Next Man Up (Making the Score #2) - Tawdra Kandle Page 0,16

us. Together, we meandered down the brick walkway.

I only half-listened to the joking and conversation between the other three. I was too busy digesting the information I’d just heard.

Eli Tucker was here, at this school. And he was rooming with my roommate’s best friend.

This year had just gotten a whole lot more interesting.

Chapter Three

Zelda

I made it an entire week at Birch without seeing Eli Tucker. But that didn’t mean I stopped thinking about him.

The first few days, my stomach clenched and my shoulders tensed every time I left my room. A part of me expected to run into him at each turn. The nice thing, I realized early on, was that I wasn’t likely to miss him, since there weren’t that many students rolling around in wheelchairs.

The fact of Eli’s paralysis hadn’t come as a surprise to me. I’d heard about his injury soon after it happened, since it had made the regional news outlets. I’d actually seen footage of it happening while I was at a party. I’d been on a sofa, sitting on the lap of a football player, ironically enough. His hand was on my ass, and I knew in a matter of moments, he’d suggest we go upstairs for some privacy. And I also knew I wouldn’t say no.

Two of the other guys had been playing a video game on the huge television. When they finished and turned off the gaming system, the eleven o’clock news was on, and one of the top stories had been the ugly, tragic hit taken by a South Jersey high school football star.

The crack of his back breaking had rung out even over the buzz of the crowd watching the game. All of the boys sitting in the living room with me had groaned in unison, and the guy upon whose lap I was perched grimaced in empathy.

Although the news showed the replay over and over again, I didn’t watch the video more than once, because right after I saw it the first time, I had to run from the room to vomit. In spite of my feelings for Eli Tucker, seeing him get hit and knowing he was seriously injured still rent my soul.

But that had happened two years ago. I’d had a long time to get used to the idea of Eli Tucker being permanently disabled, and I was determined that he wasn’t going to take me by surprise. When I saw him for the first time here at Birch, I would be ready. As a matter of fact, to my private embarrassment, I’d spent a lot of time fantasizing about just how that meeting would go down.

In my daydream, I strutted into the snack bar at the student life center and stepped right up to the table where my friends sat with Eli, who was of course in his wheelchair. I swept a withering glare over him before I sat down and utterly ignored him, despite his attempts to remind me about how we knew each other.

Not that I honestly expected him to remember me. I wasn’t a fool—I hadn’t been one for three years—and I knew that Eli had had plenty of girls before me and after me. There was no reason to believe that I would be more memorable than any of the rest.

Over our second weekend at Birch, South Jersey was hit with an intense heat wave. That wasn’t so unusual; even back home in Lancaster, we often had temperatures in the nineties well into September. Quinn, Gia and I all had tons of homework and reading for our classes, but we’d decided to do it while lying out on the expansive green that made up the center of the campus.

I was deeply engrossed in Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez when I heard Quinn snicker. For a solid five minutes, I was able to ignore her, but eventually, I marked my place in the book with one finger and turned exasperated eyes on my roommate.

“What’s so freaking funny that you’re interrupting my reading?”

Quinn lifted up her phone. “Sorry. Nate was texting me about his anthropology professor. He’s pretty sure she’s a vampire.” Shaking her head, she rolled to her side and pushed to sit up. “He just asked if we want to come over for a little while. I think he’s looking for a reason to take a break from studying.” She glanced at me and then at Gia. “And he says Tuck’s there, too. So if we go