Page 1 of End Game

Chapter One

EVERLEIGH

The text comes through after I’ve been waiting for a response for over an hour. Picture it: Me sitting on imaginary pins and needles, anticipating the answer. Throwing one single thought out into the universe and hoping I’ll receive the news I desperately need.

Only for my hopeful anticipation to be tossed into the trash with the ding of a text notification.

Sorry, the room has already been rented.

An actual frustrated growl escapes me, and I glance up quickly, wondering if anyone heard me in the busy coffee shop where I’m currently sitting. But no one is paying attention to me.

Not the moms clad from head to toe in Lululemon who are clustered around a small table not too far from me, a total of four baby strollers beside them.

Not the girls who basically remind me of ... me, sitting at another table, all of them watching as their friend taps out a response to someone I assume is a guy she met on a dating app. She said his response to her reaching out was “I like your tits. And your face.”

Was I listening in on their conversation? Yes. Do I regret it?

No.

By the way, that guy sounds like a douche. She should move on.

The three dude bros sitting at the table directly next to mine are definitely not paying attention to me. Two out of three of them have their hats on backward, and they’re all massively broad in the shoulder and chest area. Like impressively so. Athletes, I would assume, consuming breakfast sandwiches at a breakneck speed and not saying much save for the occasional grunt. Football players, maybe?

I have no clue. I don’t watch sports. And I definitely don’t keep up with the athletic teams at this new college I’m supposed to be attending in less than a week.

Well, there’s nosupposed toabout it. I’m registered. I’ve picked out my classes, and my schedule is so perfect I could almost cry. I’m a transfer student starting at UC Santa Mira as a junior, and only a few days ago, I was beyond stoked to be coming here. Excited to move into my new apartment with my three other roommates. Eager to make new friends, have new experiences, and just be ... free.

Only for one of those new roommates to reach out the literal day I arrived in this gorgeous beach town with an overly apologetic email (God, I hate email) saying that my new room—well, essentially my new bed because I was sharing a room—had been rented out to someone else. That I was mistakenly offered the room/bed when it was already taken.

Reading that email, my vision blurred with unshed tears. I wanted to cry. Took everything within me not to just break down and sob. But I didn’t.

Chin up, Everleigh Bailey Olmstead. You won’t let this setback get you down. You need to press forward.

My grandmother’s inspirational words are the only thing keeping me going in this life, I swear.

I used some of the precious money I’d saved over the last two years for this new adventure to stay at the cheapest motel I could find, only to be scared and unable to sleep because of the rather nefarious thingsgoing on through the night. Like the woman who knocked on my door at one in the morning insisting she was room service. Trust me, there was no room service at this motel. I didn’t open the door, too freaked out to even move as I pressed my back against the headboard, curled into a ball as the insistent knocking went on for far too long.

Now here I am, dragging ass and needing this coffee to rejuvenate me. Student housing in Santa Mira is sparse. I should know. I wrote a paper about the student housing crisis my first year of college, and now I’m a victim of it. I’m homeless.

Homeless.

I can’t adjust my schedule to online only and go back home. I will never hear the end of it if I do. My mother will give me that look and say, “I told you so. Getting too big for your britches gets you nowhere.”

I can literally hear that particular tone in her voice ringing in my mind. The judgmental one. There is no way I can return to the small town I grew up in with my tail tucked between my legs and pretend it’s okay that I’m taking online courses. Because it’s not okay. First, I can’t stand the idea of going back to the place where I grew up, just knowing everyone is watching and waiting for me to fail. And I can’t justify taking courses at UCSM and paying those UC prices while living at home. I wanted an actual experience when I went away to college.

Looks like I’m definitely getting one. Just not the one I’d hoped.

“Fucking Sampson. He’s such a loser,” I hear one of the dude bros mutter before he shoves the remaining half of his breakfast sandwich into his mouth.

My stomach growls, and I take a sip of my scalding-hot coffee, wincing when I burn my tongue. I came in here to feel normal and wake up and bought the cheapest item on the menu, delusional in thinking that a cup of coffee will be a good enough breakfast.

It’s not. I’m starving. And jealous of everyone currently consuming those breakfast sandwiches.

“I knew he’d walk,” another one says, and takes a noisy slurp of his iced whatever. It’s practically white, so I imagine it’s full of sugar and notmuch caffeine. If these guys are athletes, they’re not taking very good care of their bodies with this meal. “He can’t cut it.”

“Doesn’t help that you gave him so much shit,” says yet another one.

“If he can’t take my shit, how is he going to be able to handle Coach?”

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