“Where the hell you been?” Jack called, who was standing off to my left.
Daniel glanced up at him. “Sorry. I had a meeting with my career counselor.”
“On game day?” Jack questioned.
“It was sort of an emergency.”
“What kind of emergency?” I spoke up.
Daniel looked at me and frowned.
“There’s an issue with my transcript,” he replied. It was like he was so distracted he forgot who he was even talking to.
“What kind of problem?” someone beside him asked.
Daniel sat on the bench. “I’m on academic probation.”
I kept my face smooth and didn’t react. He didn’t deserve my surprise. Just because he wasn’t the type of guy to ever get low scores didn’t mean he didn’t actually get them. He was never the type of person to beat anyone up either…
“They’re just now telling you now?” Jack asked.
“Apparently, there was some kind of error and their system never caught it. Anyway, the school realized it today, and I got called in.” He rubbed a hand over his head. “I’m failing two classes.”
It was late in the semester. If he really was failing, there was no way he was going to have time to make that up.
“What about graduation?” I asked.
“They won’t let me.” He sounded hollow, like he was in shock.
“You’re not going to graduate?” Jack said, incredulous.
“No!” he shouted out, frustrated. Everyone who wasn’t paying attention before sure was now. “My school records show I’m failing two classes. All my assignments are turned in, but half of them all got shitty grades. And my midterms? Apparently, I barely passed those.”
“If you were struggling, why didn’t you ask for help?” Jack pressed. “You know the fraternity has access to free tutoring. Any of the brothers would have helped.”
I nodded because Jack was right. One of the requirements of an Omega charter was he perform well in all classes and maintain a passable average.
“I didn’t know!” he exclaimed. “No one said anything to me until today. I thought I was passing. This has to be some mistake.”
“Maybe their computers are malfunctioning,” someone offered.
“They aren’t. The office checked. And rechecked. Then my career counselor called the professors and had them access their online gradebooks. I’m fucking failing.”
“What does that mean?” Jack asked. He was looking at me, not Daniel.
“It means he won’t graduate. He’ll have to retake these two classes and graduate next semester,” I answered.
“I’ll have to reenroll for next fall!” he hollered and punched a locker.
“Summer classes?” someone offered.
“Not the ones I need,” he replied, bitter.
“Can you make up the work? The assignments?” I asked, knowing he couldn’t.
“Don’t you think if I could, I’d be doing the work right now?” He fumed and looked at me. “You’re probably loving this.”
What goes around comes around, fucker. “Of course I’m not.”
“I can’t play in the game. I’m suspended from campus activities. I’m on probation with the school.”
“That seems awful extreme for failing two classes.” Jack crossed his arms over his chest.
“I might have made a scene in the office,” he muttered. “And they had to call campus security.”
“This calls into question your charter at Omega,” I said.
His nostrils flared. “What?”
“This is grounds for being dismissed from the brotherhood.”
Beside me, Jack nodded, grim. The men all standing around averted their gazes and went back to dressing.
“You can’t kick me out of here. If I go, I’ll take you with me.”
I yawned. “Since you aren’t playing, you can leave. Maybe you can convince the teachers to give you extra credit.”
His lips thinned into a straight line.
“We’ll have a house meeting and vote on your status, and I’ll let you know.”
He slammed out of the locker room like the Tasmanian devil.
I wondered if maybe Drew had gone a little further with his hacking skills or if Daniel just really dropped the ball.
Either way, I didn’t really care.
One down, three to go.
After the game…
We got our asses handed to us. On a nicely decorated platter of La-ooser.
Not like I expected anything else, though. I mean, damn, the Wolves and the Knights together on one team?
#Epic.
It was fun to be out on the field again, although I missed being alongside the Wolves. The game ran a little longer than expected, but no one complained. The fans there seemed happy to stay.
We raised a lot of money, so I counted the day as a success.
Not only that, but the three guys who needed a little extra tackling all got what was coming to them, and by the end of the game, they knew damn sure why they seemed to be so accident prone on the field today.