Total pages in book: 78
Estimated words: 87395 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 437(@200wpm)___ 350(@250wpm)___ 291(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 87395 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 437(@200wpm)___ 350(@250wpm)___ 291(@300wpm)
Neil had grown up wondering why Kevin and Riko were in that room eight years ago and how they'd overcome it. He'd wondered why their luck and circumstances were so different that they could become international stars while Neil's life spiraled so quickly out of control. He'd hated and worshipped them all his life, jealous of their successes and desperate for them to excel. Now it seemed he'd been wrong all along; Kevin hadn't escaped either.
No matter what they did or who they became, maybe they never would.
Neil shoved the stairwell door open so forcefully it banged against the wall and was running before he was even halfway across the lobby. He hit full speed before he reached the street, going so fast he was nearly falling over, but he couldn't outrun his thoughts.
CHAPTER FIVE
The Foxes weren't scheduled to start their practices until Monday, June 10th, but they were required to move into campus the day before so they had time to get settled in the athletes' dormitory. Neil found their estimated arrival times on a list hanging on Wymack's fridge. The first of them wasn't expected to arrive until two in the afternoon and the last not until five. Neil was impatient to have the whole team together at last. Once they were here, Kevin would have an entire team to yell at and would have to leave Neil alone.
Kevin was successful so far in keeping his cool in front of Andrew. Neil attributed it to years of smiling at the press and pretending things were fine when he was living with abusive gangster rejects. That stress needed an outlet, though, and Neil was the most convenient target. The two weeks between the ERC's vote and the official start of summer practices were so hard to tolerate that Neil almost learned to hate both Exy and Kevin. Kevin had gone from impossible to please to completely horrible to be around. For the most part, the cousins let Kevin do as he wished with Neil and pretended there was nothing wrong with it.
Neil was much better at instigating fights than winning them, but it'd be worth losing if he could just put a fist through Kevin's face once. Starting a fight was too out of character for who he portrayed "Neil" to be, though. As much as Neil hated coming across as a pushover, he didn't have a choice. He couldn't let Kevin or Andrew see the real him. So he gritted his teeth and tried as hard as he could to behave.
Now he only had to survive a few more hours. He and his duffel bag caught a ride with Wymack to the stadium, where Wymack collected a package of dorm keys for the team. Neil took his and the paperwork regarding appropriate dormitory behavior. He skimmed over it before signing all the dotted lines. Wymack traded the papers for a school catalogue. Neil had missed the athletes' early registration window because he signed so late, so he'd have to register with the rest of the freshmen class in August. Neil wasn't in any rush; he still didn't know what he was supposed to declare his major as. He took the catalogue to the
Foxes' lounge and curled up in one of the chairs to flip through it. He knew he should just pick one at random, since he wouldn't even last the semester here, but it was interesting to see how many options Palmetto had. He toyed with the idea of studying something outrageous, but he was too practical to commit. If he wanted something useful, there was only one obvious choice.
Foreign languages were the keys to freedom he couldn't live without. Neil was fluent in German. He was second-best at French, thanks to eight months in France and ten months in Montreal. His grasp on them was fading with disuse, though he watched and read foreign news online to keep from losing them entirely. Neil could ask the cousins for help with German, but he didn't want them to know he understood their private conversations. How much French Kevin knew, Neil wasn't sure, but he didn't want to spend more time with Kevin than he had to.
He perused the modern languages section, debating. There were five languages available as majors and another three that could be minored in. The smart choice was to go with Spanish. Neil's Spanish had never been good and it was long gone by now, washed out by the German and French that followed. If he could pick it up again, it opened up a world of opportunities in the southern hemisphere.
He wasted an hour going through the list of requisite courses, looking up class times, and figuring out an ideal schedule. As soon as he thought he had a couple classes nailed down, he found a timing conflict and had to backtrack and start over. The problem was in how much time Neil needed open for practices. When the school year started the Foxes would meet for two hours in the morning and for five hours in the afternoon. Neil also needed to fit in the five weekly hours of tutoring time Palmetto required of all their athletes. It took him six drafts before he found a schedule that worked.
He checked the clock, saw he still had half an hour to kill, and considered running laps. He'd just gotten up when Abby walked in.
Neil had seen Abby a couple times this summer, mostly when Wymack was feeling too lazy to cook and wanted Abby to do it for him. Neil never sought her company of his own volition, since seeing her meant seeing Andrew's lot. How she could stand having them under her roof, he didn't know.
"Hey, Neil," Abby said. "You're a little early for the meeting."
"Coach won't let me into Fox Tower until Matt gets here."
She checked her watch. "He'll be here before you know it. Since you've got time to spare, we might as well get your physical over with."
"Physical?"
"Just a general check-up: weight, height, all that good stuff. We have to do it today instead of tomorrow because there's blood work involved. I can't let you on the court until you've slept it off. When's the last time you saw a doctor?"