Page 153 of The Fake Date Agreement

My eyes narrow on her and so do Javier’s.

“You know something,” I drawl.

She doesn’t quite meet my eye as she shakes her head. “No, I don’t.”

Javier laughs. “Yeah, like I said, the worst liar in the world. Spill,Gatinha.”

“There’s nothing to spill,” she denies, her cheeks turning pink.

Those pink cheeks aren’t because she’s being secretive. She likes Javier’s nickname for her. I asked him what it meant, and he told me. Beautiful. Little kitten. It suits her. I’m not surprised she likes it.

I want Tobie to feel good because of something I do for her. It’s the reason I did something I shouldn’t have.

“You know what Reid is doing,” I say to Tobie.

She hesitates.

I take her hand, leading her somewhere quiet to continue this conversation.

I find an empty bedroom, pull Tobie inside, and try not to look at the bed as Javier closes the door to shut off most of the music.

“Tobie, he’s our friend. If something is wrong, we’d like to help him,” I say.

Her hand tightens around the beer bottle, and she picks at the white label with nervous fingers. “He told me not to say anything.”

Javier straightens, no longer relaxed but concerned. “Is something wrong with him?”

She sighs and reluctantly says, “He’s behind on his paper.”

I frown. “No, he’s not.”

Reid has been helping me practice so much this year, that I asked him if he didn’t need to be studying on his free periods instead. He shrugged it off and said…

My frown deepens. He changed the fucking subject. Every time, he changed the subject.

Why the fuck didn’t I notice until now?

“What paper?” Javier asks, setting his drink aside.

“Public policy. He said it was worth sixty percent of his grade, and he hadn’t started it.”

I freeze. “He hadn’t started it?”

We have spring break coming up. When we come back to school, we’re going to be busy planning for graduation and prepping for the championship. All our professors have been pretty clear that all papers need to be submitted this side of spring break, not after.

Like most of the team, we’re on full-ride athletic scholarships. Except Javier. They offered him one, but he refused, said he would pay his way and to offer the scholarship to someone who needed it more than he did.

Reid is smart, but our grades are tied to our scholarship. Flunking risks him being kicked off the team and potentially even the school.

“He’s started the paper now. I’ve been helping him,” Tobie says. “He said you needed his help more, and that Javier was going through some stuff, so he set it aside. He didn’t want you to know.”

Guilt burns white hot in my gut as I turn to Javier.

He looks as guilty as I feel. His breakup with Daniela hit him hard. And it’s not just the breakup but his parents’ refusal to support his decision to choose hockey as a career.

Reid is always so happy to help, dropping whatever to lend a hand, that it’s easy to forget he has just as much shit on his plate as the rest of us.

Tobie continues, “I only found out when I saw a note from his professor. That’s when I started helping him with the paper.”

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