Noah froze.
There was nothing more he hated in the world than someone telling him, or even suggesting that he wouldn’t go pro. He hated it when his father would tell him that, taunting Noah and pressuring him to rely on his name and money as if his own skill won’t get him drafted, and he hated it now, hearing it from her. She didn’t get it. She didn’t get it at all. She had her head shoved so far up psychology that she couldn’t see anything else outside of it.
Noah was furious, matching the anger she once hurled at him.
“I will go pro,” Noah told her, and her eyes widened as Noah took a step towards her. She took a step back, closer to the wall, trying to place distance between them. “Hockey is my life. It’s not just some hobby or some sport. It’s my fucking life and dreams. I will go pro, and if that means I have to miss some study sessions about some course that I don’t give a fuck about, then so be it. Psychology isn’t going to help me on the ice, but me practicing until I’m bloody will. None of this shit fucking matters to me, but being on the ice does. It’s the only reason I’m here.”
Professor Bryant took a step closer to him, closing the distance between them till they were face to face, her brown eyes glaring into his own. They were so close that her nose nearly bumped his.
“The private tutoring is over,” she said, glaring at him before she pulled back, though the glare on her face remained. “I wish you the best of luck with hockey, but I’m sorry. I can’t help you from here. I don’t have time to waste with people who don’t care about the time I’m expending to them.”
And with those words, she left out of the room, leaving him with the sound of her clicking heels. Noah angrily knocked a table to the floor. Fuck her and fuck psychology. All he cared about was hockey, and he wouldn’t let anything stand in the way of that.
CHAPTER
9
MELANIE
“W
HAT!”
All eyes in the busy restaurant focused on Melanie and her best friend, Abigail Downs, who stared at her wide-eyed after what Melanie had just informed her. Though Melanie was embarrassed by all the attention focused on them, she had no one else to blame but herself. After all, she was responsible for her friend's outburst. Abigail had screamed, ecstatic when Melanie had told her about the season pass tickets she had gotten her for the hockey season. So, it only made sense that Abigail would scream in horror this time, learning that those very same tickets were gone now.
“You’re giving the tickets back?” Abigail asked, her voice back at its normal tone. Melanie was grateful when the curious eyes on them turned their attention to something else. She sighed, wiping the oyster sauce from her lips with a napkin. They sat inside the bistro restaurant a few blocks away from the university. Unfortunately, their table was in the middle of the room and not in a booth like Melanie had requested. With it being lunch hours, the restaurant was very busy, meaning that many people had witnessed Abigail's embarrassing outburst. Melanie had never been fond of drawing the unnecessary attention of others.
"Yes, I am," Melanie confirmed firmly, not only for Abigail's sake but for her own. A crest-fallen look appeared on Abigail's face, and Melanie tried to ignore the pang in her chest from guilt.
When Melanie first told Abigail about the deal she made with Coach Benson for the hockey tickets, Abigail had been ecstatic, coming from a family that loved hockey. She watched hockey all the time and was a fan of Weston's college hockey team, which was why she had been super excited when Melanie had started teaching at Weston. But with the news Melanie had just told her friend, all the excitement Abigail had before was gone.
“Why?” Abigail whined, her unruly brown curls bouncing up and down as she slouched in her seat like a child being told they wouldn’t be able to have dessert. Melanie loved her friend, but sometimes she thought her maturity went stagnant when they met in college, and though her friend was now approaching the big three-o soon, she had still yet to grow up.
“I’m not tutoring Noah anymore.”
Just repeating his name made Melanie annoyed as she placed her napkin on the table with unnecessary force. After what happened yesterday, she was positive that she would never tutor Noah again. She waited for thirty minutes, time that she would never get back for some boy who cared nothing about the time he had wasted. It was clear on his face the moment she saw him. He hadn't been delayed for a reasonable excuse, but because he chose to see her work as less important. This was why she didn't want to tutor Noah. She hated slackers. She hated people who wasted her time. She hated people who didn't work hard for the things they wanted in life. And though as a professor, she knew she shouldn't imply in any way that she harbored ill thoughts towards her students, sometimes, it was hard not to. Besides, she didn't hate Noah. She didn't hate him at all. She just didn't particularly like him either.
This wasn’t Melanie’s first rodeo. For Christ’s sake, she had taught high school students before. She knew what it was like to come across slackers, and had dealt with plenty of them before, but there was something about Noah that bothered her. Instead of just failing her class like any other slacker, he had to bother her while doing it. If it was any other student, she wouldn't bother teaching them anything outside of her work hours. But here she was giving her precious time to someone who didn't care for it.
Noah cared about nothing else but the ice, and Melanie wouldn't force him to see that there was more to the world than some silly game. It was beyond her now. She would give Coach Benson back the tickets the moment she saw him and tell him to hire another tutor.
“Mel, you can’t do that,” Abigail said. “Just keep tutoring him so we can keep the tickets. If he skips his tutoring, that’s on him.”
“It’s disrespectful, Abi,” Melanie argued. “I told him on multiple occasions not to be late and waste my time. And it’s clear to me that he doesn’t want to learn, so why should I waste my time on someone like that?”
“Is this kid really that bad?” Abigail asked as she grabbed a roll of bread and butter. “I mean I’ve heard you complain about your students before, but it seems like you have a personal vendetta against him.”
Melanie snorted, not bothering to be offended by that comment. Abigail loved to do reverse psychology to get her to do the things she wanted, but this time it wouldn’t work.
“I have no personal vendetta against Noah at all. He's failing my class. He asked for my tutoring. I told him not to be late. He was late. I’m stopping the tutoring. End of story.”
“Now, if it was just that, I would believe you. You’ve always been that way.”
Melanie arched a brow and held her tongue as she waited for their waiter, who stopped by their table to pour more water in their glasses, to walk away before she spoke again. "You say that like it's a bad thing."
"Even back in college when we would have group projects, the moment you felt like someone wasslacking," —Melanie rolled her eyes at the sarcastic air quotations Abigail used— "You wouldn't put their name on our work. Hell, you did that with me one time."
That had been a nightmare. Melanie had first met Abigail when they roomed together with three other girls during their first year of college. And though the first few months they had not been particularly close, with only the occasional polite talk in passing, when they got stuck outside together during a fire alarm in the middle of the night, they had become inseparable. The next year when they decided to room together again, they also decided to take an elective together. It had been one of the worst mistakes of her life, and they had nearly lost their friendship.
