Chapter 2 DESPERATE FOR THIS.

RAINE.

The Dean's office was beautiful. Filled with books and trophies, it had frames of different events. The tennis team, the racing team, a quiz competition, an automobile servicing excursion and so many others. The smell of freshly brewed coffee wafted through my nose.

"Good morning , ma'am. I'm Raine Rhodes, the transfer student," I introduced myself.

Smiling, "Miss Rhodes." The Dean — a tall woman with silver streaked through her bun and reading glasses perched low on her nose — slid a manila folder out of a drawer without looking up. "Have a seat."

I sat in the leather chair across from her desk, knee throbbing under my jeans, jaw still tight from the incident I'd just walked out of.

She opened the file. Flipped a page. Flipped another. Her eyebrows lifted somewhere around the third page, and she pulled the transcript closer, as if she wanted a better look at it.

"Highest grades in your cohort," she said, half to herself.

I didn't say anything. My leg bounced under the desk.

She turned another page, eyes tracking down the columns. "And you maintained this while training competitively? Six days a week, according to your coach's letter."

"Yes, ma'am."

She looked at me over the top of the file. "Miss Rhodes, I don't say this often. It would have been a mistake for Blackridge to pass on someone with your record."

Something in my chest loosened for the first time since I'd hit the pavement outside. My old coach back in Brooklyn used to say the same thing, except he followed it with a swat to the back of my head for showing up late to practice. I thought about him now, about the chain-link fence around our public court, about how far that fence was from this office with its lemon-polish smell and its silver-haired woman who looked at my grades with happiness.

"Thank you, ma'am," I said, and I let myself smile.

"Your transfer is approved. Your scholarship is confirmed." She closed the file, folded her hands on top of it. "Blackridge has always been known for tennis, but we're more than that. Ten athletic departments. Six academic. Your major is Sports Administration and Management, correct?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Good. That's a demanding program. You'll do well." She nodded, like that settled it, like we were done.

I felt myself relax into the chair.

Then she said, "There's one more matter."

I sat back up.

"You applied for on-campus housing." She reached for another folder, flipping it open, scanning it with a small crease between her brows. Her hands stilled on the page. "I'm sorry to tell you, Miss Rhodes. All the housing has been assigned. Students apply before the current session even ends. We sort placements before resumption."

My stomach dropped straight through the floor.

"There's nothing available? At all?"

"I'm sorry. My hands are tied."

My mind immediately wandered off to do the calculations. Forty dollars a night at the motel where I'd put my things hoping to come get them once I was settled later in the day. One week was two-eighty. One month was over a thousand dollars I did not have, would never have, not on top of tuition I wasn't paying but everything around it that I was. Transportation to places my bike couldn't take me. Food. Restringing a racket. A new bike, since this one had been wrecked.

"Ma'am, please." My voice trembled, and I hated that it did. "There has to be an exception. I'm not from around here. I don't have family in Malibu, or friends with a couch, or — anything. I'll share a room. I don't care who with. Anyone. Please."

The Dean's face fell into sympathy, mixed with the exhaustion of someone who'd had this exact conversation with a hundred kids just like me. "I'm sorry, Miss Rhodes. There's nothing I can do at this point."

I sat there running through every option in my head, and hit a wall every single time.

Even if a new bike magically fell into my lap, it wouldn't fix anything. That motel was two hours from campus. Two hours there, two hours back. Every single day.

It was impossible.

When would I go to class? Make it to practice? Sleep?

I wouldn't have time left for anything at all.

"No. No. No." My mind was going wild. This couldn't be the end. There has to be something.

"Unless—" The Dean turned, reaching into a bottom drawer, digging through files with impatience. Seemed she couldn't remember where she'd put what she was looking for. "Where is it. Where — ah." She pulled a single folder free, triumphant. "There's one option."

"Yes. Please. Anything." I sat forward so fast the chair legs scraped the floor.

"There's exactly one vacant on-campus accommodation left in the entire athletic wing." She set the folder down, folding her hands over it. "It comes with a condition."

"Okay."

"It's reserved for whoever earns the female position on the mixed-doubles roster. She'll share it with our tennis captain."

"Mixed doubles?"

"Blackridge has dominated the tennis championship circuit for six consecutive years." A note of pride slipped into her voice, unmistakable. "This year, for the first time, we've entered the mixed-doubles bracket. We intend to bring that trophy home too." She leaned back. "The male position is filled — our tennis captain. The female position is open. Trials are ongoing as we speak."

My pulse picked up. "And if I make the team, I get housing?"

"Your academic scholarship is already secure," she said, slow and deliberate, like she wanted this part to land clean. "But your place in Blackridge's elite tennis program depends on performance. If you don't make the competitive roster, you remain enrolled — but you lose the athletic benefits attached to it."

"Meaning I get the housing if I make this spot. If I don't, I arrange my own accommodation."

"Precisely." Checking her wristwatch, "you have forty-five minutes. Trials end at noon."

Forty-five minutes to change my entire future.

I sprang out of the chair so fast I nearly took the lamp with me. "Thank you. Thank you, ma'am, I'm so — thank you."

"Don't thank me yet." Her voice followed me to the door, cool and even. "Not until you're in. And remember — your scholarship depends on academics and skill both. Don't slack on either."

"Yes, ma'am." I was already halfway out the door when I stopped, spun back around. "Uh — sorry — what's the tennis captain's name? The one who's already on the team?"

"Xavier Lazzaro."

That name. I'd heard it whispered by two girls earlier. He must be some tennis big shot. Good for him.

Down the hallway. Out the doors. Into the sun.

I looked down at myself — jeans, ruined hoodie, no gear, nothing but a racket and forty-four minutes and change.

"Fuck it," I said out loud, to nobody, and ran for my bike anyway, because it was the only wheels I had.

I swung my leg over, jammed my foot on the pedal, and the chain slipped clean off the gear with a metallic shriek, catching my jeans and yanking me sideways so hard I nearly went down for the third time that day.

"Oh, for fuck's sake." I kicked the pedal loose, ripped my books out of the basket, and shoved them into my racket bag so I could sling the whole mess over one shoulder and just run.

That arrogant jerk's face flashed behind my eyes for half a second — smug, sunglasses, "watch the road" — and I hated that even now, mid-crisis, he had room in my head at all.

I just wanted to wrap my hand around his neck and squeeze. He was going to be the reason I might not make it to the court.

I sprinted harder, my lungs burning, the racket bag slamming against my hip.

God, please. I'd sacrificed too much to get here. Let me have this. Just this one thing. Let me have it.