Total pages in book: 108
Estimated words: 101764 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 509(@200wpm)___ 407(@250wpm)___ 339(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 101764 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 509(@200wpm)___ 407(@250wpm)___ 339(@300wpm)
“Yeah, Kirk,” the guy on the other side of him said in a mocking tone. “Be nice. You can’t be sure this is the guy who’s punching up.”
I shifted my attention to the new mouthpiece and—Christ.
Of course, of freaking course, he had to be a damn Ken Doll come to life. Perfect blond hair swept to one side of his head without a strand out of place as though they wouldn’t dare defy him. I took in his tanned skin and set of pearly whites so straight and even that his dentist probably featured them on his brochures. His nose was straight and strong, the kind that had never collided with another man’s fist. Lucky guy. Then, there was a set of sparkling blue eyes that the Caribbean would be jealous of. Most likely, he had an entire torso of rippling muscles under there too. This guy looked like the type to be captain of his school’s lacrosse team or maybe water polo.
Why? Was it too much to hope for an ogre among the sea of rich perfection?
Money and looks. Some guys had all the damn luck.
Too bad he was a dick.
“Fuck off. You don’t know shit about me.”
Ken Doll smirked. “We know you’re not one of us.”
“Thank God for that,” I muttered as I spun back and slumped in my seat to the jeering cackle of their laughter. Screw those rich jerks. As much as I’d love to jump up and rearrange those symmetrical faces, I couldn’t risk expulsion. Six weeks. I could put my head down and endure their mockery for six weeks. Easy-peasy. Hell, I’d survived worse for longer. Two summers ago, I took a second job to help pay for Mom’s medication costs. I spent eight weeks cleaning portable toilets at the outdoor concert arena. There was no way spending the summer getting belittled by rich mommy’s boys could be worse than that.
“Okay,” the director said as he clapped his hands together once. “I’ve rambled long enough. The first sessions begin in fifteen minutes. Take your time finding your labs and introducing yourself to the other students in your group. You’ll be seeing a lot of each other this summer.”
With that, he nodded, then strode offstage to the echo of scattered applause from the few still paying attention.
I grabbed my worn backpack and stood as fast as I could. “Sorry,” I said with a wince as my bag smacked into the guy next to me. “Sorry, excuse me.” Without waiting for him to move, I struggled to sidestep out of the row between his knees and the row below us.
“What the hell, man?” he grumbled as he tried to shift his legs out of my way.
“Sorry,” I mumbled.
“Careful, man,” Ken Doll said with a laugh. “You might not have enough money to pay your ER bill if you trip and break an arm.”
He had no idea.
Asshole.
The others laughed again.
Just what I needed, those jerks watching me scurry off like a damn frightened mouse.
I wasn’t frightened. And I wasn’t a mouse.
But I couldn’t afford to say what I really wanted and have one of them run to the program director, complaining about the rude, impoverished kid with a bad attitude. Risking my scholarship wasn’t an option. They could think whatever they wanted about me. All that mattered were my goals. And I’d only achieve them by working my ass off and getting accepted into a robotics engineering program. Thankfully, I lived in a city with exactly what I was looking for. Even with scholarships and grants, I couldn’t afford to go to college out of state or even in another city.
For more reasons than my family’s dismal lack of finances.
Only when I reached the hallway outside the auditorium could I finally take a full breath. My lab group met in the Emerson Lab on the building’s third floor. I hoped to make it my future home away from home for the four years of my undergraduate studies.
I jogged the two flights of stairs to the third floor and arrived huffing and puffing. No one had beaten me to the room, so I had my pick of lab tables. As much as I wanted a front-and-center spot to see and absorb every word out of the instructor’s mouth, I didn’t want to paint a second target on my back. A scholarship kid and a teacher’s pet were a bad combination. Instead, I chose a safer option at the center lab table in the third of six rows.
As the room began to fill with summer students, I gazed around at the impressive equipment lining the shelves along the walls. Each table had two laptops, one for each lab partner, and two printed syllabus packets. Hopefully, Intro to Robotics wouldn’t be boring since I’d been studying the subject on my own for years. Time would tell.