Heart Racer

by Megan Avery

Genres: Small Town & Rural; Women's Fiction; New Adult Romance; Sports Romance

Synopsis

Romance readers! You've had chemistry with steminist romance, you've raced through sports romance. Now get ready for the ultimate crossover...

Biochemistry major Keely has the next five years of her life down to a science. But when her grad school loan application is inexplicably rejected, her carefully calculated future spontaneously combusts.

Her college's Pursue Your Passions scholarship could be the answer. The problem? There's one place left, and she's not the only student in the running. Enter Max: a state champion sprinter who sets hearts racing on and off the track - and the one thing standing between Keely and her dreams.

Keely knows the key to winning is keeping her head in the game. But when your opponent is Lycra-clad and... rippling?! Well, it's hard to keep the chemistry to the lab.

Experimenting with her heart could cost Keely everything she's worked for. But staying away from Max might be a race she's destined to lose...

The Love Hypothesis meets Heated Rivalry in this spicy, dual-pov, academic rivals rom com - as nerdy as it is sure to raise your pulse...

Tropes:
💖 Stem x Sports/ Jock x Nerd
💖 Childhood friends to academic rivals to lovers
💖 He falls first
💖 On campus!
💖 Slow burn (some spice)
💖 Only one... scholarship
💖 You know how to ball, I know Aristotle

💗💗 Real readers loved Max and Keely 💗💗

'True to its title, this spicy romance novel got my heart racing! With a healthy dose of STEM vs. sports academic rivalry and the angst of estranged friends to lovers, Heart Racer is a love letter to passion in all its forms' Swati Hedge, author of Cant Help Faking in Love ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

'Tugging at all the heartstrings with sweetness and humour, Heart Racer is a beautiful love letter to finding yourself in your early 20s' Maggie Eckersley, author of Back in the Saddle ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

'I really enjoyed this one...every exchange sparked with tension and humor...Funny, smart and surprisingly heartfelt' GoodReads reviewer ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

'So cute, I loved every bit of it. It would be hard not to love these two...I loved the prank wars and watching them fall for each other...I already wish I could read it again for the first time' GoodReads reviewer ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

'This book is absolutely phenomenal!!! The chemistry between Max and Keely? Sizzling. Their shared love for Biscuit? Adorable. How painfully relatable Keely is? Perfection. I wish I could go back and read this for the first time again. Hello??? The locker room scene??? If you're a fan of witty, spicy romance, this is the book for you!' GoodReads reviewer ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

'A cutie of a romance...told with care and empathy, which adds to the overall depth of the book. Five stars!' GoodReads reviewer ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

'As someone who has only read ice hockey [sports] romances, this was a pleasant change of scenery for me. Who knew that running could be so sexy?...I really felt for both characters throughout and I was completely cheering them both on to win the scholarship...I really had no idea how it would end, but I was happy with the outcome' GoodReads reviewer ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Release date: April 23, 2026

Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group

Print pages: 90000

Sample

Sometimes, Keely Sinclair preferred to think about life in terms of atoms and cells.

They had perfectly definable expectations, ones she could look at and know instantly: pass or fail.

Atoms expected to remain whole, or to get that way as quickly as possible if they weren’t.

Cells expected to grow, to multiply and divide in their natural cycle. Atoms made cells, cells made vitamins, and vitamins were going to be Keely’s life’s work one day. Her entire thesis revolved around artificial energy—namely how to have more of it when you needed to study late in the evening, and less when it was midnight and you had to be up at five the next morning.

Atoms. Cells. Vitamins. Easy. Predictable.

People were. . . less so. She didn’t know why Jeremy Chen had missed Theory and Application of Computational Chemistry this past Tuesday, when it was still so early in the semester, but she’d offered her notes anyway when he emailed the entire roster in a panic. Or why her neighbor Selina was going out of town midweek and needed someone to water her one single plant, but Keely agreed to that, too.

She didn’t like not meeting expectations.

While the chromatograph ran, Keely fiddled with her to-​do list, written in her favorite Paper Mate Flair pen. She liked it because it was permanent, no room for errors. On the off chance she did make a mistake, she had to start over, as many times as it took to make it perfect. And also, secretly her main reason, they came in fun colors. Magenta for tests, blue for study groups, and the almighty Ruby Red for absolutely-​important-​do-​not-​forget tasks. Today’s list was filled with red.

• Biochem II– review notes before study hall

• Histology– Chapters 4-​6

• Thesis Work– book lab

• TW– draw blood

• TW– Check caffeine levels (use chromatograph this time?)

• TACC– Send Jeremy notes

• Selina– water plant on the way home

“Keely!”

Keely jumped, accidentally drawing a line straight through the last to-​do on her list: go to bed early and re-​run labs in the morning.

That was about right.

“Sorry, Lori.” Keely sat up, dropped her pen, and flexed her hand. Her phone lay on the page, still glowing brightly. She’d been syncing up her planner with her digital calendar, and a timer ran in the background, counting down the precious seconds to the end of her experiment. She only had five to seven minutes to add the dye after the test stopped, and seven was pushing it.

She spun on the stool, giving Lori a full grin alongside her attention. “What were you saying?”

Her lab partner’s mouth was drawn into a straight line.

They didn’t have much in common. Keely’s default was smile, and Lori’s was frown. Keely’s hair was golden brown, claw-​clipped in a style that took her exactly twenty-​three seconds to perfect each morning. Lori’s hair was box-​dye black, unbrushed, and it often fell in her eyes. Lori had a hoop through her septum and Keely cried when she got her ears pierced at thirteen. Whereas Keely lived with her best friend in a glorified closet masquerading as a two-​bedroom apartment, Lori lived in a house off-​campus with her boyfriend. Keely was from the East Coast, grew up a little under five hours away outside Richmond; Lori’s parents resided in downtown Portland, Oregon. More than that, Lori’s parents were still together. Keely’s were not.

But her and Lori’s final thesis projects were complementary, so their advisor stuck them together last year when they declared their biochemistry tracks. Proximity had made them friends, but shared extracurriculars made it stick. That was sort of how it went by the time you got to spring semester of senior year: the same faces, in every lecture, day after day.

“I’m heading home.” Lori swiped her student ID off the desk where she’d been working, then her scarf from the back of her chair. “It’s almost eight.”

Keely wiped at her eyes, wishing her final thesis cared about trivial things like clocks or bedtimes. She wondered if the vending machine on the second floor still had the caramel apple energy drinks stocked from fall. “I’ve got a few more hours left, I think.”

Lori’s mouth pinched, her septum piercing skewing sideways as her nose followed suit. “I can hang out if you want company.”

“No, no. You go home. Eat food that isn’t from a vending machine.” Cuddle with your boyfriend. Have a life outside the lab.

That garnered a small smile. “I’ll see you tomorrow, right?” Lori slung her backpack over her shoulder. When Keely didn’t nod, Lori’s dark brows inched up her forehead as she tugged the zipper of her coat. “For Olympiad training at lunch?”

Keely nodded, subtly flipping to tomorrow’s page in her planner. “Of course. I’ll be there.” If it was written down—and it was—Keely was legally obligated to not only attend but to give it her all.

She really hoped tonight’s experiment would tell her how to do that, over and over again.

Maybe she’d discover some incredibly rare phenomenon where she could multiply herself, do everything she needed, then merge back. Cells did it all the time, no problem.

Oh, to be a cell in a biochemistry lab.

After Lori had left, Keely checked the countdown on her phone. It’d be close, but she could run and grab something from the vending machine to tide her over.

Davidson Hall was built to accommodate massive lecture rooms, and since the college wasn’t big enough—or endowed enough—to have a separate lab building, her thighs suffered every time she needed to be on the second floor.

A few other students lingered, escaping from late-​night labs or huddled in study groups, the first major tests of the new semester on the horizon.

“Keely, hey.” Sam Mabry, her friend from Inorganic Chemistry, waved her over to a table tucked in the alcove behind the vending machines. “My savior. Please help me. Do you remember where this coefficient goes when the special conditions are met?”

Keely glanced at Sam’s notebook, though she really shouldn’t ask. Her test had maybe five minutes remaining when she left, and she’d used two of them already. Plus she could hardly breathe from the impromptu StairMaster exercise.

“What are the special conditions?” she asked anyway, because it mattered, and because she couldn’t leave someone in the lurch. That was an expectation, and well—

As Sam explained his predicament, she reached in her lab coat pocket to peek at the timer. It was empty, save an old peppermint wrapper. Her phone must still be tucked between the pages of her planner.

She didn’t love handing out the answer, but time was of the essence. She scanned his paper more thoroughly. “Oh, this is a trick question. There’s no heat factor here.” She pointed at the variable. “So it wouldn’t react anyway. The entire coefficient becomes zero.”

“Oh, duh. That was the last chapter, wasn’t it?”

“Two chapters ago, I think.”

“Thanks, Keel.” Sam held up his hand for a high-​five. She returned it, along with his genuine smile. She really did love helping people. It gave her a little. . . boost. “Hey, are you going to Jamie’s party this weekend?”

“I’m not sure yet. We’ll have to see how this lab goes.” She grimaced. “We should get coffee soon, though.”

Maya Maldonado, a friend from Keely’s multiple science-​based extracurriculars, leaned over the arm of her wheelchair to grip Keely’s elbow. Her study materials took up the other half of Sam’s table. “Please. We can go after Olympiad practice tomorrow?”

“I’ve got yours, Keely,” Sam chimed, grinning. “For saving me with this analysis.” He sent Keely on her way with a two-​finger salute to his temple.

She ignored the little voice in her head saying, if you go to sleep right now, you’ll still only get six hours and thirteen minutes. And the vending machine was, in fact, out of caramel apple energy drinks.

The chromatograph wasn’t spinning when she came back, her phone chiming with the alarm alert between the pages of her planner. She ran over to it, even though rushing now was futile. She shouldn’t have stopped to help Sam but couldn’t bring herself to regret it—at least she would have achieved something today.

After silencing her alarm, Keely dropped the dye in half-​heartedly. This experiment was as good as failed.

Yet, despite her pessimism, as she watched and waited for the results, blood rushed to her cheeks. Her fingertips tingled. Her toes too, no matter how much she wiggled them in her shoes. She always got this way right before an experiment finished, jittery with anticipation and adrenaline. Who needed caffeine, anyway?

Keely’s brain spun like the machines tucked along the wall, running overnight tests for other students. Was there weight behind that random thought? Adrenaline? Is that what she’s been missing in all her previous research? That made sense. Adrenaline had a crash like sugar or her beloved caffeine, but was also naturally produced.

She grabbed her phone to jot it down, for poring over later when she inevitably couldn’t sleep.

An email preview waited on her screen, and it derailed her train of thought. Her everything.

Your most recent loan application status

Keely was onto something with the adrenaline thing, because she didn’t hesitate to open it, the way she normally did with important emails. This time, she ripped off the Band-​Aid.

And started bleeding out.

Dear Keely Sinclair,

Thank you for your recent application for a continued education loan with Valley View Bank and Trust. After careful review of your application and supporting documentation, we regret to inform you we are unable to approve your loan at this time in line with our internal credit policy, and your application has been denied.

We understand this may be disappointing, and we encourage you to address any factors that may improve future applications, such as having a co-​signer.

No, no, no. . . There must be some mistake. Her application had been watertight. She frantically skimmed the rest of the email but always came back to the word denied. It may as well have been bolded and in bright red.

Her heart plummeted. She couldn’t afford grad school without a loan—she’d worked her tail off to keep her full ride scholarship all four years—and her parents weren’t an option to co-​sign. Keely’s mother had considered taking out a second mortgage just to pay for the divorce lawyer. She couldn’t afford Keely’s debt too.

Some of the programs Keely had been accepted to weren’t feasible without funding, and some of the others were so outlandish her acceptance was contingent on the loan itself.

Caltech—her dream school—was the latter.

And she’d failed to secure it.

She looked down at the data the lab computer spat out in crisp black lines. The coefficients, the very ones she’d helped Sam with upstairs, were all off. Her hypothesis had been disproven.

That had failed, too.

Pressure, dense and dark, made a home on Keely’s chest. Re-​running the test tonight wasn’t an option. It would take four hours, and that was assuming she had enough sample to retest, which she wasn’t sure she did.

If she didn’t find a way around the loan problem, her final thesis wouldn’t matter anyway. She couldn’t be a biochemist without a master’s degree. It would be like a doctor using a toy stethoscope.

Numbly, Keely packed up. Her planner. Her pens. The sheets of data, tucked neatly into their assigned folder.

She tugged on her winter coat, blinking the sting from her eyes, and began the walk home.

Tears weren’t on her to-​do list today.

• • • • •

When Keely made it back to her apartment after watering Selina’s plant, a few of those tears had managed to slip free anyway. She told herself it was the frigid winter air.

Her roommate and best friend, Zoey Lamb, stood at the stove, dark curls wound unnaturally tighter from the steam of whatever was simmering. Her phone, propped in an open cabinet, was on a video call. Zoey’s Italian-​American family lived in Boston, but that didn’t stop Zoey’s mom Rina from trying to ensure Zoey never went more than a week without authentic Italian, even if it meant watching her like a hawk on FaceTime while she talked Zoey through step-​by-​step instructions.

Zoey looked back at Keely, eyes rounding out in a silent plea. “I need to go, Mamma.”

A voice floated over the bubbling sauce. “Is that Keely I see trying to sneak in behind you? Put her on the phone.”

Mustering up a smile for her adopted second mother, Keely slipped off her jacket and placed her backpack in a dining chair. “Give me a second.”

“I tried,” Zoey mumbled.

Keely staunchly ignored her, stepping into the frame. “Hi, Rina.”

“Look at you! Your nose is all red. It’s too cold for you there,” Rina said. “Good thing California is so much warmer.”

At this, Keely’s eyes watered again. California was still going to happen.

Wasn’t it?

Zoey’s gaze narrowed as she clocked Keely’s mood. “Time for Mom to go,” she hissed at a volume only Keely could hear. She turned back to her phone, reaching for the screen in mock panic, shouting “oh no” as her thumb hit the end-​call button.

Despite the heaviness on her shoulders (and in her email inbox), Keely managed a tiny smile at the staged theatrics. “Won’t she call back, like, immediately?”

The phone was buzzing already, but Zoey left it, waving a hand in dismissal. “I’ll say I dropped her in the sauce.”

“Naturally,” Keely said flatly.

Zoey grabbed the sauce spoon and held it out for Keely. “What’s wrong? Why were you crying?”

“I was only tearing up a little.” Keely sipped at the spoon and a garbled noise left her throat, the hearty flavors knocking the truth free. “My loan application got denied.”

A glob of sauce fell on the floor between them as Zoey’s hand wobbled. “For Caltech?”

Keely nodded. “It will be fine.” Probably. Maybe. “They said I can reapply. Or get a co-​signer.” She swiped a rag from the sink and cleaned up the mess. “I’ll figure something out.”

Zoey chewed her rose-​pink bottom lip. “Why don’t you go see your guidance counselor tomorrow? Isn’t it her job to help you figure this stuff out?”

Of course. Dr. Goff would know how to help Keely. Other loans to apply for, ways to boost her application. Keely could bring her coffee as a pre-​emptive thank you.

“You’re a genius,” Keely told her best friend.

Zoey preened and gathered the homemade pasta from the wooden drying rack. “Technically a few points shy, but I’m going to test again at the end of the year.” She winked. “Can you grab the garlic bread from the freezer?”

Keely feigned a gasp. “Storebought bread? What would Rina say?”

“Just wait until she finds out I like Olive Garden. I’ll be disowned.”

As they finished dinner, some of the tension eased from the base of Keely’s spine. Zoey was right. This mess was easily sorted, especially after pasta and a good night’s sleep.

More. More. More.

Max Simmons’s heart pounded, sweat trailing down his throat and dipping beneath the neckline of his emerald-​colored crew-​neck sweatshirt. His ear warmers kept the moisture on his forehead from dripping into his eyes, but didn’t completely keep out the chill. Bitter-​cold mountain air did that.

Just because it was January in Virginia didn’t mean he had the luxury of sprinting indoors. They saved that for Division One schools. Instead, he and the rest of the track and field team started every other winter practice scraping snow from the track when the maintenance department forgot to put the covers on.

Coach said it didn’t count as a warm-​up, and Max was inclined to agree.

Faster. Don’t drag your left foot, carry through with your right, tighten your abs. Controlled breaths as you—no, not like that. You made that mistake last time.

Max increased his speed, pushing against the perpetual bite of air from the nearby Ash Mountains and into the valley where his university was nestled. It was more hills than real mountains, he thought, but Ash Hill University didn’t have the same ring to it.

He surged forward, closing his eyes against the wind. He didn’t need to see the finish line—it was something he felt in his marrow, in the deepest recesses of his brain.

Which is how he knew, when he’d crossed it, his times still hadn’t improved.

“Fuck,” he gritted out, slowing from a sprint to a jog, hands on his head. His lungs hurt in the best way, sweet, hard-​earned pain lancing his chest. When he looked at Coach Miller and Coach looked away without making eye contact, Max muttered another, more heartfelt, “Fuck.”

Most of his teammates were already either in the showers or home for the evening. Max would have preferred those places over this one, but he was here still, the altitude biting at his lungs alongside the last vestiges of alcohol-​induced regret.

It was two beers, days ago. Two and a half, maybe. And it had been Coach’s birthday. It wasn’t often Coach blurred the lines with the team, so when he agreed to go out, Max did too. He’d hoped to pick Coach’s brain uninhibited, dig into the secrets of how to improve his times.

How to improve everything, really, so he wouldn’t screw up so badly anymore.

But Coach hadn’t had time to talk to Max with everyone else vying for his attention, and Max was left alone in a room full of people. When someone offered Max another round, he took it, desperate to feel something.

He wouldn’t make that mistake again—the beer or the feelings. Alcohol worked differently in his athlete’s body, disappeared from his blood but lingered in his mind like cigarette smoke in a thrifted shirt.

“Hit the showers.” Coach’s voice echoed over the track and cut off with a crackle of static.

There were two other people out here, but Max knew the comment was meant for him. No one else pulled that specific color of disappointment from Coach’s voice. The girls he passed, high jumpers, waved at him. One of them blushed, which made Max’s face go hot in turn. Girls were a distraction, one he couldn’t afford, so he pretended not to see her wave him over.

Fifteen minutes later, too-​hot water stung his frigid skin as he replayed his sprints in his head. Right before take-​off, he’d adjusted his left foot on the block. Had he been back in position when the tone went off? One of his spikes was a little loose this morning. Or maybe it was the ear warmers. His sweatshirt was a little bigger than his normal sprinting unitard and had way more wind resistance. And there was a lot of wind tonight.

He was standing at the mirror, dragging a towel over his chest and through his hair when Coach’s voice bellowed through the room, bouncing off the walls and hitting Max square in the chest again. “Simmons. My office, once you’re dressed.” Coach coughed and muttered, “Please and thank you.”

Max saw this coming. The same way he could tell when he was doing his best, he also had an aptitude for pinpointing the exact moment he’d let others down. He’d take the verbal lashing, or the wind sprints, or whatever other punishment on the chin. No way Coach was madder at him than he was at himself.

He watched his reflection in the mirror, steam rising from his head. His chest and neck were still red from the cold, the physical exertion of running in the dead of winter, and his scalding shower hadn’t helped. His brown hair hung in clumps, but it would dry to soft waves, overdue for a trim. He scrubbed his hands down his face, letting out a slow, heavy sigh.

“Hey, Simmons.” In the mirror, Nolan Aghil’s sable eyes met his tawny ones. “Doin’ okay?”

Nolan was on the relay team; he was the second to Max’s anchor. Nolan was the one who’d invited him to Coach’s birthday party. To most places, come to think of it.

Max tried not to be angry at Nolan for that. It wasn’t Nolan’s fault Max had over-​imbibed and was still paying the price. No, that all fell firmly on Max’s own shoulders. Like he said, he was the anchor.

He was used to the extra weight.

“Fine.” Max shrugged. “What’s up?”

“My roommate got his hands on the new GTA. Was gonna grab some food from the Q and check it out, if you’re interested.” Nolan shifted on his feet. “It’s been a while since we hung out outside of practice. And I think they’ve got the grilled wraps today.”

The wraps were pretty good. Max’s favorite, if he thought about it hard enough. Did Nolan know that? They’d eaten enough of them in sophomore year, when they weren’t so worried about being cut from the team that they followed the dietician’s instructions to the letter.

Max glanced in the mirror again. Chest still bright red, lungs still tingling from the earlier exertion.

Exertion that hadn’t been enough.

“Some other time?” He swallowed. “Coach called me to his office.”

A cop-​out, and they both knew it. Nolan’s shoulders dropped, but Max told himself it was a trick of the light, the flickering one in the corner, plus the steam from the showers messing with his perception.

“No pressure,” Nolan said, except Max didn’t know what no pressure was supposed to feel like. Nolan hefted his emerald-​green, track-​and-​field-​branded backpack onto his shoulder by one strap. “I’ll catch you tomorrow at practice?”

Max dipped his chin in a nod.

Once Nolan was gone, Max stared at himself again. At some point during their conversation, he’d taken to gripping the porcelain sink, and his knuckles nearly matched now. They cracked when he let go.

With a fierce shake of his head, Max dried off and got dressed. Time to face the music, even if it was a funeral march.

Coach Miller’s office was tucked in the back of the locker room, and Max had to dodge extra hurdles, a bin of shot-​put balls, and, randomly, the head of the mascot costume. Beady bug eyes followed him as he approached the door. Max shuddered.

Night had fallen while Max was in the showers, Coach’s office now softly backlit with the desk lamp he preferred over the stark and unforgiving beam of the strip light overhead. As Max sat across from his mentor, he watched the last of the day slip below the Ash Mountains.

If he’d known his hope was going with it, he would have stared longer.

Instead, he turned his attention to the man currently watching him with an unreadable expression. Max was used to those, too, though he didn’t necessarily like them.

“I’m going to cut to the chase.” Coach cleared his throat. He glanced away briefly with a small shake of his head, then looked Max square in the face. “Your funding’s been cut.”

It took a few seconds for Max’s brain to catch up, because—

His brow furrowed. “That’s impossible. It’s airtight.”

“It was,” Coach drawled. The yellowing lampshade caused an illusion of sweat on Coach’s dark brown forehead. “Until your sponsors caught wind of what those shitheads on the football team have been up to.”

At the beginning of the fall semester, nearly half the football team’s starting lineup was cut after mandatory drug testing. They’d tested positive for the hot new street version of human growth hormone. The AMU rumor mill’s working theory was that they thought it was new enough not to be detected on the standard drug test.

Coach was right—they absolutely were shitheads.

“My tests came back negative,” Max protested, his pulse picking up like he was still on the track. “I can test again right now, if you want.”

“I appreciate that, son—”

Son? This was worse than Max thought.

“—but I’ve already tried, and they’re not having it. They don’t want the bad press.”

Max rubbed the back of his neck. Whatever good his hot shower had done to relax his muscles was becoming undone the longer this conversation stretched.

That sponsorship was the only reason the word Olympics was on the table.

A dull pang thudded in his chest, a dampened gong of hurt. He wouldn’t let something as inconsequential as football dopeheads stop him.

He couldn’t. Not when his dad needed this as much as Max did. Dad’s cancer was aggressive, but Dad was a fighter, and so Max had to be, too.

Max straightened in the chair. “What are my options for new funding?” It came out as less of a question, more of a barked demand.

It stiffened Coach’s spine as well. “I’m not sure we have any.” If Max was in a laughing mood, he might have found it funny, the way Coach slipped into we because he was so used to it on the track. This wouldn’t change anything for Coach, but everything for Max. “It’s too late in the year. Everything’s already allocated.”

“So, what? That’s it?” Max struggled to keep the anger from his voice.

Coach sat back in his chair with a violent squeak. “Don’t come at me for this, Max.” His tone held a warning. “I know you’ve worked hard to get here. After last year. . .”

Max looked away. He stared at his hands instead, clenched over his chair’s armrests. His knuckles were white again, his nails leaving half-​moons in the wood.

Last year wasn’t somewhere he let his mind wander often, and on the tail of such a horrible training session and bad news, it was painful to go there now.

Coach’s voice was softer when he spoke next. “You may be able to talk to your career counselor.”

Max didn’t realize he had a career counselor. He vaguely remembered monthly emails from a Dr. Griff or something that he deleted unopened. “And you think that’s something they’d be able to help with?”

“I think they’d be able to offer more help than I will.” Coach’s mouth pressed into a tight line beneath his mustache. “Maybe they’ve got some extra cash hiding in the woodwork over there.”

He was joking, but Max still wasn’t in the mood to laugh.

“I’ll go first thing in the morning,” Max vowed.

Coach nodded like that was exactly what he wanted to hear. Max wished people would tell him what he wanted to hear, instead of everything wrong in his life.

Not fast enough.

No funding.

I’m sick, Max.

Max ran home after Coach released him, because there were a thousand thoughts on his mind at any given time, but they were muffled when his shoes pounded pavement.

But tonight, the voices didn’t quit.

Which, it turned out, was the least of his problems.

Four hours and seventeen minutes: the final amount of sleep Keely’s phone told her she’d got last night.

Zero hours and two minutes: the amount Keely felt like she’d had.

Forty-​two minutes: how long she waited for Dr. Goff to show up at her office this morning.

Keely had been to the career counselor’s office once a month for the past three and a half years, since she was a baby freshman with the world at her feet, not knowing whether a concentration in general chemistry provided more opportunities, or if she should declare a specific track.

Because Ash Mountain University was so small, students were assigned counselors based on last name. Dr. Goff had students S through Z. It meant she was a little less versed in the inner workings of the biochemistry department than Keely would have liked, but beggars and choosers and all that. The first time they talked, Dr. Goff hadn’t even known the biochem graduation rates compared to the national average and had only stared blankly at Keely.

Dr. Goff wore that same wary look now, her navy blazer wrinkle-​free over her white button down and jeans. An enamel pin winked from the collar—Abe the emerald ash borer, the school’s mascot. Why a school would use an invasive species as the mascot, Keely would never know.

“Good morning, Keely.” Dr. Goff checked her watch as she unlocked her office door. “I didn’t have you down on my schedule for another week and a half.”

Once inside, Keely handed over one of the two coffees she was holding. “I know, but I’m having a bit of a crisis.”

Dr. Goff hung her coat on a rack by the window before getting settled behind her desk. She took a long swallow of coffee, eyes closing. When they opened, she looked considerably more chipper, which gave Keely hope, especially when the next words out of her mouth were, “I’m assuming this is about your loan application getting rejected.”

“Oh, good. You got my email.”

“The one you sent me at ten o’clock last night with the subject line ‘URGENT REQUEST, PLEASE READ IMMEDIATELY’?” Dr. Goff’s chin dipped, her mouth quirking to the side. “Yes, I got it.”

“There has to be something we can do,” Keely continued. She crossed her ankles, though her winter boots didn’t facilitate much grace. She ended up tipping sideways. “Something you can do, Dr. Goff. Linda, if I may.”

Dr. Goff spluttered, her silver-​blonde pixie cut bobbing as she covered her mouth with her hand. “Well, if you have—”

“Because otherwise everything we’ve been working toward for three years is ruined.” Keely blinked, hard, the. . .