~~~~~ Emery’s Pov ~~~~~
I wasn’t supposed to hear any of it.
I had come by the athletic center to find Priya, who texted me twenty minutes ago asking if I still had her chem notes, and I figured I’d catch her before practice wrapped instead of waiting until tomorrow’s lecture.
The hallway outside Coach Marsh’s office was the fastest way to the locker rooms, tucked between the equipment room and a wall of framed team photos going back decades.
I wasn’t trying to eavesdrop.
I just happened to be walking past the half-open door when I heard my future collide with someone else’s.
“—two more bad tests, Marchetti, and I don’t care how many goals you’ve got this season, the athletic department pulls your eligibility.
That’s not me being difficult.
That’s the handbook, and it’s the same for every scholarship athlete on this campus.”
“I know what the handbook says.” Calloway Marchetti’s voice came out flat and controlled in a way that sounded like it was costing her something.
“Then you know I need to see improvement fast.
I already put in a request through the athletics office for a tutor—”
“I don’t need a tutor,” she said almost immediately.
“You’re failing organic chem with a 58%.
You need something, and you need it before midterms, not after.”
There was silence in the room.
I should have kept walking.
But I didn’t.
Instead, I kept peeking and continued my eavesdropping.
“My dad already knows,” Calloway said, quieter now.
“He flew in for the last academic review.
If there’s a second one—” She didn’t finish the sentence.
Something about the way her voice dropped on that line stopped me cold.
I’d expected arrogance from her.
Everyone on campus talked about Marchetti like she was untouchable, team captain, the girl whose face was on the athletic department’s recruiting posters.
I hadn’t expected to hear something underneath that sounded almost like fear.
I stood there a beat too long.
Long enough that when Coach Marsh glanced toward the door and caught me standing in the hallway, there was no way I could pretend I hadn’t heard all they said.
“Can I help you?” she asked, not unkindly, just direct.
The way coaches tend to be with people wasting their time.
Every option I had was bad.
Leave and look like I’d been caught snooping outside a private meeting.
Lie and make it worse.
So I did the only thing that felt survivable.
I stepped into the doorway properly instead of skulking outside it, my backpack straps digging into my shoulders like they always did after a full day of classes and my part-time shift at the library.
“Sorry.
I wasn’t trying to listen, I was looking for a friend and I—” I stopped, started over and made myself say it clean.
“I heard the part about the tutor.
I’d like to do it.
If it’s still open.”
Calloway turned to look at me for the first time.
Up close, the “ice queen” thing people said about her made more sense.
There was something deliberately unreadable in her expression, like she’d spent years practicing giving nothing away in front of cameras and reporters and recruiters.
Her eyes swept over me once, quick and assessing, the way you’d size up an opponent across a faceoff circle.
“Do you even know who I am?” she said.
It sounded more like a warning than a question.
“Calloway Marchetti.
Team captain.
Leading scorer in program history since sophomore year.
Currently failing organic chem.”
I hadn’t meant to list it out so bluntly, but it was already out of my mouth before I could stop it.
Three years of pre-med competitiveness didn’t exactly leave room for tact.
Coach Marsh’s eyebrows lifted, somewhere between impressed and amused.
“You know your stuff.”
“I’m on a full academic scholarship.
Chemistry included.
I tutor the intro sections already, this would just be — more specific.”
I kept my eyes on the coach, not on Marchetti, because I could feel her staring at me like I was something she hadn’t decided whether to be insulted by yet.
I could use the stipend.
Rent doesn’t pay itself, and neither does a meal plan that runs out three weeks before finals every single semester.
“I don’t need charity,” Marchetti cut in.
“I’m not offering charity.
I’m offering to fix your GPA problem before it becomes an eligibility problem, which becomes a scholarship problem, which becomes a conversation with your dad you clearly don’t want to have twice.” I finally looked at her directly, making myself not be shaken by her deadly gaze.
“This isn’t about you.
I need the money.
You need the grade.
That’s the whole deal.
Nothing more complicated than that.”
For a second nobody spoke.
Coach Marsh looked between the two of us like she was watching a match she hadn’t expected to be this entertaining, with her arms crossed, waiting to see who’d blink first.
Marchetti’s jaw tightened, that same flicker from before.
Something private flicked through her face for half a second before she shut it down again, like a door swinging closed.
Then, almost like a challenge, the corner of her mouth curved.
“Fine.
You want the job so badly?” She stepped closer, close enough that I had to tip my chin up to hold her stare, close enough I could smell rink chill and laundry detergent still clinging to her practice jersey.
“Prove you’re not a waste of my time first.”
“How, exactly?”
“Get in net.” She nodded past me, through the office window, toward the rink beyond.
An empty ice glowing blue-white under the lights, nets still standing from afternoon practice.
“Score on me.
One shot on Friday.
You do that, I’ll take the tutoring seriously.
You don’t—” she shrugged, already turning toward the door, already smiling like she’d already won “—you find another way to make your rent.”
“I’ve never played hockey in my life,” I said, frowning at her.
“Not my problem.”
She was gone before I could argue, cleats echoing down the tiled hallway toward the ice.
Coach Marsh let out a breath that was almost a laugh, shaking her head like she’d seen this exact standoff before, just never with this particular ending.
“For what it’s worth,” she said, “that’s the most I’ve seen her react to anyone all season.
Most people just let her push past them.”
I stood there in the doorway, doing math that had nothing to do with organic chemistry.
Rent was due in eleven days.
My meal plan balance was already flashing red on the app.
And somewhere across campus, an entire rink was waiting for me on friday to embarrass myself in front of the best hockey player the university had ever recruited.
I was going to have to humiliate myself on ice in front of the entire team just to earn the right to tutor her — was I actually insane enough to do this?