Chapter 4
Joycelyn’s POV
I played completely oblivious to Nathan’s game, welcoming each of his “accidental” encounters with
practiced surprise.
In the crowded cafeteria where Boulder High’s social hierarchy was mapped in precise seating arrangements–football team commanding the center tables, theater kids by the windows, debate
team near the vending machines–Nathan would suddenly materialize beside me.
“Mind if I join?” he’d ask, his letterman jacket slung over one shoulder, that signature half–smile
making sophomore girls at nearby tables snap photos for their Snapchat stories.
During mandatory pep rallies, when the entire student body was crammed into the bleachers, he’d somehow end up right behind me, his breath warm against my neck as he’d lean forward to make
some joke about Principal Matthews‘ latest attempt to sound “hip.”
Each encounter lingered longer. Each glance grew more intense. The way he’d lean against my
locker, one arm braced casually above my head while the hallway traffic flowed around us like we
were boulders in a stream–I knew it was calculated, but it still made my skin tingle when his fingers
would “accidentally” brush against mine.
Ralph Waldo Emerson once wrote that “Books are the treasured wealth of the world and the fit
inheritance of generations and nations.” All those years of reading, of studying, had promised me
that education was my golden ticket. But now I was discovering that Nathan Darwin was a different
kind of treasure–one that couldn’t be found in any book.
Then came that Friday night home game against Fairview High. The stadium lights blazed against the October darkness, the crowd electric after our halftime routine–a complicated sequence of
stunts I’d choreographed to showcase our squad’s technical precision. The music faded, the crowd roared, and we struck our final pose.
As we dispersed toward the sidelines, sweaty and breathless, I saw a commotion near the bench.
The sea of spectators parted as Nathan–still in his grass–stained jersey and pads from the first half–pushed through the crowd. His teammates whistled and shouted behind him, but he ignored them, moving with singular purpose.
Straight toward me.
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Chapter 4
The entire stadium seemed to go quiet as he stopped directly in front of me, his face flushed, either from the game or from what he was about to do.
“Joycelyn,” he said, loud enough for the nearby bleachers to hear. “I’m done pretending. I’m into you. Will you go out with me?”
When I threw my arms around his neck, I pretended not to notice the flicker of something–relief? distaste? calculation?-that crossed his face before he hugged me back. I just closed my eyes and breathed in the intoxicating mixture of his cologne and sweat, ignoring the explosion of cheers and
camera flashes around us.
The entire weekend passed in a blur of congratulatory texts and social media notifications. By Monday morning, #DarwinQuinn was trending on the school’s unofficial Instagram page, complete with professional–quality photos someone’s parent had taken of our stadium moment.
What I never expected was that my golden boy’s true mission wasn’t just dating me–it was to systematically dismantle my academic future.
The realization hit me on a warm Saturday in April. Nathan had convinced me to join his friends for a beach day at Boulder Reservoir instead of attending the Princeton alumni interview prep session I’d scheduled months ago. I was sitting on a blanket under a striped umbrella, highlighting key themes in “The Great Gatsby” for my AP Lit paper, while watching Nathan and his teammates playing beach volleyball a few yards away.
The sight of him shirtless, diving for a save in the sand, his muscles gleaming with sweat in the afternoon sun, made concentrating on Fitzgerald’s prose nearly impossible. He caught me staring and winked, sending a flutter through my stomach that no literary analysis had ever inspired.
After winning the set, he jogged over and dropped onto the blanket beside me, sand cascading from his shorts. He grabbed a water bottle from our cooler, chugging half of it before his gaze fell to the open textbook and color–coded notes spread across my lap.
His post–victory smile faded instantly.
“Seriously? We’re at the beach and you’re doing homework?”
I tucked my highlighter behind my ear. “Just getting ahead on Monday’s discussion.”
He stared at me for a long moment, his jaw tightening as he took another swig of water. Something dark flashed behind his eyes.
“The gap between us is just so obvious when you do this stuff,” he said finally, voice low enough that
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Chapter 4
his friends couldn’t hear.
My heart hammered against my ribs. “What do you mean?”
“This,” he gestured at my books. “Harvard prep while I’m just trying to get my GPA high enough for a decent football scholarship.”
I started gathering my notes. “I can put it away.”
Instead of looking relieved, his expression hardened further. He leaned closer, his voice dropping to that husky tone that always made my pulse race.
“Don’t you ever get tired of it?” he asked, fingers tracing idle patterns in the sand between us. “Being perfect all the time? Never just… living?”
The sunlight caught in his eyelashes as he looked up at me through them, creating little prisms that played across his cheekbones. His hand moved from the sand to my knee, leaving tiny grains that clung to my skin.
“Joycelyn,” he murmured, using my full name in that way he knew affected me, “come into my world for real. Stop worrying about tomorrow so much and just be with me today.”
His fingers traveled from my knee to my wrist, leaving a trail of goosebumps despite the heat. “Don’t you want to know what it feels like to just let go for once?”
In that moment, with the sun warming my skin and the most beautiful boy in Boulder County looking at me like I was the only girl in the world, I felt a rush of exhilaration that no perfect SAT score had ever given me.
So this was the game.
This was what Raven wanted.
Nathan Darwin–Boulder High’s golden boy, nightmare of opposing defenses, and academic disaster–wanted me to throw away my future to be with him.
And Raven Green–my rival who’d never managed to truly beat me–wanted to watch me do it.
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