EARN YOUR EXTRA CREDIT by Meghan Quinn
Release Date: April 15th
Genre: Romantic Comedy
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Blurb:
"She went home
with someone else that night?"
Hearing
the disbelief from my best friend's mouth makes the events of my failed
date sting that much more.
I would like to make
it known, I have a lot more swagger than what it seems. I don't normally ask a
girl out, have her fail to recognize it's a date, and then give me a high
five--as if I'm her wingman--and take off with someone else.
No. Normally I'm the
one taking the girl home but with Stella, it's been one failed attempt after
another and frankly, I'm done trying.
But thanks to my
best friend getting married in Hawaii right before the school year starts, I'm
stuck on a tropical island, watching Stella parade around in what she claims is
a bathing suit.
Unfortunately,
that's not the worst of it, just the tip of the iceberg. Because what I
think is going to be a relaxing vacation, avoiding the one girl I can't
seem to make it work with, has turned into a spectacle of being recruited as
Stella's doting fake fiancé so she can save face with an old "friend"
from high school.
Now I'm navigating
through purgatory while trying not to get turned on by the way she holds my
hand or kisses my jaw. It's all fake, that's what I keep telling myself, even
though it feels entirely too real.
Excerpt:
“Do you want to sit
next to Stella on the airplane?” Arlo asks.
“What? Fuck, no,” I say
while turning up the game so I can hear the announcers over my tedious,
wedding-planning best friend.
Arlo snatches the
remote from my hand and turns off the TV. The room is silent for a moment
before uproarious objections fill the air.
“Gentry is up next,”
Gunner, my other best friend and former teammate, complains from next to me.
“He’s three for three so far.”
“We need to talk,” Arlo
says in that stern, alpha-like voice that won over his fiancée. Little does he
know it doesn’t work on me.
I reach for the remote
but he swats my hand with a resounding thud, causing me to yank my hand back.
“What the actual fuck, man?”
When I decided to have
the guys over to my loft, I assumed we’d tear up some wings, drain some brews,
and watch the Bobbies game. Never in my wildest fucking dreams would I have
pictured Arlo Turner, the grumpy curmudgeon of the Forest Heights English
department, to roll in like a beaming bride, holding a wedding planning folder
to his chest, and consume the night with questions about what he should wear
and if coconut cake is too “Hawaiian-y” for his Maui destination wedding.
But here we are.
“Cut the crap, Romeo.”
“Cut what crap?” I
reach over to the coffee table and pick up my almost empty glass of beer.
“I’m not about to have
the Bickersons attend my wedding, so what the hell is going on with Stella?”
“Nothing is going on,”
I answer, then take a small sip of my beer, making the liquid last so I don’t
have to get up for a refill.
Gunner leans in and
asks, “If we get to the bottom of the problem, can we turn the TV back on?”
“Yes,” Arlo answers.
“Then it was the
baseball game he took her to.”
“Dude,” I say in
protest while sitting up on the couch. “What the fuck happened to don’t say
anything?”
Gunner unapologetically
shrugs. “I really want to watch the Bobbies kill the Rebels in interleague
play.”
“What baseball game?”
Arlo asks. “Do you mean the game you took her and Cora to?”
“Yup.” Gunner pops a
chip in his mouth from the bowl on the coffee table. “Except Cora wasn’t supposed
to go. It was supposed to be a daaate,” Gunner drags out.
“You asked Stella out?”
Arlo asks, shocked.
“Way to sell me out for
a game, you dick.”
Not showing an ounce of
remorse, Gunner stands from the couch and takes my glass from me.
“I’ll top you off.
You’ll need it.”
Seething, I pass my
hand over my head and say, “Yeah, I asked her out. She invited Cora. End of
story.”
“That’s not the end of
the story,” Gunner says from the kitchen, the open concept of my loft allowing
his voice to carry to us easily.
When you think a friend
is trustworthy and then they go and shock your fucking nuts right off by
divulging everything you told them in secret . . . without even a blink of an
eye. Gunner is dead to me.
You’re probably
wondering why I didn’t say anything to Arlo about what happened, given he’s one
of my best friends, right? It’s simple. Gunner got me drunk and I relished in
the comfort of far too many cold beers and a listening ear. If it wasn’t for
that, I’d have kept my mouth shut, because the entire incident was fucking
humiliating.
Between you and me,
I’ve liked Stella Garcia, the Spanish teacher at Forest Heights, for a while
now. Far too long actually. I can’t quite pinpoint when it happened, but all I
know is over the three years I’ve known her, I’ve been pining after the girl
for the majority of the time.
Fucking bold,
quick-witted with a sharp tongue, loves sports, shy when it counts. Flat-out
gorgeous with her long, wavy brown hair and fascinating green eyes that have a
ring of brown around the pupil. She’s had my attention for a while and last
year, I decided to finally make a move.
Enough was enough. We
shared too many dinners together as friends. She’s pressed her lips to my beer
glass without a second thought way too many times. The moment presented itself,
I grew a pair, and asked her out to a baseball game knowing she loves watching
the sport as much as I do.
But fuck did it
backfire.
“What’s the end of the
story?” Arlo asks, growing agitated. His patience runs thin, which is
surprising, given his profession of educating the youth.
He’s not going to drop
it.
Arlo’s relentless when
he wants to know something.
Dragging my hand down
my face, I say, “It was supposed to be a date.” Gunner sits next to me and
hands me my refilled glass, which I gladly take. “She invited Cora. Which was
fine. We had a good time, I still sat next to Stella, and we shared jokes even if
there was a third wheel. But it was what happened afterwards that—”
“That gutted him,”
Gunner finishes for me. When I snap a look at him, he smirks. “That’s what you
told me. Just thought I’d help tell the story.”
“I wasn’t gutted.”
Maybe I was a little.
Hell . . . I was
humiliated.
Gutted isn’t a strong
enough word for what happened.
“What the fuck happened
after? Christ. Why are you taking so damn long to get to the point?” Arlo
practically growls.
“Go easy on our guy.”
Gunner grips my shoulder. “He was embarrassed, man.”
“It’s fine, I’m over it
now,” I say in a passive-aggressive tone.
“You’re clearly not if
you and Stella can’t even be in the same room together. I don’t want anything
ruining this trip for Greer, and your constant arguing with Stella is driving
everyone fucking crazy.”
“Great, then I just
won’t talk to her. Simple.”
“Just tell him,” Gunner
says, nudging me.
Christ.
Staring down at my
beer, I quietly say, “She went home with someone else that night.”
The room falls silent.
They don’t have to
react for me to know what they must be thinking. They know I’ve liked Stella
for a while. They know I’ve been trying to figure out a way to ask her out.
And this . . . hell,
this was an epic fail on my end.
It wouldn’t be as bad
if I weren’t already carrying a chip on my shoulder about the way I was forced
to twist my life around.
Five years ago,
everything changed.
Five years ago, I was
stripped of the one thing that brought me life.
A ruptured Achilles
tendon ended everything for me.
I never got the chance
to appreciate my last game.
I never had the
opportunity to sit on the field and say goodbye.
Instead, playing
professional baseball was stripped from me and I was forced to fall back on my
teaching degree I earned while playing in college.
To say I’m bitter,
resentful, and fucking angry . . . yeah, that’s an understatement.
I live with regret
daily and harbor more animosity than anyone should.
So, when I took Stella
to the game, on a date, hoping to tell her how I feel, and she went home with
someone else, it fucking stung.
Do you know what stung
more, though?
The fact that she
looked right past me and instead went for a rookie on the Bobbies.
Why go out with a
washed-up baseball player turned phys ed teacher with a slight limp in his
walk, when you can go out with an unmarred professional baseball player?
Yeah. There’s
resentment for a reason. She chose the star. That’s who she wants.
That’s who I’ll never
be.
And that’s why I plan
on staying as far away from Stella Garcia on this trip as I can.
And when we get back to
Chicago and the school year starts, everything will go on as planned.
Avoid. Avoid. Avoid.
Too easy, right?
About the
Author:
USA Today Bestselling Author, wife,
adoptive mother, and peanut butter lover. Author of romantic comedies and
contemporary romance, Meghan Quinn brings readers the perfect combination of
heart, humor, and heat in every book.
Connect with
Meghan:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/meghanquinnauthor
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7360513.Meghan_Quinn
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/authormeghanquinn/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/AuthorMegQuinn
Website: http://authormeghanquinn.com
Bookbub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/meghan-quinn
Amazon: https://amzn.to/2LitE4x
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