Chapter 3 I need to find a tutor

Ace's POV

The sharp, violent crack of my composite stick connecting with the frozen rubber echoed through the empty arena.

I didn't even watch the puck fly. I already knew where it was going. A split second later, the heavy thud of it burying into the top-right corner of the net confirmed it.

A chorus of exhausted groans and half-hearted stick taps rang out across the ice.

“Jesus, Hunters, take it easy!” Miller gasped, leaning his weight against his stick. “It’s the first pre-season scrimmage. You don't have to play like it’s game seven of the Stanley Cup finals at seven in the damn morning.”

“Play how you practice, Mills,” I shot back, breathing just as heavily. I skated a slow arc toward the center circle, rolling my shoulders. “If you’re too slow to keep up, I’ll tell Coach to bump you down to the third line.”

Miller flipped me off, but before he could chirp back, Coach Davis blew his whistle.

“Alright, bring it in! Practice is over. Hit the showers!” Coach barked. As the team trudged toward the locker room, he pointed at me. “Hunters. A word. Now.”

I skated over to the boards. “What’s up, Coach? My wrist shot too fast for you to track today?”

Coach Davis didn't smile. “I got an email from the academic advisory board this morning, Ace. Your midterm grades were logged at midnight.”

The confidence drained from my veins. “And?”

“And you bombed Professor Harrison’s sociology exam,” he said bluntly. “You’re sitting at a flat D in that class. If your GPA drops below a 2.5 by the end of this month, you are academically ineligible to play. You won't just lose the captaincy, Hunters. You’ll be riding the bench for the entire first half of the season.”

My jaw locked. “Coach, I just need to pull a few all-nighters. I can fix it.”

“You better,” he warned. “The NHL scouts from Boston and Chicago are coming to the home opener in three weeks specifically to look at you. Your agent has been up my ass all summer trying to convince them you’re a mature, focused leader, not just the hothead who got into a bar brawl in July. Fix your grades, Ace. Or kiss the draft goodbye.”

He patted the glass and walked away, leaving me standing alone on the ice.

Forty-five minutes later, I had showered, thrown on dark gray sweatpants and a black team hoodie, and marched across campus to the Academic Sciences building with Miller.

I stared down at the test paper I had just retrieved from the TA’s office. At the top, circled in thick red ink, was a massive 58%.

“Well,” Miller offered, peering over my shoulder. “At least it’s not a zero?”

“Shut up, Mills,” I snapped, crumpling the edge of the paper. “I’m entirely screwed. Harrison’s class is notoriously impossible to pass. If I don't get at least an A on the final project next month, I’m benched.”

“So, get a tutor,” Miller shrugged. “The athletic department pays for them. Just request someone from the advising center.”

“I tried that last semester, remember?” I growled. “The department sent me three different tutors. Two of them spent the entire session trying to take their shirts off, and the third one kept asking if I could get her VIP tickets to the draft party. I need someone who actually cares about the coursework and won't be distracted by the fact that I play hockey.”

Miller snorted. “Buddy, you’re the star captain of the most worshipped sports team on campus. Finding a girl on this campus who is immune to your whole ‘arrogant bad-boy’ charm is going to be harder than passing that class.”

“Look,” Miller said suddenly. He nudged my arm and pointed down the hallway toward the open glass doors of the study lounge. “If you seriously need a miracle, you need her.”

I followed his gaze.

Sitting alone at a corner table by the windows, surrounded by textbooks and highlighters, was a girl drowning in an oversized gray university sweatshirt. Her dark blonde hair was piled in a messy bun. She wore thick black-rimmed reading glasses, and purple shadows bruised the skin beneath her eyes. She was stabbing a yellow highlighter into her notebook.

“Her?” I asked, raising an eyebrow. “She looks like she’s two seconds away from murdering someone with that highlighter.”

“That,” Miller said, “is Summer. She’s a junior, and she’s basically the golden child of the humanities department. 4.6 GPA, genius with theory. She works as a student assistant at the rink, so she knows the schedule. And more importantly? She is one hundred percent immune to hockey players.”

“Nobody is immune to hockey players, Mills.”

“She is,” Miller insisted. “She grew up with Brooks. Your half-brother. She’s been hanging around the team for two years and never batted an eyelash at any of us. If you want a tutor who won't try to climb into your lap, Summer is your only hope.”

I watched her push her glasses up her nose and rub her temples with a weary sigh. The sleeve of her sweatshirt slipped down her arm.

Something clicked.

I narrowed my eyes, taking in the slope of her shoulders, the shade of her hair, the profile of her face. The memory of thick steam and metal lockers flashed back. Turning around yesterday afternoon and locking eyes with the girl frozen in the doorway.

A slow smirk spread across my face.

“Summer,” I murmured.

“What?” Miller asked. “Dude, why are you smiling like a psycho? I just told you she’s immune to us.”

“She’s not immune, Mills,” I chuckled. “She just thinks she is.”

“You don't even know her.”

“Oh, we’ve crossed paths,” I said, my smirk widening as I kept my eyes on her. She looked miserable today. “Go grab lunch without me, Miller.”

“What? Why?”

“Because,” I said, stepping away from the wall and heading toward the study lounge. “I need to go introduce myself to my new tutor.”