Chapter 1
Andres POV
There’s nothing I can hear but my heart beats matching the rhythm of the basketball dribbling down this court. It’s the final two minutes of March Madness and we are so close to winning the championship. This is my moment, I can’t mess up now.
I run down the court dodging my opponents as losing is not an option. This team depends on me! I need to show that I have what it takes to be a champion, to be a warrior, to be the perfect athlete. I can’t fail.
The clock starts ticking and the fans are shouting but all I can hear is the ball hitting the court. I can’t let the announcers, the fans, the players, the coaches enter my head. This is now or never. I jump up with the ball in my hand and release it as I slowly descend watching the ball hit the rim of the hoop. It can’t be. The ball tips away and I just watch in horror as the final buzzer goes off.
I continue to fall as the floors of the court open up into darkness just waiting to swallow me into darkness. I’m a failure. Nothing even matters, no one wants to hear a failure’s voice, my scream is just a motion as I just fall into the darkness. When all of a sudden cold water hits my face.
Sitting straight up from my bed, I shake and try to regain consciousness as water spits out of my mouth.
“I told you this would work!” The voice of the craziest roommate ever cheers as I open my eyes to see Alec throwing his hands in the air. With that he has a bucket in his right hand.
“Yeah? Now do I prepare for your funeral Perv?” Jackson, my other roommate, asks as he crosses his arms.
“What do you mean?” Alec asks in a confused tone as he lowers his arms down.
“Just look at Andres,” Jackson points to me as he tries to hold in his laugh.
I glare at Alec where he smiles and waves like a damn clown. I swear being friends with these guys is a full time babysitter since they can’t act their damn age. It’s getting annoying to the point where I want to ship them to a boarding school.
“So about this-”
I cut him off as I stood up and grabbed the bucket out of his hands. “Alec, are you fucking stupid?!”
“Is that seriously a question? The answer is yes,” Jackson sighs as he pats Alec’s back. “It was nice knowing you.”
“Oh fuck off Ice Ballerenia!” Alec throws the bucket at Jackson where drips of water spills on the floor.
“Alec! Seriously? You’re causing a mess in my room,” I scowl as he jumps and hides behind Jackson. “Seriously, can you grow the hell up?”
Jackson laughs as he moves aside leaving Alec in the wide open, “You’re asking for a miracle, I don’t think he will ever grow up.”
Alec glares at Jackson but I stop them and hand them the bucket so I can remove my wet sheets. I swear these two are going to be the death of me.
“What’s going on here?” Paulo, our other roommate, asks as he walks in with a bowl of cereal in his hands.
“Oh nothing much, just Andres getting ready to kill Alec from throwing a bucket of ice cold water onto him,” Jackson explains like this is a normal thing that happens.
“Didn’t you throw water at Enzo last year?” Paulo asks as he starts munching on his cereal.
We all stare at each other and just nod in agreement as we thought about last year where our former roommate Enzo lived with us. He had this huge nightmare where Jackson and Alec threw a bucket of water to wake him up, not to mention he was running late to his morning class.
“Oh yeah no wonder this felt very similar!” Jackson shouts as he looks around us. “Except it’s the weekend and Andres just looks ready to kill Alec.”
“Ice Ballerina, you were the one that was shouting his name and then came to me saying that Andres was screaming and to grab the bucket,” Alec explains as he picks up the bucket on the floor. “This was your idea! Don’t be a little bitch and say that it was all mine.”
“Thanks for ratting me out, Pervert!” Jackson glares, slapping Alec upside the head.
“See! I was being framed! This son of a bitch tried to set me up to get murder! I plead the fifth!”
“Why are you shouting?” Paulo asks, still munching on his cereal.
Alec starts explaining but at this point, I can’t take his voice right now. I walk over to my bed and start removing all of the bedding. I walk over and throw it at the two bickering idiots. “I don’t care whose idea it was but you two are going to wash my bedding because I can’t find the time to fit it in my schedule.”
Jackson picks up my blanket and looks over at my white board on my desk where it has my schedule for the month laid out. “Really? You can’t just move stuff around?”
I glare at him and he flinches as I walk over to my closet to find a sweater. Asking me to move stuff around just like that is not how I run my life. There has to be a plan, there has to be an order, there has to be perfection. It’s just how I was raised and knowing that every minute matters.
“Where are you going?” Alec asks as he hands the pillow cases to Jackson.
“I have to go do a quick workout now that I was woken up by Dumbass and Jackass before I kill them.” I say as I put on a hoodie and go to my desk to put my shoes on.
“Aren’t you forgetting we have our weekend brunch to attend to?” He asks as he walks over to my desk to point to the weekend brunch event on my calendar. Ever since Enzo moved out and moved in with his fiance Dante last year he hasn’t been around us that much. Not because he is spending it with Dante but because of classes, football and the clubs that he helps run.
“Speaking of which, why are you eating right now Paulo?” Jackson asks, walking over trying not to drop my bedding on the floor.
Paulo finishes with his current bite and smiles, “I was just hungry and besides I was just following my schedule routine that Andres set up for me.”
I nod my head as I stand up and walk over to grab my gym bag. As a future nutritionist, I’m using my friends as training and so far there has been improvement with their health, muscle gain and energy.
“Again we’re supposed to have brunch? You know waffles, bacon, and other amazing brunch food!” Alec cheers.
I shake my head as I try to herd the guys out of my room so I can go to the damn gym. “This is why you’re sluggish when you go back in the Spring and it takes you a while to get back into your training.”
Alec rolls his eyes as he walks with us towards the kitchen, “I have fucking at least to keep me active for my cardio.”
“That’s disgusting you know that right?” Jackson says as he walks towards his room to put my sheets in his basket. “I still don’t know why I drew the short straw and have to be in the room next to his!”
“That’s how we did it last year when there were five of us,” Paulo explains as he sits on the table finishing up his cereal.
“Yeah, let’s just reconsider for next year because if I have to spend my senior year next to horndog, I’m going to lose it and will be making your lives hell!”
Alec laughs as he sits next to Paulo on the table, “Ice Ballerina just admit that you are just jealous and want to take a ride on my magical dick.”
Jackson rolls his eyes as he goes into his room.
I walk over to the fridge to grab a bottle of water and start heading out. “I’ll be back in thirty minutes and then we can head out to Enzo’s.”
“I still don’t know why you want to go workout right now? Just chill and let’s go to Enzo’s early. It wouldn’t hurt to show up early,” Alec chimes as he leans back in his chair.
“I have my day planned out already and I like to stick with that schedule. Now if you don’t mind, I’m going to go before I run out of time!” I walk out of my place before any of them will say anything, making me lose even more time.
I love those guys but at the same time they can be so much that I feel like their father. It’s just exhausting at times when I have so much to do right now. With our first basketball game coming up I need to stay focus. I don’t need a repeat from last year to happen ever again.
🏀
After a short jog from the junior dorms to the gym, I finally walk in and want to groan as this morning can’t get any worse. Of course Josiah Collins is working the front desk of the gym today. Just my luck!
I swear this guy is worse than Alec when it comes to personalities. Always going with the flow, being happy all the damn time and most of all thinking he’s so responsible when truth be told he’s a fake. My freshman year, he was the teacher assistant to my Welcome to Sports Medicine Seminar Class and every time he had tutoring sessions he never showed up or it was another teacher assistant. Not to mention, he was a mentor for my final project and I finally scheduled a one-on-one but on the day of without any notification he bailed and left me hanging. I almost got an F on that project if I didn’t go to my professor and asked the other teacher assistant for help.
“Hey Andres!” Josiah shouts as I walk over to the counter to scan in. “How’s it going?” His stupid wide smile just annoys me when this dumbass doesn’t know what he did.
“Fine.” I scan my ID and walk through the bars as I start heading towards the stairs to the workout area. I really don’t want to talk to this fool. As an abnormally tall Puerto Rican, I don’t care and will hold this grudge til death.
“What brings you to the gym this early in the morning? Don’t most college students sleep in on Saturday mornings?” He asks as he tries to follow me behind the counter.
“I’m not like other college kids, I’m here to work out.” I replied, trying to ignore this idiot. I already wasted enough time talking to my roommates, I don’t need to be wasting my time talking to this guy.
“Well you should probably be spending your time in the recovery center instead of gym hours,” He mentions with a smirk as I stop and look at him. How the hell does he know about my hours? “Surprised? Well guess who is the new Senior sports medicine intern for the basketball team this year?”
There’s no fucking way that this guy got assigned to be helping out with our injuries, health reports and other stuff. This has to be some kind of fucking joke! “What do you mean?” I ask gripping the rail as if it was going to save me.
Josiah smiles as he walks over to the stairs and pat my shoulder, “As part of my Sports Therapy program, all seniors are assigned to work with a team for their season. You know to prevent injuries and just work with that team in general. I got assigned Basketball. Which means that I have access to the log times of each facility and based on the recovery center logs you have the least amount of hours there. Do I need to remind you that all athletes must log about twenty hours of recovery and/or non strenuous activities?”
I pull away from his touch and just stand there just glaring at him. Who does he think he is for telling me all this?! I swear I’m going to end up murdering him.
“Based on that reaction, I’m guessing you didn’t. It would be a shame if your coach found out before the charity game,” he says with the most evil smirk ever.
“You wouldn’t dare!” I get up in his face and as a six foot seven basketball player, I have a couple inches on him.
“I better see you in the recovery center then or some other non workout activity, ciao.” He walks up the stairs and I just glare. I really hate today and I’m ready to kill someone.
I looked at my phone and noticed the time. Huffing out a breath, I turned around and headed out. There’s no point in working out now since that fool is going to be watching me and just pissing me off. There goes my schedule.
