Page 54 of The Longest Shot
Then a name stops me cold.
Morgan Riley.
The woman whose program is currently under siege as well. The woman who has every reason to tell me to go fuck myself with a rusty skate blade. But also the woman who navigated the political minefield of starting a program from scratch while holding the line against Galloway's bullshit.
She's a political science major who thinks in strategies and counter-strategies while the rest of us are still learning checkers. She’s a political animal, apex predator variety, and tough as nails. And, from what I know of her, she's smart as fuck as well.
Not to mention the only other person who understands the war we’re fighting.
My thumb hovers over her name.
This is desperation, pure and simple.
But what choice do I have?
I need Morgan.
Taking a breath that does absolutely nothing to steady my nerves, I type out a message. I write and delete a dozen versions—too desperate, too casual, too apologetic, too demanding. It’s like trying to solve a Rubik’s Cube where all the colors are different shades of “pathetic.”
Finally, I settle on something simple:
We need to talk. Alone.
I hit send before I can second-guess myself for the thirteenth time.
The typing bubble appears immediately. Disappears. Appears again. She’s typing and stopping. My heart is doing something medically inadvisable, possibly trying to escape through my throat. Finally, after what feels like several geological ages, her message comes through:
Library. Third floor, back corner study room. Twenty minutes.
Twenty minutes.
Barely enough time to get across campus if I run, but I’m already moving, because I need to find out if the tentative truce we negotiated over coffee is strong enough to withstand what I’m about to ask, and to ask if she'll help to save me when she has every right to enjoy watching me burn.
And, somehow, I'll need to ignore the fact that I can't be around her without wanting her…
twenty-one
MORGAN
A team without resources.
A war with the athletic director who recruited me here four months ago.
An alliance with the guy who broke my heart.
And… whateverthatkiss was.
This isn't the life I'm used to living, and it's got me feeling like I'm spinning out of control. And now James wants to meet me, alone, to discuss who the hell knows what. So here I am, waiting for him while frantically trying to rebuild my walls in real-time.
Because if he wants to talk about 'us' I'm not sure I'll be strong enough to resist.
The empty study room in the library is run-down and empty, a ghost town until it gets renovated in a few months. There are no other students here, because there are plenty of muchnicerstudy areas on campus, making it perfect for a rendezvous we don't want anyone to see.
To be extra sure of privacy, I leave the lights off as I walk inside. The security floodlights from the hallway slice through the doorway, creating a chessboard of shadow and fluorescence on the walls. I position myself in the darkest square, backagainst the wall where I can see everything and be seen by nothing.
My phone burns radioactive in my pocket, his text message practically vibrating with its own desperate frequency, words that I’ve spent the past ten minutes dissecting. My brain has run seventeen different scenarios, each more emotionally and professionally complex than the last.
But it comes down to one conclusion: James needs something from me.
