The Player Next Door by K.A. Tucker EPUB & PDF – eBook Details Online
- Status: Available for Free Download
- Authors: K.A. Tucker
- Language: English
- Genre: New Adult & College Romance
- Format: PDF / EPUB
- Size: 2 MB
- Price: Free
September 2007
I survived Day One without puking or crying.
Do they make T-shirts with that slogan? They must. I can’t be the only
person to head back to school after summer vacation with a broken heart.
Though, I’d be lying if I wore that T-shirt. I did cry today; I just didn’t do it
in public. I ducked into a restroom stall as the first fat tear rolled down my
cheek and then spent my entire lunch period with my butt planted on a toilet
seat, struggling to muffle my sobs as giggling girls streamed in and out,
oblivious.
And all it took was one look from Shane Beckett to cause that reaction.
Or rather, the lack of a look. A passing glance as we crossed paths in the
hallway between third and fourth period, when his beautiful whiskey-colored
eyes touched mine before flickering away, as if the momentary connection
was accidental.
As if the seventeen-year-old, six-foot star quarterback for the Polson Falls
Panthers and I hadn’t spent the summer in a semipermanent lip-lock.
As if last night, sitting in his father’s car outside my apartment building,
he didn’t tell me that we were getting too serious, too fast, and he couldn’t
handle a relationship right now, that he needed to focus on football, and I was
too much of a distraction.
That one vacant, meaningless look from Shane Beckett in the hall today
was worse than anything else he could have done, and it sent me stumbling
away, dragging my obliterated spirit behind me.
The rest of the day has been a painful blur, with me cowering in the same
restroom stall after the last bell rang to avoid the crowd. I foresee myself
spending a lot of time in there. Maybe I should hang an occupied sign and
declare it mine for the school year.
“Hey, Scarlet.” Becca Thompson, her stride buoyant, flashes a
sympathetic smile as she passes me on the steps outside the front doors of
Polson Falls High.
“Hey,” I manage, but the bubbly blond is already gone, trotting down the
sidewalk, no glance backward, almost as if she hadn’t greeted me at all. She’s
nice enough, but I shouldn’t be surprised by the lukewarm friendliness.
We’ve never traveled in the same circles, her being the popular cheerleader
and me being the reticent mathlete who slogs away at the local drive-in
movie theater every weekend in summer. We’d exchanged nothing more than
polite greetings before Shane and I started dating, despite our mothers
working together at the hair salon for years.
Couple that with the fact that Becca is best friends with Penelope Rhodes
—a.k.a. the Red Devil, otherwise known as the worst human to walk these
dank halls—who was away in Italy all summer, and I’m not surprised that
I’m persona non grata once again.
Becca obviously knows Shane and I broke up. They all must know. But at
least she acknowledged me, so I guess there’s that.
She’s heading toward the parking lot now. That’s where the jocks and
cheerleaders and otherwise popular crowd hang out, congregated around the
cars their parents bought for them, talking and laughing and ignoring the
peasants.
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