Page 30 of Faking the Goal

Worse, I've just spent the better part of this meeting reluctantly admitting to myself that the asshole had one microscopic point buried underneath all that slut-shaming bullshit, which means I'm currently pissed at him, pissed at myself for agreeing with him, and now professionally obligated to spend even more time around him.

Amazing.

Love that for me.

This is not what I signed up for.

Not even close.

The truth is, I never wanted to be a photojournalist for the university paper. I love taking photos, yes—love it with the particular ferocity of someone who found something that makes sense in a world that mostly doesn't—but not of people.

Give me wildlife. Give me nature. Give me a fox disappearing into the woods at dusk, nothing but a rustle and a flash of tail. Give me a heron standing motionless in a lake at sunrise, all patience and perfect stillness. Give me the way light falls through leaves in the campus arboretum, painting the ground in shifting patterns of gold and shadow. That's the kind of photography that makes my chest ache in the good way. The kind that feels like listening to a language I almost understand.

People are complicated. People have agendas and defenses and the terrible habit of knowing when you're pointing a camera at them. Animals just are. They exist in their purest form, unconcerned with how they look or what story you're trying to tell about them. There's an honesty to it that I can't find anywhere else.

But here I am, in a journalism program, on the sports beat, assigned to profile the most notoriously uncooperative athlete on campus, because life has a sense of humor that would be funnier if I weren't the punchline.

The why of it is simple, and it's the same why that explains most of the choices I've made since I turned eighteen: necessity. I didn't dream of becoming a journalist. I dreamed of going to college. Full stop. Period. The end.

At seventeen, sitting in my sixth foster placement with a stack of college brochures and exactly zero dollars in a college fund that didn't exist, Journalism was the only program offering a scholarship I had a shot at. The requirements were specific—maintain a 3.5 GPA, work for Student Media, graduate with a portfolio—but the math was simple. Scholarship equals tuition. Tuition equals degree. Degree equals... something. Something that isn't the precarious edge I've been living on since I aged out of the system.

So I became a Journalism major. I joined Student Media.

I learned to take photos of people who didn't want their photo taken, and I learned to write stories about things I didn't particularly care about, and I got good at it—good enough that now I'm the one they send to cover the difficult subjects, because apparently suffering builds character or some other platitude that sounds profound until you're actually suffering.

I push away from the table and stand, my knees complaining after two hours in a folding chair designed by someone who clearly hated students. My camera bag sits by the door where I left it, heavy with equipment I'm good at using for purposes I never intended. I sling it over my shoulder and feel the familiar weight settle against my hip—the weight of the tool, not the weight of the assignment. The assignment is its own kind of heaviness, sitting in my stomach like something I ate that disagreed with me.

Forty-nine days. I can do this. Probably. Maybe.

At the very least, forty-nine days gives me plenty of time to figure out how the fuck I'm supposed to convince a man who barely tolerates my existence to tell me his life story.

CHAPTER 5

KENTARO

The second my last class ends, I head straight for Coach Hopper's office. His message this morning had been vague, only telling me to stop by when I was done with class because he needed to discuss something important, so I have no idea what the hell this is about. I knock twice before opening the door, and the moment I step inside, a nerve twitches above my brow when I see the familiar redhead sitting in the chair across from his desk.

Of fucking course.

Taylor Lewis.

This woman has been getting on my nerves since the day I met her, and apparently seeing her everywhere around the rink isn't enough anymore. Now she's waiting for me in my coach's office too.

My irritation doesn't last long before another thought takes its place, because the last time I saw Taylor was Friday night at the Pond, and remembering how that conversation ended still leaves an uncomfortable weight sitting in my gut.

I pissed her off. Badly.

She'd ripped into me for the shit I'd said to her, calling me out for being a hypocritical, judgmental asshole, and I deserved every fucking word of it. I knew I'd crossed the line almost immediately, especially when I saw the hurt underneath all that fury blazing in her eyes. That bothered me more than I care to admit, and it kept bothering me long after she walked away.

I don't normally talk to people like that. Hell, I don't normally care enough about what anyone does in their personal life to have an opinion about it. Who someone dates, fucks, parties with, or takes home is none of my fucking business, and I've never pretended otherwise. Half my teammates sleep their way through half the campus and I've never once felt compelled to lecture any of them about it.

Then Taylor Lewis came along, and suddenly I can't seem to keep my fucking mouth shut.

Everything she does gets some kind of reaction out of me. The partying bothers me. The random guys bother me. Watching her flirt with every asshole who looks in her direction bothers me. Even the way she seems completely unconcerned about going somewhere alone with men she barely knows bothers the shit out of me, and instead of figuring out why, I apparently decided the better solution was to spew every ugly thought in my head directly into her face.

She was right about one thing in particular. I wouldn't have spoken to one of my teammates that way.

That realization made me feel like an even bigger asshole.