Out of My League: A Fake Relationship Romance Read online

  Golden Crown Publishing, LLC

  Contents

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  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Epilogue

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  Also by Sarah Sutton

  OUT OF MY LEAGUE

  Copyright © 2020 Golden Crown Publishing, LLC

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters, organizations, businesses, places, events, and incidents portrayed in it are either the work of the author's imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

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  http://www.sarah-sutton.com

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  Cover Design © Designed with Grace

  ISBN: 9781734232257

  First Edition: June 2020

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  To the One whose timing is always perfect

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  Chapter One

  “Sophia, I know it’s the last day of school, but can you at least pretend you’re paying attention?”

  I surrendered my gaze from my journal to focus on Mrs. Gao at the front of the room, whose dark eyes were trained on me. Two hands on her hips, two dark eyebrows raised. Totally busted.

  My head bobbed. “I am listening.”

  Ha, I really wasn’t. Who could blame me? Like Mrs. Gao said, last day of school and all. Who paid attention on the last day of school? But even though the year was almost over, my ears weren’t working for a whole other reason.

  My last journalism assignment was due in four minutes. It was a pitch for the Back to School newsletter. Our school newspaper, the Bayview High Report, prints out a newsletter at the beginning of each school year with all sorts of inspiring or informative pieces to spur excitement amongst the grades. The student journalist whose idea gets chosen has the entire summer to work on it, so it’s ready for publication when school resumes.

  Since come fall I’d be a senior, I was finally allowed to pitch my mind-blowing ideas.

  Except that I had none. No ideas. Nothing.

  With the pressure building up and time running out, I began to sweat. Figuratively, not literally. My brain knew how important coming up with an out-of-the-park idea was.

  Winning the spot of Lead Editor would make me a shoo-in for the internship at the Bayview Blade, the biggest newspaper press in the county. Each fall, the press picked three seniors from the district to be their interns for the school year.

  No doubt they would pick the senior who wrote Bayview’s fall newsletter, and that senior would be me.

  Lots of pressure. Okay, maybe I was literally sweating, too.

  Mrs. Gao caught my eye again. Right. Paying attention.

  “We’re facing budget cuts for the next school year. I’m not supposed to say anything, but I trust this group.” She turned to smudge the eraser along the whiteboard, wiping away any traces of the black HAVE A GREAT SUMMER. “I’ve been trying to find a way to break this to you all, but it’s going to be a hard pill to swallow.”

  My open notebook beckoned my focus with its blank lines, taunting my lack of inspiration. For weeks now, I’d been trying to come up with an epic editorial topic. Though the Back to School newsletter was only open to seniors, I’d been writing practice entries since I was a freshman. Last year, I’d written about the environmental dangers of plastic straws and submitted it to the school board. Effective that next calendar year, Bayview High switched to only offering paper straws.

  Now, when my article actually mattered, the only freaking idea in my head was “Is Chicken Soup Better for You Than Tomato?”

  “The school has decided to cut funding for some extracurricular activities, and they’ve decided to cancel the newspaper, effective next school year.”

  Mrs. Gao’s words almost went in one ear and out the other, my focus so totally elsewhere. And then it registered like a slap to the face. “Wait, wait, what?”

  Mrs. Gao let out a weary breath, setting the eraser down on the whiteboard sill. Her shoulders slouched forward as she reached a hand to brush her black hair. “Sales are down twenty percent, and if no one’s reading the paper—”

  “A school paper is a necessity!” I objected, voice sounding loud and desperate to my own ears. “How else are students going to know about events, games, board meetings? How else are they going to get their information?”

  A boy behind me piped up, “Uh…social media?”

  I fought the urge to turn around and glare.

  “Apparently, Sophia, the money for new baseball field bleachers is more of a necessity than information.”

  Oh, no, no, no. Absolutely not. My newspaper funding went to baseball?

  Waves of blood pounded in my ears, sending a shockwave of dizziness through my senses. I gripped onto my desk to keep myself upright. This could not be happening. “They can’t just cut an extracurricular to put more funding into a nonessential sports team.” Could they?

  “They can if the class size is five students.”

  “Nonessential, Sophia?” Tess, the main sports reporter, turned toward me. If looks could kill, hers would’ve struck me down. “The newspaper isn’t as important as the baseball team.”

  Uh, I so disagreed.

  Any retort I might’ve pitched back died on my lips as a different kind of panic seized me, another fact crossing my mind. “Does this mean the seniors aren’t qualified for the Blade internship?”

  Mrs. Gao’s expression confirmed my worst fear before her words did, twisting into a sorrowful mask. “It’s required that applicants attend a school with an active journalism program. I’m sorry, Sophia, but yes, that means you—and the two other soon-to-be seniors in our class—will not be allowed to apply.”

  I was going to pass out. Right there, with two minutes left in the last day of school. I was going to pass out, knock my head against the desk, fall into a coma, and have to be airlifted to the hospital.

  And there wouldn’t be a school newspaper to report on it.

  I needed that internship. My entire future depended on it. Besides the fact that intern
ing with a major press would look great on my college applications, it was my dream to write for the Blade. Writing for the school’s meager newspaper had been practice. The Bayview Blade was the real deal. That would make me a real journalist; it would make everything I’d been working towards worth it.

  And, come on, I had that internship. Tess and the other senior, Shelby, wouldn’t have applied. Heck, they were probably only in this class because all the other last period extracurricular had been filled. That internship would’ve been mine.

  As if someone dumped my hopes in a toilet and pressed the handle, my dreams slipped down the drain. Slumping back in my seat, numb, I couldn’t do anything other than blink.

  “If you’re not going to use your journals, please pass them to the front. Maybe they’ll bring this elective back down the line and the next group can refer to our potential ideas.”

  Our journals. The ones we’d been given at the start of the year to record our possible article ideas. I’d filled mine with newspaper clippings, doodles, and lists upon lists of inspiring quotes and phrases. I refused—refused—to relinquish it. Mrs. Gao would have to pry it from my concussed, comatose fingers.

  “Where do we go to appeal the board’s decision?” I demanded, trying to hold some thread of hope. “There’s got to be another step, right?”

  It couldn’t just be over.

  “This is the school board, not Congress. I’m afraid it’s out of my—and your—hands.”

  A certain finality clung to her words, but my heart didn’t just sink. No, it rapidly swan-dove from a boat wearing a coat of concrete. The air in my lungs drowned right along with it.

  The dismissal bell rang out, signaling the end of my junior year of high school, the end of the Bayview High Report. I sat still in my seat as the horrible sound echoed in my ears, watching the other students filter from the room. The other journalism students didn’t seem as weighed down as me, bounding past Mrs. Gao without a care in the world.

  “Sorry to end the year with bad news,” she said to them. “Have a great summer. Make wise decisions.”

  In a slow daze, I packed up my pencil case. Pencils and pens I’d used for the entire semester of this class, now never to be used in here again. My journal still sat on my desk, a beacon of hope that seemed silly now. If I got the internship—but what did it matter? That wasn’t even an option anymore.

  Everything was over.

  Mrs. Gao turned to me as I approached the door, her own expression unhappy. “I know you’re disappointed, Sophia. Trust me, I am too.”

  I hugged my things closer, the loss of possibilities insurmountable. It was like mourning the death of a loved one. In a way, I guess I was—the death of my dreams. “How long have you known?”

  “The school held a board meeting last night about cutting programs, but I had an inkling that our program would be on the list. I didn’t want to say anything until it’d been decided.” She reached out and touched the binding of my notebook. “You can keep this. I wouldn’t ask you to give it up.”

  My chest felt hollow, like someone carved out all my ribs and organs until I was as empty as a pumpkin. What was the point of hanging onto this thing if there was no reason to use it? No newspaper to write for; no internship.

  Though it practically killed me to do so, I released my death grip on the journal. “Like you said, maybe it’ll help others down the line.”

  She watched me for a moment, but there was nothing left for her to say. No words of encouragement. “Have a good summer, Sophia.”

  A good summer? I could’ve laughed as I made my way through the hall. My entire summer had already been mapped out. Write a killer article—because I would’ve, even if my ideas were slow coming—get accepted for the internship, and start working there after school next fall.

  That article would’ve gotten the attention of my parents, who had long since turned a blind eye.

  All planned out. All achievable. Until now.

  And for what? Because someone wanted to buy the baseball team new bleachers? What, the ones they bought a decade ago weren’t good enough anymore?

  There were callouses on my fingers from all the jam-packed days and late, late nights of just sitting and writing, pen magnetized to my hand. I’d been dreaming of my chance for years, and now…it was over.

  “End of the year party after the baseball game tonight!” someone shouted over my shoulder, startling me from my thoughts so badly that I dropped my pencil case. It fell to the ground with a thud, and apparently hadn’t been closed all the way, because pencils and erasers scattered everywhere. Annoyance welled within me as I bent down, scrambling for my supplies. “Bring your books and homework to burn!”

  Burning homework? Sacrilegious.

  I shook my head as I tucked a pastel eraser inside, stretching for a pen just out of reach.

  Just before I grabbed it, another hand snatched it up. “Here’s this one.”

  The blue ink pen was angled so the engraving was faced out. Sophia. “Thanks,” I muttered, yanking it back.

  Feet stamped around me, threatening to trample my crouched figure. Before someone had a chance to stomp me into a pancake, I quickly climbed to my feet, fumbling for my pencil case’s zipper. When I lifted my eyes, I came face to face with the person who’d helped me.

  It wasn’t so much the fact that baseball was getting my funding that made me so mad. It was that the stupid sport represented stupid people like him.

  Walsh Hunter.

  Every school had that one guy who everyone loved, right? Incredibly charming, good-looking, people fawning over him like he’s God’s gift to humanity? At Bayview High, that guy was Walsh Hunter. Tall, sandy blond hair, sharp jawline, and gemstone blue-green eyes.

  Oh, and did I mention he was captain of the money-stealing baseball team? With his purple and gold baseball jersey on, it was obvious. Everything about him was just so perfect, perfect, perfect.

  Ugh.

  Bayview was a pretty big school, but not big enough that our paths never crossed. I saw him in the halls from time to time, or when he came up to talk to my boyfriend, who hated him as much as I did. The only time Walsh ever noticed my existence, though, was during math class sophomore year, when he tried to cheat off my test.

  Upstanding citizen, that guy.

  “Don’t mention it,” Walsh responded, looking at me—really looking at me. “You coming to the party tonight?”

  Was it bad that my first thought was is he talking to me? Probably. I didn’t even know what to say.

  Walsh, though, with his glittering eyes, didn’t give me much of a chance. “You should come. I think you’d have a lot of fun.” After recruiting his potential partygoer, Walsh patted me on the shoulder, but his eyes latched onto something behind me. “See you tonight. Hey, Zach! Wait up a sec!”

  He edged around me and back into the thick of the crowded hallway, people parting for him like he was royalty.

  With an annoyed glare, I swatted at the fabric on my shoulder, as if to knock off his touch. I couldn’t blame him for being so tragically oblivious. When someone was placed on a pedestal, it tended to morph one’s thinking.

  Or so I assumed. No one placed me on any pedestals.

  “Sophia!” a new voice called through the abyss of students, all who were trying to filter from the halls as fast as possible. A small hand stuck above the heads, waving around like a buoy in the middle of the ocean. “Sophia, hang on!”

  There were two things that came to my mind when I thought of Edith Bradley. One—my best friend since childhood, my ride-or-die wing-woman.

  And the second thing I thought of—short. She liked to say she was five-foot-two, but I seriously doubted it.

  Edith elbowed her way out from behind a pair of students talking, heaving a loud sigh at them. “Sheesh, why is no one moving? Hello, let’s go!”

  Even though my spirits were low, her good mood felt infectious. “So rude,” I agreed.

  “Totally. I’m glad I caug
ht you.” She looped her arm through mine, peering up at me. “I need a favor.”

  “I don’t like doing your favors,” I said immediately. “They aren’t fun.”

  She flapped her hand, waving away the thought. “Are too. Especially this one. It’s totally pain-free and really only requires your presence.” She opened her dark eyes wide, trying to convey every drop of expression in them. “Come with me to the party tonight.”

  Did she mean the burn-your-homework party I’d heard about literally seconds ago? My shoulders immediately slouched, everything in me deflating. “Those parties are for people who are less evolved than us, remember?”

  “Maybe I don’t want to be evolved. Maybe I want to party alongside the uncivilized for once.”

  I gave her a bland look. “They’re not as interesting as they pretend to be.”

  “Come on, it’ll be fun! It’s going to be at Walsh’s. And before you say no—” Her words became rushed, cutting off any sort of denial I was about to say, “—you owe me. Don’t ask me why you owe me yet. I’ve got to come up with something.”

  I stopped in front of my purple locker, picking up the lock but not twisting it. Everything in me absolutely did not want to go to a party tonight—especially not if it was at Walsh Hunter’s house. Parties weren’t really my thing in general; I only went to back up Edith. And besides, I was in mourning. Mourning my ruined dreams, which were broken and shriveled and dead. I planned on spending my night crying under the covers, not partying.

  Celebrating the end of school—an end of a journalism era—seemed so wrong.