Pass Interference (5 page)

Enough wondering, she decided. She set her tablet down on the desk, got out of her chair, and literally rolled up the sleeves on her jersey. She started tossing the used paper goods in the waste basket and placing the bottles and cans in the recycling bin in Philip’s closet.

He lifted his eyes from his tablet. “You don’t need to do that,” he said, sounding a little annoyed that she was breaking his concentration.

“Doesn’t the school furnish all you jocks with maids?”

“Only if you pay extra,” he retorted.

“In that case, I
do
need to do this.” She continued filling the waste basket with trash and stacking up the pizza boxes to take to the common recycling area outside. “It’s gross in here. Seriously. I should have done this a week ago.”

“Sara, leave it.”

“It won’t take me long.” Sara didn’t really mind cleaning. She’d always been a bit of a neat freak, and if she had to spend time here, it would be more tolerable for her if her work environment was tidier. She looked over at Philip in his wheelchair, wondering whether her housekeeping activity might be the result of a little pity she was feeling for him. The look on his face told her he was wondering the same thing. “I’ll be finished cleaning before you’re finished writing.”

Her little diversion worked. Philip’s expression softened. “Wanna bet?” he asked with a smile on his lips.

Sara loved a good challenge, and she presumed her student did too. After all, he played competitive sports. “Ready set go,” Sara said, without really paying attention to the time. But she did notice that Philip seemed to take the contest seriously. He hunched over his tablet and started tapping away faster than before.

»»•««

Sara ended up finishing her housekeeping chores before Philip finished his essay. When he left to go to a class, Sara headed for the library.

She enjoyed both the quiet and the solitude of the library. She didn’t have a ton of friends on campus, and the library was one of the few settings outside of her dorm room where being alone didn’t appear strange.

Sara made herself comfortable at a table in the library, opened her tablet, and clicked on Philip’s essay. He surprised her again with another story that was much deeper than she’d anticipated. She figured the life-changing experience he’d write about would be when he was named quarterback for the Barracudas or the first time he won a big game. It wasn’t.

Instead, he told a story about being an overweight, awkward preteen who got bullied by other kids. After getting beaten up too many times, his father bought him a set of weights. He started using them to work out and build up some muscle. He and his dad would also go for runs every morning before school. Soon he traded in his first set of weights for a heavier set until he gained strength and lost his baby fat. Next time the bullies came after him, he was ready for them. He fought back and got in a few good punches. That was the last time he got picked on.

After that, his father encouraged him to try out for sports. So he joined the track team in middle school and played pickup baseball in his neighborhood. He made friends with some minor league baseball players whose home field was in Philip’s hometown of Naples, Florida, and they helped him refine his pitching style. Playing sports gave him self-confidence.

Sara was surprised by the essay and by her reaction to it. It was like peeling away another layer of Philip Mason. He was right when he called Sara out for her prejudice against jocks. The more she learned about Philip, the more he proved her wrong. Turned out he had sized her up much more accurately than she sized him up.

The essay she just read actually made her want to know more about Philip Mason. She was coming to the conclusion that he wasn’t just a pretty face or just a local celebrity around campus. The man had depth.

With her cheek perched on her fist, she was so captivated by the essay that she didn’t notice when someone came up behind her.

“Yoo-hoo, earth to Sara.”

Her solitary contemplation disrupted, Sara jumped and pressed her hand to her chest when Kevin touched her shoulder. “Oh my God, Kevin, you scared me to death!”

“Sorry.” He cocked his head to look at her tablet. “What’s that you’re reading? You seem mesmerized.”

Sara quickly closed the cover of her tablet. “It’s nothing.”

Kevin snatched the tablet off the table and swiped the home screen until the display returned to where Sara left off.

“Hey!” she yelled.

Other students in the library loudly warned her to “
shhhh
.”

“What’s this?” Kevin wanted to know.

“It’s nothing,” she answered in a library-appropriate whisper. She could feel her face reddening. “It’s an assignment I gave to…you know…Philip.”

Kevin smiled broadly and took the seat next to her. “This is gonna be good. Let’s see what piece of garbage the guy wrote.”

“It’s not garbage,” Sara said defensively as she grabbed her tablet out of Kevin’s hands. “It’s not…it’s not bad.”

Kevin blinked a few times as he looked at Sara. “What’s the matter with you? Something’s different.” Kevin appeared to be trying to read Sara’s mind. His eyes widened. “Oh…oh no.”

“What?”

“Don’t tell me he’s got you fooled.”

Sara leaned away, trying to act cool. “What? No. Of course not.”

“He does! You’re starting to like him, aren’t you? Please tell me you’re not attracted to the jerk.”

“He’s not a jerk.” Sara ran her hand over her hair, a little surprised by how fast she jumped to Philip’s defense.

“He’s a jock, which, when translated to English, means he’s a jerk. Come on, Sara, don’t make me call the deprogrammers,” Kevin said, although Sara didn’t have the heart to laugh at his lame attempt at humor.

“I’m not brainwashed! I’m just…” She paused to gather her thoughts and choose her words carefully. “I’m just realizing that maybe I need to be a little more open-minded.” Those were Philip’s words she was echoing.
If you’d relax a little and keep an open mind, I just might surprise you.
She shrugged and tried to deflect Kevin’s accusations. “Maybe you should try it too.”

“Oh man. I’m too late, aren’t I?” Kevin placed his hand on his forehead in an overly dramatic gesture. “You’re into him! Sara, come on, you’re too smart to fall for someone like him.”

Sara’s lips parted. Hearing Kevin say those words out loud made her shudder. “I didn’t say I’ve fallen for him. I haven’t fallen for anyone.” At least she hoped she hadn’t.

“Well, that’s good. I guess.” Kevin didn’t seem completely convinced. “Listen, Sara.” Resting his hand on Sara’s shoulder, she could see she was about to get some brotherly advice. “As a friend, I gotta tell you, be careful. A guy like that’ll just use you and toss you aside. Trust me. You’re not his type.”

She bristled at that comment and pulled away, not wanting Kevin to touch her. “How do you know what his type is? You talk like you know him. You don’t know him at all.”

His brow knit. “And neither do you. Don’t forget that.” Kevin’s words hung in the air and when Sara didn’t reply, Kevin gave up and walked away.

Sadly, Sara knew Kevin was probably right. This wasn’t like her at all. Sara Ross didn’t get infatuated with guys, especially guys like Philip. To guys like Philip, Sara was invisible. They didn’t look at girls like Sara, they looked
past
her, at some pretty blonde standing somewhere behind her. She hardly even knew Philip, and yet she was already setting herself up for a fall.

Sara stared at the essay on her tablet for a long while after Kevin left the library. Kevin had just articulated what Sara had been working hard to deny. She had feelings for Philip.

She gritted her teeth and inwardly screamed at herself for being so stupid. Sara Ross didn’t just indiscriminately fall for guys. It had to be a well-considered decision. And in particular, Sara Ross didn’t develop crushes on guys like Philip. She made fun of guys like Philip so she wouldn’t get hurt by his kind—those shallow, pretty, happy, popular kids.

The truth is, she’d never gotten this close to a jock before. She’d never gotten to know a jock even a little. And although she’d only spent a handful of hours with him here and there so far, she felt like she knew him way better than their brief time together indicated, despite Kevin’s accusation. Time was almost immaterial in this case. The essays Philip wrote and the little glimpses of emotion he showed when they were together spoke volumes. They spoke to her soul and proved the guy had a lot going on behind his handsome face and athletic physique. And that’s what she was attracted to, the man behind the persona.

Still, Sara didn’t harbor any illusions that he’d ever return her feelings. First of all, he probably had a current girlfriend. The cheerleader who was sitting on his lap the day Sara met Philip sure acted like she owned him. Second, she didn’t want Philip to return her feelings. If he did, she wouldn’t trust it. Guys like him didn’t fall for girls like her, so if he showed any interest, there would likely be an ulterior motive, like wanting to get laid. Some girls might be interested in a roll in the hay with a hot guy like Philip, but Sara didn’t think she could handle meaningless sex with him. She couldn’t handle it with Kevin because she didn’t have feelings for him. And she feared she wouldn’t be able to handle it with Philip because she
did
have feelings for him.

Oh God! She had feelings for him! She pressed her hands to her forehead, wondering how she could get rid of them. Fast. How could she desensitize herself to his charms? Hell, he was charming without even trying, because he was clearly not trying to impress Sara. He only needed her for a very specific purpose, and it seemed to Sara that he couldn’t wait to get his tutoring sessions over with. In fact, he often seemed annoyed to have her around.

Despite her wish to distance herself from her feelings for Philip, she found herself back in the library the very next day, searching for footage of Philip’s games. She looked up the EFU Barracudas from last season and found a listing of all the games Philip quarterbacked. She clicked the play icon, and the first video began.

With her chin on her fist, she sat glued to the computer screen for hours, watching game after game of a sport she knew little about. Over the next few weeks, she spent much of her free time doing the same thing—watching Philip’s games, one after the other.

November turned into December, and the tutoring sessions continued, along with Sara’s growing attraction to Philip. The more games she watched, the more infatuated she became.

One afternoon in the library, her viewing was disrupted by a phone call. She fished her cell phone out of her pack. Her jaw dropped when she looked at the display and saw Philip’s phone number. She felt her stomach drop. Why, oh why, did she have to have feelings for him now? It complicated everything. It made her feel awkward around him. It made it hard for her to even look at him. She just knew he’d be able to read her thoughts and see into her heart and know she was interested in him, and he’d probably scoff at her foolishness.

Staring at his phone number, she was uncertain what to do. If she wasn’t interested in him, she wouldn’t hesitate to answer the call. It would be no big deal. So she took a deep breath and pressed the answer button. “Hello?” She spoke tentatively.

“Oh good, you’re there,” he said as soon as she answered the call.

“What’s up,” she said, trying to sound bright and upbeat and casual—not at all like her usual dour self. That, in itself, would probably be a dead giveaway something was off.

“What are you doing?” he asked on the other end of the phone. She wasn’t sure whether his question was an accusation. She looked around the library. Did he know? Was he asking what the hell she was doing reviewing videos of his games? Even
she
wasn’t sure, just that she felt a little like a voyeur—even though the videos were public property that anyone was free to watch.

“Why are you asking?” she countered with another question rather than a direct answer.

“Where are you? In your dorm?”

Sara felt flushed just thinking about Philip coming to her dorm room. It was a crazy combination of passion and fear that washed over her. She couldn’t tell him what she was really doing, so she lied. “Um, yes.”

“I need you,” he said into the phone.

Her eyes widened, and a thousand thoughts ran through her mind all at once. For a fleeting moment, she thought maybe he felt the same way about her as she felt about him. Her heart soared and she responded with a nearly incoherent “um.”

“I need you to drive me to a doctor’s appointment.” His voice came through her cell phone.

That demand brought her crashing back to earth. “What? Me? Why me?”

“Carter can’t make it.”

She felt hurt and disappointed now that she knew she was playing second string to his usual chauffeur. “What about all your other friends and legions of fans?” She winced at her own cruelty. It was that old reflex defense mechanism, but she couldn’t seem to stop herself.

“What other friends?”

“What do you mean, ‘what other friends?’ You have like a hundred best friends, not to mention girlfriends.” She squeezed her eyes shut and thumped her forehead with her palm for being stupid enough to add that last part.

“More like fair weather friends. Funny how they all start to disappear when you need a favor, even Carter.” She could hear the bitterness in his voice through the phone. “I suppose you have to wash your hair or something, huh?”

She ran her fingers through her hair and disregarded the snark, but she actually felt flattered that he even acknowledged the fact that she was a girl. “Uh. What time is your appointment?”

“In a half hour. Unfortunately, it takes forty-five minutes to drive there. Where’s your dorm? I’ll meet you there.”

“17B Evanston,” Sara answered. But she hadn’t even said she’d drive him yet.

“Thank you, Sara. I was about to call for a taxi. I’ve been contacting everyone I know for the past hour and…”

Cancel the flattery. He called her out of desperation. She was his last resort. “So I’m at the bottom of your list, huh?”