tutor I was assigned. The hot little librarian with the smart mouth.

Her brand of tutoring might not be so bad. My dick stirs at the thought of her in that skirt and heels. I wonder what the skirt would look like pulled up around her waist.

"Coach?" I ask.

"What?" he barks.

"I think she might have quit."

"Then you will be your charming self and get her back," he says.

"Can't we find another one?"

"Another tutor who doesn't know who the hell you are and isn't going to let you get away with shit?" he asks. "She's your goddamn tutor. So whatever you said to her, you un-say it."

"Yes, Coach."

---

"Shit, ma, I told Drew not to tell you," I complain into the phone. My mom’s voice on speaker echoes through the car. I should have known my damn brother would tell her. My own twin, a traitor.

"Well, he told me because he's a good son," she says, laying on the mom guilt. "Unlike his younger brother, who's off at school on the other side of the state partying and doing God knows what else. You're not on drugs, are you?"

I laugh, then cover it with a cough. My mother is the definition of overprotective. I can't blame her, though. I'm sure my brother Drew and I have given her plenty of cause for having a heart attack over the years.

"You laugh," she says. "But if you are, so help me, Colton Anderson King, I will come down there myself and –"

"I'm not on drugs, mom," I interrupt before she completely spirals out of control. "You know they test us for that shit anyway. And I'm only younger than Drew by two minutes."

A fact that Drew has loved to remind me about ever since we were kids.

"I worry," she says. "You have to think about the future, Colton. It can't be parties and girls your whole life. If you get to the pros, all that stuff will still be there."

"And you'll still be giving me grief about parties and girls," I groan back. I've heard this lecture a million times. Be responsible. Think about your future.

"Because I'm your mom and that's what I do," she says, her tone softening. "But you're not going to have a future if you don't get your shit together, Colton King. And I mean that literally. I brought you into this world, remember that."

"Did you just cuss?" I can count on one hand the number of times in my life that I've heard my mother cuss.

"That's what you're driving me to, son!"

"Okay, okay, I get it," I assure her. "I've got to go, mom. They assigned me a tutor. I have to meet with her."

I have to go sweet-talk her into tutoring me.

"Her?" my mom asks. "Is she cute?"

"Mom," I groan. "I'm hanging up."

"You can't blame me for wanting a grandchild someday," she says. “But not now. Make sure you use condoms and –“

"Love you, ma," I say, pausing only for a second for her to say it back before disconnecting. My mother is insane. I'm twenty-one and she's talking about grandchildren.

I text my brother.

Drew texts back a photo of himself grinning. My brother and I have been best friends our whole lives. He's playing baseball at a college in South Carolina. It's been a weird adjustment to be separated from my twin, for sure.

I scroll through my photos and find a picture of my dick – yeah, I have dick pics on my phone – and text it to Drew.

Then I get out of the car. This is supposed to be the tutor's address – Coach gave it to me, even though he wasn't supposed to. I promised on pain of death that I was going to be polite and gentlemanly and not do or say anything remotely inappropriate.

I inhale deeply. I can do appropriate.

Fuck. When's the last time I didn't say something inappropriate?

I'm screwed.