Page 1 of Blitz

Tucker

I must be going crazy. There is no way in the history of the world that my high school ex-girlfriend is on my college campus. I’ve imagined her before. It’s not the first time my mind has played tricks on me.

I could have sworn I saw her on Saturday. But I know—I know—that Mason Prince would never step foot onto Massachusetts State University at Newton’s campus. More than that, she would never show up at a football game and sit in the front row and wear my jersey, not after the way she ended things.

Over the last two and a half years since we broke up, I’ve imagined her beside me, talking to me and keeping me company. I’ve pretended she’s been in the room more than once. It must have been that hard hit in Saturday’s game.

Wait. I didn’t get hit. Fuck. What’s going on? Is it a brain tumor? I blink a few times. No, I’m pretty damn sure that’s Mason across the dining hall, sitting with a group of athletes, laughing and having a grand old time.

It must be the stress of finals week. She is safe and sound at Georgetown, going out with a new guy each weekend and partying all the time. She’s not here. I’ve checked out her social media a few times. I would know if she had moved to Newton. She’s dating some guy on the Georgetown tennis team and looks disgustingly happy.

And she’s certainly not here for me. She made it brutally clear she didn’t want to be with me anymore the night before I left for college. No, that relationship is dead and buried; there is no resuscitating it.

A familiar laugh carries across the room, and I almost drop my peanut butter sandwich. That sounds… it really does sound like her. And it looks like her.

But it can’t be her.

Sam, my best friend’s girlfriend, sets her hand on my arm. “Are you okay, honey?”

With a lump in my throat, I nod. “I’m fine.”

“It’s okay to not be okay, Tuck,” she says quietly.

I crane my neck. Someone is sitting in between us now, so I can’t see Mason’s look-alike anymore. It’s not like I’m going to go over there and talk to her. What would I say? You look like the ex-girlfriend I’ve been pining after for two and a half years? Talk about pathetic.

Chapter one

Tucker

I never saw the blitz coming. Winter break passed much too quickly. Before I’m ready for it, I was back on campus doing all of the things I don’t want to do. Classes. Homework. Papers.

With football season over, it’s time to buckle down and focus. I have two months of relative peace before spring ball starts up. It’s just enough time to get into trouble. Good thing I’m taking a full course load and then some, working for a clinical study, and still finding time to work out with the team three times a week and lift weights another four times.

I am so fucking exhausted, and it’s only the first week of the semester. I have to look to the future: to graduation, to grad school, to moving on with my life and making something of myself.

Thursday, January 12th starts out like any other day. I work out in the weights room with the rest of the defensive squad. Have breakfast in the dining hall with my five roommates and Sam, Miles’s girlfriend, who likes to hang out with us. Go to my classes: anthropology, developmental psychology, and abnormal psychology. Grab lunch in the ASC. Study until it’s time to meet with my clinical advisor.

The Social Skills Assessment Center is located on the fifth floor of the Humanities and Social Sciences building. It’s a nondescript room in the middle of the psychology department, beige everything. The walls, the carpets, even the tables are beige.

I open the door and run smack into a smaller feminine body. I set out my hand to steady the person I’ve set off course and recoil in shock.

It’s been two and a half years since I last saw Mason Prince in person. Two and a half years since she broke up with me in a text message. She didn’t even have the decency to pick up the phone when she stomped all over my heart. She’s supposed to be in DC. Why is she here in Boston??

“Hey, King,” she says quietly, not looking at me. “I like the beard.”

She looks the same and yet completely different. Her long, wavy, dark hair is natural and pulled back in a jaunty ponytail. Her chocolate brown eyes are as rich as ever. Her brown skin glows with health. She’s a looker; she always has been.

“Mason.”

I hate the way my dick notices her supple curves. She’s always been lithe, lean. At twenty, she’s a fully grown woman, even more gorgeous than she was when I fell in love with her at fourteen.

She winces. “So you still hate me?”

“I don’t hate you. That would require me to have any level of feelings for you.” My words are as cold as the bitter stone that used to be my heart.

“I deserve that,” she says, her eyes trained on my neck. I swallow thickly and her mouth drops open. Her pretty pink tongue comes out to wet her lips. My traitorous dick twitches in my jeans.

“Why are you here?”