Page 10 of The Girlfriend Goal
"How noble. You're upfront about being emotionally unavailable. Real prince charming material." I switched to a new color for Professor Latham's points about performance anxiety. "Just because you warn someone you're going to be disappointing doesn't make it less disappointing."
"Look, I get it. You hate me. You hate hockey players. You hate everything I represent." His voice dropped even lower, and I hated that it made me hyperaware of his presence. "But we're stuck together for a semester, so maybe we could try to be civil?"
I finally looked at him, really looked at him. Past the artfully messy hair and the stubbled jaw and the eyes that were unfairly blue. He looked tired, and maybe a little hurt by my assessment.
For a second, I felt bad. Then I remembered Ryan, remembered every hockey player who'd swaggered through campus like they owned it, remembered that morning's locker room invasion.
"Fine. Civil. But I have conditions."
"Of course you do."
I ignored the sarcasm. "One: You show up on time to every meeting. Not hockey player time—real time. Two: You actually contribute to the project. I'm not carrying dead weight. Three: You keep yourextracurricular activitiesaway from our work. I don't want to show up to a meeting and find you with some random girl in our reserved study room."
"That was one—you know what, never mind. Fine. Conditions accepted."
"Good." I turned back to my notes. "And Fletcher? The next time you accidentally walk into a women's locker room,maybe try actually looking sorry instead of looking like you're memorizing the scene for later."
"I wasn't—"
"Thursday, 2 PM, library. Third floor, study room 6. Bring your laptop and any research materials you have on youth sports psychology." I paused, already knowing the answer. "You do have research materials, right?"
"Sure."
The lie was so obvious I almost felt secondhand embarrassment. "Just try to bring something more substantial than your hockey stats, okay?"
Class soon wound down with Professor Latham assigning enough reading to kill a small forest. I stood to leave, then paused. The words came out before I could stop them.
"For what it's worth, I might have overreacted a little in the locker room. You did seem genuinely surprised."
I didn't wait for his response, weaving through the crowd of students before he could say something that might make me take it back. The hallway was packed with the between-class rush, and I used the chaos as cover for my escape.
My phone was already in my hand as I walked, firing off a text to establish boundaries from the start:
"This is Rachel. Send your schedule by 8 PM tonight. Real schedule, not the fictional one where you have time for 'gym, tanning, laundry.' And yes, I know you're reading this in class because you haven't left yet. Stop procrastinating and move. Some of us have things to do."
I paused at the doorway, looking back to see him still sitting there, staring at his phone with an expression I couldn't quite read. He looked up, meeting my eyes across the room.
My phone buzzed with a text from Jared: "Coffee emergency. Someone just told me you're partnered with Lance Fletcher for a project. Need details now."
I smiled despite my sour mood. At least I'd have someone to commiserate with about this disaster. Jared would understand the cosmic injustice of being paired with everything I stood against.
Another text, this time from Samantha: "The way Lance looked at you when you left!"
I deleted it without responding. I didn't care how Lance looked at me. I cared about my GPA, my team, and my future. He was just an obstacle to navigate, a temporary inconvenience in my carefully planned life.
Thursday at 2 PM. I'd go in prepared, professional, and completely immune to whatever charm he thought he possessed. We'd plan our project with brutal efficiency, divide the work equally, and interact as little as possible.
I ignored the small voice in my head that wondered why I was already thinking about Thursday, why I could still smell his cologne, why that half-apology had slipped out when I'd meant to leave with the last word.
It didn't matter. Lance Fletcher was a distraction I couldn't afford, and I'd spent years getting very good at eliminating distractions.
Chapter 5: Rachel
I arrived at the campus café early. I spread my materials across the table with strategic precision. If Lance thought he could show up unprepared and charm his way through this project, the visual representation of my preparation would disabuse him of that notion immediately.
The café was filling up with the usual afternoon crowd, with study groups pretending to work while actually gossiping, couples on coffee dates, and lone students buried in their laptops. Normal college life happening all around me while I plotted how to survive a semester partnered with my natural enemy.
My phone buzzed. Jared: "Remember, if he tries anything, you have my permission to throw coffee in his face. Hot coffee. I'll pay for your replacement latte."
