Maverick

“You good?” Luke asked when he reached our locker bank.

“Yeah, why?”

His eyes darted around the hallway. “Because I have it on good authority Holloway was talking to Lo earlier.”

“What?” My voice was cold, the complete opposite of the heat running through my veins at the mention of his name.

“Yeah, apparently, he collared her before she headed into class, you know after she publicly kissed the shit out of you.” He grinned, but it was lost on me. JB had approached Lo? If he so much as touched her…

“Do you know what he wanted?” I ground out, unable to disguise the tremor in my voice.

Luke’s shoulder shrugged as he leaned back against the lockers. “I can take a stab in the dark, though.”

“Yeah.” Dragging a hand over my face, I released a long breath. This was the last thing I needed. Not now. Not when so much was hanging in the balance.

“So, what are we going to do about it?”

“We?” I raised an eyebrow.

“Well, yeah. You know he’s been waiting for the right ammunition. And you just handed him Lo, on a silver platter.”

This was one of the reasons I hadn’t wanted to go public. To avoid her falling into the hands of my enemies. Namely JB Holloway.

“He won’t do anything.”

“You sure about that?”

“He doesn’t want war. Not with graduation right around the corner.” Even JB wasn’t that foolish. He had plans. A football scholarship at San Diego State. He wouldn’t risk it.

“Okay, man,” Luke sighed, “if you’re sure. But I’ve seen him watch her. He’s itching to make you pay for Caitlin. You know that.” My best friend gave me a pointed look, and a groan bubbled in my throat.

“Let me deal with Holloway. But I appreciate the heads up.” Luke was one of the few people I trusted.

“Sure thing, and you know I’ve got Lo’s back. The rest of the guys too. Trey likes to give you shit about her, but he doesn’t mean anything by it.”

“I want eyes on her, always. If I’m not with her, someone is watching her.”

“Got it.”

Lo was a junior. Our paths rarely crossed around school and I couldn’t watch her twenty-four-seven. Kyle and Laurie knew the drill. They knew Caitlin could make life difficult for her if she wanted to. She’d already proved that with her little stunt at Winter Formal. But if Luke was right and JB was going to make a move to use her to hurt me… well, that couldn’t happen.

“You need to be discreet,” I said. “If she knows we’re—”

His head shook, an amused smirk plastered on his face. “Jesus, you’re whipped.”

“Taffia,” I warned, and he threw up his hands.

“Hey, it looks good on you. She’s good for you. It’s about time you had something good in your life. Just don’t fuck it up.”

I couldn’t argue with that. But he didn’t know Lo the way I did. If she knew I was having her watched by someone other than Kyle, she’d have my balls. But I was already risking her by just being with her. Caitlin wanted Lo out of the picture. There was a good chance JB wanted to use her to hurt me. And once my father found out about us—if he didn’t already know—he’d use her against me.

Lo was my weakness. And it was only a matter of time before someone exploited that.

~

After my conversation with Luke, I headed straight for Coach’s office. He’d told me to come by after last period, but when I knocked on the door and slipped inside, he was taking a call. “Take a seat,” he mouthed, and I dropped into the chair, scrubbing a hand over my face.

It had been a long day. I’d expected it to be bad—the stares and whispers and constant questions—but it had been intense. The lingering waves of pain hadn’t helped my mood. Luke and the guys kept the piranhas from circling and our group went on lockdown for most of the day. Laurie and Kyle did the same with Lo, but I knew she’d had it rough in a couple of her classes. Kyle told me as much. Because where I was used to being in the limelight, used to the way people gravitated to me and mine, Lo wasn’t.

Fuckers.

Why couldn’t they just leave us alone? It wasn’t like Lo had taken me off the market—I was never on it to begin with. Aside from Caitlin, I didn’t date. Period. And before her, I’d rarely so much as looked at any of the girls from school and, if I had, they were a means to an end. An itch to scratch. But I knew how their minds worked. Being with me painted a target on Lo’s back and the line started behind Caitlin Holloway.

“Maverick, thanks for coming, son.” Coach hung up his phone and spun his chair to face me. “I had an interesting chat with a Miss Stone last week.” His mouth curved in a sly smile.

“You did, huh?” I leaned forward, rubbing my jaw, unsure of what to do with that.

Lo wanted me to pursue Steinbeck, I knew that, but truth was, I still hadn’t decided what to do. I wasn’t used to someone trying to railroad me. To take the decision out of my hands. That right was reserved solely for my father.

“Smart girl, I like her.” His smile was genuine.

I like her too. Too much.

I held his unwavering expression, but I didn’t say the words.

“I’m going to level with you, son. After all the work we put into UCLA, I don’t want a repeat. I don’t want to push you into this only to have your father screw things up at the last minute. But I’m not afraid of getting my hands a little dirty either. So I’m asking you right here, right now, what do you want, Maverick?”

“I—” The lump in my throat choked me and I stalled, feeling the prickle of anger in my bloodstream. I’d wanted UCLA with every fiber of my being. It was my dream for as long as I could remember. To play for Bruins. To wear blue and yellow.

“What. Do. You. Want?” Coach repeated, his eyes boring into me, pinning me to the spot. Anyone else and I would have looked away, refused to answer. But Coach Callahan knew me better than most people. He knew what basketball meant to me. What a life out of my father’s clutches meant. He’d never had his blinders on where my father was concerned, but his hands were tied. Just like every other teacher in Wicked Bay High. They knew the deal—who I was, who my father was—but Coach was different because, in the end, when it mattered, he came through for me.

My hands balled into tight fists as I replayed the last few months over in my head. The hopes, the expectations… the bone crushing disappointment when I realized UCLA was no longer within reach. My father had his claws so far in me, I no longer knew where he ended and I started. The lines between us were blurred, messy and suffocating. But his dream wasn’t mine. His future wasn’t mine.

I was a Prince, but I didn’t want his kingdom.

“I want basketball, Sir,” I said. “I want it more than air.”

Basketball was my life. It ran through my blood, kept my heart beating.

“I didn’t hear you, Prince. What do you want?”

“Basketball, Sir,” I said with more conviction, feeling the stir of something different—something that could chase away the darkness.

Fight against it.

“Good.” He slammed his hands down on the desk and leaned forward. “Because I already made the call.”

My eyes widened to saucers as an easy grin transformed his face. “No time like the present and it just so happens I have connections.”

That didn’t surprise me. He made it his business to have connections. This was good. It was more than I could have hoped for. But then Coach’s expression turned grim again. “They’re interested. Who wouldn’t be? But, and it’s a big one, I’m not sure I’ll be able to pull the right strings to get them to ease off on your test scores.”

Fuck. I raked a hand through my hair. “Did you… tell them?

“No. It’s not my decision to make. But maybe it’s time to own your shit, Maverick. It’s dyslexia. It’s not a death-sentence.”

“I’ll think about it.” I said, a defensive edge in my voice.

“Well think quick, kid. You’re going to need to pull this out of the bag with the SAT. I checked, and the test is in a few weeks. It will mean a lot of hard work. Are you up to that?”

I’d already sat the SAT twice to try to improve my score for UCLA. Standardized testing, and I had a rough history. Over the years, I’d learned to manage my dyslexia. To work around it and keep it under wraps. And as I got older, people became less interested in my grades and more interested in my game point average and whether I was partying over the weekend or not.

“I already spoke to Miss Tamson, and she’s agreed to help again, discreetly, of course.”

“Thank you, Sir, I appreciate it.” More than he would ever know.

I got up to leave but his voice rooted me to the spot. “Look, Maverick, you’re a good kid. One of the best players I’ve ever seen. You could go all the way, but you need to believe in yourself. And you need to fight for what’s yours.

“You think I don’t know what you get up to on a weekend? How you blow off steam? Son, I may be gray-haired and pushing the wrong side of fifty-five, but I’m not stupid. I’ve seen you walk into my locker room with a busted lip or bruised knuckles one too many times. And I’ve kept quiet because sometimes we gotta do what we gotta do, but this shit with your father, don’t let it define you. You are not him, Maverick. Don’t give him that kind of power. You hear me?”

“Yes, Sir.”

“Good, now get out of here. You have a test to study for.”

I gave him a tight nod and slipped out of his room, his words whirling around my mind. He didn’t know the whole truth, but he’d deduced enough over the last couple of years. And he’d turned a blind eye to activities off the court because once my feet hit the hardwood, everything melted away and I became the guy I was always destined to be. Coach Callahan didn’t look at me and see Alec Prince’s son or the spoiled rich kid with an unhealthy anger living inside of him. He just saw me. And for the first time in a long time, I let myself believe that maybe it was my time to step out from under his shadow. To prove myself for me. Because Coach was right, somewhere between my father pinning me to that wall and right now, in this very moment, I’d lost a part of myself. And every day a little more of my soul fell away in oblivion. But I had things to fight for now. I had Lo. And Steinbeck. And basketball. I had a future that was my own.

I just had to reach out and take it.