Page 2 of Love at Second Down

The irony of an Astor being in a course about frugality is fucking poetic.

With robotic movements, I copy down whatever Karr puts on the whiteboard, but it’s all gibberish. I can’t make out a single word because my thoughts are reeling.

Why the hell is she here? Why now?

It can’t possibly be for me, considering she’s obviously been on campus for more than a week and has yet to seek me out. It’s not like I’m hard to find. Not to be cocky, but it wouldn’t matter whether there are fifty thousand students or five hundred thousand; all she’d have to do is say my name and anyone associated with the school would send her to the athlete apartments. Hell, by now, the entire state and football fans across the nation, know my name. It comes with the territory of being a star player in the Big Ten and one of the best quarterbacks in all of college football. Yet I hadn’t heard a peep from her. No text telling me she was transferring schools. No messages wondering if we could reconnect or have coffee. Nothing. Nada. Zilch. Which can mean only one thing: Whatever Avery Astor’s reasons for transferring, they have absolutely nothing to do with me.

I let that sink in. It shouldn’t hurt, but the pinching behind my ribs doesn’t lie.

Each minute on the clock feels like forever as I watch the second hand slowly tick by. An eternity later, Karr calls the class to an end, and I all but jump up from my seat. Collecting my things in record time, I hightail it out of the classroom, barely acknowledging several congratulations on my first semifinal win last week from my classmates as I pass.

I all but sprint through the lobby, headed for the giant metal doors that lead outside. Pushing them open, I step out into freshly fallen snow.

White powder covers the ground everywhere, thick flakes falling from the sky like tufts of cotton as I tuck my chin downand head in the direction of my next class, when I feel a hand on my arm, stopping me.

“Damon, wait?”

I whirl around, certain it can’t be her, because it takes some serious balls to try and talk to me after all this time. But when I lay eyes on her again, I immediately want to pluck them out. Because looking at her hurts.

Hazel eyes. Smooth, soft skin. Golden hair like a halo.

I swallow as snowflakes cling to her long lashes above rosy-red cheeks that showcase the soft smattering of freckles over the bridge of her nose, barely visible beneath her makeup.

I clench my jaw until it aches, moving my arm so her hand falls away.

The first hint of emotion flickers in her eyes, but I can’t read her, and the realization stings. There was a time when I could read her every thought, where I could finish her sentences.

Not anymore.

This new Avery is a stranger to me, no more familiar than an actor on a movie screen playing a part. Then again, did I ever really know her?

“What?” I snap.

She winces, but I can’t find it in me to feel sorry for my biting tone.

“Can we . . .” Her gaze flickers to the coffee cup in my hand, the one I’m currently crushing in my fist. “I was wondering if we could talk. Maybe get a coffee and catch up?”

My jaw twitches, every muscle in my body as tense as a bowstring while I stare into the eyes of a stranger before I shake my head, turn, and walk away.

Chapter 2

AVERY

Iwatch Damon walk away, his broad back and shoulders stiff as a board. I didn’t think it was possible, but he’s grown since I last saw him. As impossibly handsome as he was at eighteen, Damon is now heart-stopping. His boyish features have sharpened. Lean muscle has turned to hard definition, and there’s a quiet intensity in his stride now, a gravity that says life has shaped him, chiseled away the softness of youth and left behind a man I feel like I barely know.

I wonder if this is how he felt the day I left?bereft, like with each stride, another piece of me is gone, like all it would take is a stiff wind to send him out to sea.

I don’t know what I expected when I made the decision to transfer to Ann Arbor without so much as a phone call or a text message to let him know. Did I think he would greet me withopen arms? Be thrilled I’m here? Throw me a welcome-back party? With the way I left things, I don’t blame him for wanting nothing to do with me. One minute, we were madly in love and both enrolled at AAU, and the next, I was headed to Harvard and telling him I thought it was best if we went our separate ways.

In hindsight, there are a lot of things I’d do differently if I could. I’d go back and change . . . well, everything. I’d tell Damon the truth, let the cards fall where they may.

But there are no take backs in life, no do-overs. All we have are second chances, which is why I’m praying like hell he’ll give me one.

My phone buzzes in my pocket, and I pull it out, stepping off the sidewalk and into the snow-covered grass, so I’m out of the way. Blinking down at the screen, I see it’s my mother. Everything inside of me wants to decline the call, ignore her a little longer, but I know it’s only a matter of time before I have to face the music. I can’t avoid my parents forever. I already skipped out on our annual holiday Vale trip, choosing instead to spend Christmas packing my life up at Harvard, and New Year here, getting settled into my new dormitory. If I don’t answer, Mom is likely to send someone to my door, or worse, show up on my doorstep herself to demand answers and bring me home.

I shudder at the thought and lift the phone to my ear, wondering how pissed they are that I haven’t returned to Harvard for the spring semester. “Hey, Mom.”

“What the hell, Avery?”

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