Blog Tour:
The
Recruiting Trip
(University
of Gatica Series)
by
Lexy
Timms
Dec
10th - Dec 20th
Add to
Goodreads:
NA &
College Sport Romance
The
Recruiting Trip
Aspiring
college athlete Aileen Nessa is finding the recruiting process beyond daunting.
Being ranked #10 in the world for the 100m hurdles at the age of eighteen is
not a fluke, even though she believes that one race, where everything clinked
magically together, might be. American universities don’t seem to think so.
Letters are pouring in from all over the country.
As she
faces the challenge of differentiating between a college’s genuine commitment
to her or just empty promises from talent-seeking coaches, Aileen heads to
Gatica State University, a Division One school, on a recruiting trip.
The
university’s athletic program boasts one of the top sprint coaches in the
country. The beautiful old buildings on campus and Ivy League smarts seems so
above her little Ohio town upbringing. All Aileen needs to convince her to sign
her letter of intent is a recruiting trip that takes her breath away.
Tyrone
Jensen is the school’s NCAA champion in the hurdles and Jim Thorpe recipient
for top defensive back in football. His incredible ocean blue eyes and
confident smile make Aileen stutter and forget why she is visiting GSU. His
offer to take her under his wing, should she choose to come to Gatica, is a
temping proposition that has her wondering if she might be making a deal with
an angel or the devil himself.
* This is
NOT erotica* It is a new adult & college sport romance.
For
mature readers only. There are sexual situations, but no graphic sex.
Copyright
2014 by Lexy Timms
Chapter
1
“Aileen… N-Nessa?”
She nodded as she swung
her back pack over her shoulder. “That’s me.” A guy jostled past her mumbling
something about baggage claim sucking.
The chauffer driver tucked
the sign with her name printed on it under his arm and took her small carryon
suitcase. “First time coming to Gatica?”
“It is.” She glanced
around the airport wondering why one of the coaches at the University of Gatica
hadn’t come to greet her. It seemed weird. Sort of. She had no idea what proper
protocol was. Were coaches required to meet recruits when they arrived? Or was
a shuttle service completely legit?
She had been on four other
recruiting trips, the last on two months ago in Miami. The sprint coach there
had picked her up from the airport, but the university was about fifteen
minutes away from the school.
The chauffer led her
outside. She dug through her bag and slipped her sunglasses on against the
bright sun.
“You here on a recruiting
trip?” The chauffer glanced at her. “Volleyball?”
She shook her head.
“Track.”
“Cool.” He loaded the
‘UofG Travellers’ van. “The memo says to drop you off Wavertree Fieldhouse. It
holds the indoor track and the girls’ volleyball gym. They have a gym off the track
and then a court set up in the middle of the track for games. It’s pretty
impressive to watch a game courtside or up in the bleachers above the track.”
Aileen nodded, pretending
to be interested. She couldn’t picture what he meant. Her indoor track was a
gym at the high school. Basketball, volleyball, badminton or whatever sport was
going on at the time shared the gym with her. Her coach happened to be her high
school gym teacher and he was awesome. He wanted her to go to Connecticut or
Louisiana, somewhere with a strong woman’s track program. She agreed.
UofG had been a last
minute choice for her final recruiting trip because of their near Ivy League
status – and the fact that the super-hot looking male NCAA champion happened to
attend the school.
Aileen’s best friend,
Becky, had dared her to go. She had gone through all the brochures at Aileen’s
house and said she needed to go on one recruiting trip based on something other
than track. Becky had insisted UofG because of the hot guys. Aileen had said yes
because of Tyler Jensen.
She had watched him race
at the USTAF championships last summer. He had this amazing physique, all
muscle with no fat and a six pack which really should be referred to as a
twelve pack. However it wasn’t his body that always had her staring at him, it
was his face. The short, perfectly cropped hair against his naturally tanned
skin and those unbelievable eyes.
She had picked UofG in the
hopes of talking to him close up just so she could figure out what his eye
color really was.
It was ridiculous. Stupid.
She knew it, but nobody knew the real reason she had come to Gatica except
Becky, and she only knew half of it. Aileen had never voiced her silly crush
out loud. Nobody knew, and she planned to keep it that way.
“Ms Nessa?” The grandfather
aged chauffeur lifted his foot off the gas. “Are you alright?”
She tuned back into the
present and realized they were on the highway. “Sorry, pardon?”
“I was just wondering if
you needed a drink? We’ve got about an hour and a half before we reach Gatica.
Do you need anything?”
“No thanks. I’ve got a
bottle of water here.” She could feel the heat in her cheeks but refused to
acknowledge it. She stuffed her ear buds in and turned her iPod on, hoping it
would defer monsieur chauffeur from chatting.
It didn’t work.
“So, where are you from?”
She paused hoping he would
think she couldn’t hear him. When he repeated the question louder, she imagined
her mother sitting beside her giving her the
look. “From Ohio. Bucyrus.”
“What event do you do?”
“Hurdles.”
“Sprint or four hundred?”
“Sprint.”
“Are you any good?”
Aileen shrugged. “Pretty
good for high school. Not so sure about university level.” She had spent the
past year and half comparing her times to NCAA students. If she compared her
personal best to last year’s outdoor rankings she would be second. Her indoor
times this year weren’t so great, only because her coach wanted to focus on the
upcoming summer and trying to make the World Junior Championships. However she
wasn’t going to brag to a total stranger. She had to believe in herself, not
make other people believe.
“Well you’ve got five
years to find out.” His walkie talkie two-way radio buzzed and a woman’s voice
came through the line. Mr. Chauffeur replied.
Aileen leaned back against
the bench and closed her eyes. Her flight had been early this morning. She was
tired but could never sleep while travelling. She went over her high school
coach’s instructions for training. They usually planned a hard workout for
Fridays so she could take Saturday easy.
He hadn’t been impressed
with her decision to use her last recruiting trip on UofG and made today’s
workout tougher than usual. When she moaned about it, his only sympathy came by
saying she could do the workout Saturday instead. She still had to do it.
It sucked having to call
the coach here in Gatica the day before she left and ask if she would be able
to use the weight room and possibly the track. At least Coach Anderson had been
totally understanding and said it wouldn’t be a problem. With the track meet
tomorrow she could use it today or possibly early tomorrow morning.
Guess it all depended on
what she would be doing on the trip. She didn’t think tonight would be late.
The athletes had their meet tomorrow. Doing the workout in the morning seemed
easier than trying to squeeze it in today. Coach Anderson had mentioned a
campus tour today before practice at three o’clock.
She peeked at her watch.
If the chauffeur drove at least the speed limit, they would arrive just before
lunch.
“Did you know we have a
good hurdler here already?” The chauffeur turned the radio down and looked at
her in the review mirror.
Aileen blinked and ran the
question over in her head. She thought she knew who all the hurdlers were.
Gatica had a good multi eventer who could hurdle, but no strong female sprint
hurdlers. “Who?”
“Tyler Jensen.” He nodded.
“That boy’s extremely talented. Athletically, and I read in the paper the other
day he’s up for making the dean’s list in academics. He’s taking some kind of
sport major.”
She nodded. She knew
exactly who Tyler Jensen was. His beautiful, chiselled face graced the cover of
the track brochure and his long, muscular body hovered over a hurdle on the
inside. He had these amazing coloured eyes. They looked green, or blue, or
grey. She couldn’t decide from the picture or from the times she had watched
him race this summer.
They had both competed at
nationals. She was a nobody junior and he the NCAA champion. She had watched
all his races at nationals and felt his disappointment when he finished fourth
in the finals. It was a good, clean race until the last hurdle when he stumbled
slightly and lost a placing from it. Third would have meant a trip to the World
Championships.
She didn’t even make the
finals. She came ninth, one place away from the finals. Last summer she turned
eighteen while at nationals. Her mom and dad had come to watch her race and
taken her out for ice cream afterwards. She hadn’t cared, two weeks before she
had placed fourth at junior nationals and missed making the Can-Am international
meet.
Tyler was over nineteen so
he hadn’t competed at the junior nationals. It wasn’t until the meet in
California she had noticed how cute he was. He had the perfect tan, the kind of
skin that never faded in the winter. His dark hair was cropped short. It all
brought out those eyes. You could notice them from the finish line, a hundred
and ten meters away from where he stood before his starting blocks.
They had never spoken to
each other. She ran one more race last season and blew everyone away, beating
the national champion and world bronze medalist. Her time was a hundredth off
the American junior record and the tenth fastest time in the world that summer.
Now she had every school
in the country recruiting her, sending brochures, letters and phone calls every
night. She had gone on four trips and picked Gatica as her last trip.
“Have you ever seen Tyler
race?”
Aileen smiled and leaned
forward in her seat. She didn’t mind talking about Tyler Jensen. She just
couldn’t refer to him as Tyler… yet. “I watched him this summer at nationals.
He just missed out on a medal.”
The driver nodded. “He was
probably burnt out. Between football and then winning NCAAs in track, he
probably had nothing left in the tank by the end of July.”
“Good point. “ She hadn’t
thought about that. She knew he played football because the brochure boasted
about some medal or award he had won. She wasn’t a football fanatic. Her cousin
said it would all change when she started university and got into college
football. She highly doubted it, except if she was here in Gatica, then she
would watch every game. It wasn’t going to happen though. She had pretty much
told Stanford she would be there in September.
“So you’ve never been to
Gatica?”
She shook her head. “I’ve
only been to New York once. My parents and I went on holiday to Niagara Falls
one time.”
“Niagara Falls is nice.
It’s about three hours from here.”
He chatted on about other
great places to see in New York and the restaurants she needed to try while in
Gatica. Before long he was pulling the van off the highway.
“We’re about ten minutes
from the school. I’ll drop you off right in front of Wavertree Fieldhouse. The
track offices are to the right of the main entrance on the first floor. You’ll
have no problem finding them.”
Butterflies began wiping
around in Aileen’s stomach. She pulled her make-up bag out of her backpack and
slipped on some lip gloss and then deodorant when the drive wasn’t looking. She
hoped her hair looked okay. She had straightened it last night and then stuck
it in a ponytail this morning. The pony had come out a few times as she tried
to keep it straight and neat. Her blonde hair preferred to have a mind of its
own so she usually lived with a pony and hairband to keep the frizzy’s in
check.
Forest trees cut away to
houses. Total college town.
“I’ll take you through
Campus Corner.”
“Campus Corner?” Aileen
tried to remember if she had read about it and couldn’t recall.
“It’s the strip where the
college kids hang out. Restaurants, shops, bars, all the things you kids need
for a proper college experience.” He chuckled. “If you live on this side of
campus, it’s walking distance.”
He turned the van left and
then right.
Aileen looked out the
window. Little shops and restaurants had the Gatica symbol. An old movie
theater had been renovated into a bar named “The Red Coats” and had an army of
soldiers painted on the front of the building.
“That’s where all the
sport kids hang out.” The driver told her about other places and when he came to
a stop sign he pointed to his right. “Here’s the entrance to U of G. It’s the
original signed from eighteen seventy-six. They’ve repainted the soldier but
the horse and soldier monument where erected when the school opened.”
A larger than life
monument stood beside a stone with University of Gatica 1876 engraved in it.
The monument was made of brass or copper or something that had turned green
over time but the soldier’s coat and hat were painted a bright, poppy red.
Aileen smiled. It was
awesome!
The campus was built out
of the same stone as the plaque at the front. Maybe limestone or something like
that. The buildings each had vintage character to them but with a twist of the
twenty-first century. She imagined walking around the campus in fall would be
amazing. Even the light layer of snow covering the ground now added to the
picturesque seen.
They drove by the outdoor
track stadium. Someone had shovelled the two inside lanes and the mondo red
track stood out bright against the snow. Behind the track was a building that
looked like something that held airplanes. It had to be the indoor track –
Wavertree Fieldhouse.
Aileen zipped up her coat
and took a deep breath as the van pulled around and stopped in front of the
building.
Here
we go.
Lexy Timms is a mom, business woman, dreamer and writer. She finally decided to write her first romance novel and Saving Forever is her debut story.
Giveaway
Lexy is
giving away 10 Audio Copies of books 1-3
(University of Gatica Series)
(University of Gatica Series)
Hosted by
Obsessive Pimpettes Promotions
Obsessive Pimpettes Promotions
Saving Ayden ( Last Hangman MC #1)
When the waitress leaves her after delivering Ayden her food, I walk over and just as she’s about to take a bite, she looks up and we make eye contact. I can’t help the smirk spreading across my face, at the look of excitement, laced with worry, and could it be lust on her face? I don’t know what it is, but I hold her gaze for a couple of seconds before she looks down at her plate, denying me those beautiful jade eyes.
.JPG)
