Summer Fling - Players of Marycliff University, Book 1

Chapter 3

Lance was frustrated. Annoyed.

He was trying to work out his frustration in the weight room. It wasn't helping. He'd put enough weight on the bench press to set a new personal record to try to distract himself, but even that couldn't keep his thoughts from drifting back to the night before.

Abby hadn't been overly talkative, but he figured she was just shy. She had sparred with him verbally off and on, but she'd clammed up when he'd asked more about her beyond the usual superficial questions.

It was the goodnight that frustrated him the most. He'd been about to kiss her, and she had scampered away and closed the door. Most of the girls he walked to their doors were all flirting and smiles, waiting for him to make a move. But not Abby. Did she not realize that he was into her? Why else would he take her out for pie in the middle of the night?

Oh, God. Maybe she wasn't into him. He put the bar back in the rack and sat up, grabbing his towel and wiping his face, thinking over that possibility. That would explain why he got all of her snark, and nothing more than the barest of personal details.

It seemed possible that she might not be into him. But the more he thought about it, the more it seemed like he made her nervous. The way she'd darted inside seemed like she was scared, not disgusted. Wouldn't a girl who'd given him shit for staring at her wet shirt be up front about not liking him? If she didn't like him he wouldn't have been able to convince her to let him take her out. She'd have insisted that he just take her straight home and not put up with his bullshit of going home and changing first. She hadn't even protested that.

She was just nervous, Lance decided. Feeling better, he racked the weights he'd used, wiped down the bench and bar, and went home.

He'd found Abby's shirt on his bathroom floor when he'd gotten home the night before. He'd even held it to his face so he could smell her scent–lightly floral with hints of vanilla. Feeling like a creeper, he'd thrown it into his pile of dirty clothes.

Once he was home he decided to start a load of laundry so he could wash Abby's shirt and give it back to her clean.

He'd just shut the lid on the washing machine when his phone started buzzing with an incoming call. He glanced at the display quickly before answering. "Hey, Mom."

"Hi, Lance. How's your weekend going?"

He grabbed a beer out of the fridge on his way to the couch, settling in for his weekly phone call with his mom. "Good. Just doing some laundry."

"Any interesting girls I should know about?"

"Mom, if I start dating anyone I'll let you know."

"You better. Now, how's your internship going?"

Lance was glad for the neutral change of subject and happily talked about his job for the next twenty minutes.

"It sounds like you're enjoying it and learning a lot."

"I am."

"Good. Do you think a lot of it will help when you come back here?"

Lance paused, taking a deep breath. "Yeah, I guess so." He should've known his mom would bring it back around to him coming home. She brought it up every week when they talked. That and asking about a girlfriend.

The problem was that he didn't really want to go back home and help his dad run the family's mechanic shop. His parents had expected him to come home after graduation. He'd convinced them that the internship would teach him a lot about marketing in a business setting, outside of the classroom. He'd used a similar argument to get them to agree to him getting his degree in the first place—that it would help him to be able to run the family business better when he took over.