An interesting story hihihi
/1/129726/coverbig.jpg?v=d952b45e9b05aae9f5803a8b2c8d4fc6)
The Hockey Prince's Secret Ice Queen
All I wanted was to find a computer genius to process the non-linear dynamic equations for my ecological model. Instead, I found myself cornered by Julian Andrews, the university's hockey prince, trading a public, staged kiss for his academic support. To finalize our "deal," I was dragged to the campus ice rink. The cheerleaders and puck bunnies immediately swarmed him, mocking my plain clothes and treating me like a pathetic joke. Brooke, the head cheerleader, even set up a figure skating competition with a date with Julian as the grand prize. She performed a basic spin, blew him a kiss, and smugly waited for me to fall flat on my face and humiliate myself. His hockey teammates laughed from the sidelines, watching me try to support Julian as he stumbled around the ice like a newborn giraffe. But as I held his warm hand to keep him from falling, I couldn't help but feel something was terribly wrong. Why was a top-tier athlete faking such awful balance? And why did his ice-blue eyes stare at me with such knowing anticipation, as if he already knew about the professional figure skating past I had spent years trying to bury? "Just let go and skate." He whispered, slowly releasing my hand. I took a deep breath, glided to the center of the rink, and landed a flawless double Axel. As the entire rink fell into a dead, shocked silence, I realized I had just exposed not only my own hidden past, but also the biggest secret of the campus god.
Chapter 1 No.1
Sage POV:
"Let me kiss you."
The request was a low, hurried murmur—warm, quiet, and laced with the faintest edge of mortification.
Stunned, I snapped my head up toward the sound.
Julian Andrews filled my vision. He easily towered a head over me, his lean, athletic frame silhouetted against the bright morning glare, casting a long shadow across the cobblestones. Briar University's star forward. Team captain. The athletic department's untouchable golden boy.
Campus rumor had it that Julian was notoriously indifferent, never sparing anyone a second glance.
Behind him, a solid wall of navy-and-gold varsity jackets blocked the brick path. His teammates were whistling, shoving each other, and effectively cutting off my only exit.
The sudden commotion immediately bottlenecked the morning foot traffic. Whispers rippled through the crowd, and within seconds, a dozen students reached into their pockets out of sheer muscle memory, black camera lenses catching the light as they aimed squarely at us.
Julian's sharp eyes tracked the movement, his jaw tightening into a hard, irritated line.
Before I could take a single defensive step back, he closed the distance between us. Leaning down into my space, his broad shoulders shifted in a subtle, fluid maneuver—throwing up an impenetrable physical wall that completely shielded my face from the intrusive glare of the cameras.
His sharp, striking face hovered breathtakingly close. His deep baritone brushed against my ear, lost to the autumn wind, meant for me alone:
"Sorry to drop this on you," he whispered, his pale blue eyes disarmingly earnest, holding a quiet heat that sent a tremor straight down my spine. "The guys backed me into a locker-room dare... but I'm not here to use you as a joke. We can fake it. Angle it so it looks real—whatever you're comfortable with. Just help me get them off my back, and I owe you one."
It was only then that my brain finally rebooted.
What on earth? He's actually trying to kiss me?
A sharp flare of pure absurdity hit me, and my gaze dropped to my reflection in the dark glass door of the adjacent building: an oversized, faded gray hoodie that swallowed my frame whole, soft, thin jeans worn at the knees, bare-faced dark circles carved beneath my eyes from forty-eight hours of non-stop coding, my dark hair hastily twisted into a cheap plastic claw clip, and a pair of oversized, thick black-rimmed glasses sitting heavy on the bridge of my nose, completely hiding my face.
I looked like a refugee from an all-night disaster. How had Briar's golden prince ended up in front of me?
When I looked back up, my breath trapped in my throat anyway. He was too close, his clean scent of winter mint and cedar wrapping around my senses. Having those pale blue eyes staring straight down at me made my chest tighten in a way I really didn't want to acknowledge.
"Clock's ticking, Cap!" Landon howled from the sidelines, hands cupped around his mouth as the rest of the players lost their minds laughing. "Plant one on her, or enjoy the five-AM bag skate!"
A raucous chorus of barks and chest-thumping went up from the team.
A few yards away, two girls heading toward the dining hall froze in their tracks, pointing their phones.
"Wait, who the hell is that?" one of them laughed loudly, zooming her camera in on my face. "She looks like she just crawled out of a dumpster. There's no way Julian's actually kissing her. Post it on Sidechat right now—this is going straight to number one."
The cruel words hit like a splash of ice water, snapping me out of my daze and instantly killing the stupid flutter in my chest.
I hated the attention.
Four years ago, after my family and my former training partner framed me and destroyed my competitive skating career, I swore I would never be public entertainment again. I buried my name, switched majors, and hid behind oversized fleece and thick glasses just to live an invisible life. If I ended up on the campus forums with Julian Andrews, the internet vultures would dox me before noon—and drag up the toxic scandal I had bled to walk away from.
My research was already on the verge of falling apart. I didn't have time for this circus.
I locked my grip around my heavy binders, my knuckles straining white.
"Find someone else for your dare, Andrews," I said coldly, taking a step back to put distance between us, my voice tight with adrenaline. "I'm not interested in being part of your game. Move."
I kept my head down, attempting to brush past him.
"You're Sage Kelley, right?"
The sound of my name brought my boots to an immediate halt.
I blinked up at him, caught completely off guard.
"Professor Beaumont's senior research student," Julian straightened up slightly, his cadence measured and even, carrying an intellectual sharpness that seemed impossible beneath a varsity jacket. "I saw your Havenwood Creek senior capstone proposal sitting on his desk over Sunday dinner."
My heart gave a hard, hollow thud. Professor Beaumont was my academic advisor—and the guardian of the final research endowment my late father had left behind.
Julian leaned in slightly, his voice dropping to a near-whisper against the whistle of the wind. "I spent an hour going over your codebase."
My lips parted. "You... read my proposal?"
"Your simulation keeps crashing because your core fluid algorithm strategy is flawed," Julian murmured, his pale blue eyes deadly sharp. "And Uncle Des mentioned that if you don't deliver a working version by this Friday, the department is pulling your grant—which means you don't clear your senior thesis, and you don't graduate in May."
The hair on the back of my neck stood on end.
Friday was the deadline. If the funding was pulled, the project died, my senior capstone failed, and I would be forced to stay another semester without my degree. Worse, my father's final ecological legacy would be reduced to scrap paper.
I had been panicking over that exact deadline for two days straight, and Julian had just laid it out like it was nothing.
Worse, I couldn't even brush him off. I had heard the rumors about Beaumont's nephew—the CS prodigy everyone in the department talked about. I just had never realized it was him.
"I know how to fix your algorithm," Julian stated plainly, laying his cards on the table, his gaze locking onto mine with an unshakeable, quiet certainty. "Help me get through this bet. In return, I'll rewrite your boundary calculations tonight. Deal?"
/0/14054/coverbig.jpg?v=8d994950e66f0572d2926971a2b284da)
/0/1816/coverbig.jpg?v=20171116211231)
The Life Story of an Otter
The otter has long seemed to me worthy of serious attention, if only for the successful struggle it has waged against those exterminating agencies under which the badger, the wildcat, the polecat and the marten have all but succumbed.
/0/4915/coverbig.jpg?v=4d212b15d1a9b806afe7b5bf03f6a596)
/0/1612/coverbig.jpg?v=2e1be590a5c7e3bd45bdce71417fdda4)
The Story of an African Farm
The Story of an African Farm is a classic tale by south african author Olive Schreiner
/0/8142/coverbig.jpg?v=39a4e8127b9106acf8079ebfb9f202ff)
The Crimson Thread: An Adventure Story for Girls
Late one night, Lucile Tucker comes face to face with a mysterious apparition. Just as she's convinced herself that it was nothing more than a figment of her imagination, she finds incontrovertible proof that the strange specter was real—and may be trying to send her a message.
/0/6971/coverbig.jpg?v=1b751fdd2cb9b19f515d2fee1459426b)
The Laurel Bush: An Old-Fashioned Love Story
The Laurel Bush: An Old-Fashioned Love Story by Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
/0/8481/coverbig.jpg?v=39a4e8127b9106acf8079ebfb9f202ff)
The Secret Mark / An Adventure Story for Girls
Late one night, Lucile Tucker comes face to face with a mysterious apparition. Just as she's convinced herself that it was nothing more than a figment of her imagination, she finds incontrovertible proof that the strange specter was real—and may be trying to send her a message.
/0/1744/coverbig.jpg?v=20171116205917)
A Little Queen of Hearts - An International Story
A few years ago, when my first story saw the light, a little fellow, a stranger to me then, but who has since proved himself the truest of friends, wrote me a most welcome letter. He said, among other things: “I have read the book five times through. My nurse, Lily Jones, read the book to me t
/0/5609/coverbig.jpg?v=82c7f93fd78362bad5e151c7ee037c1f)
Almayer's Folly: A Story of an Eastern River
Almayer's Folly was Conrad's first novel, set in a remote Bornean outpost at the end of the 19th century. Conrad draws on his own experience to present the strains of life at a cultural crossroads. The Dutch trader, Almayer, is stranded in Sambir, thirty miles up a virtually unknown equatorial river
/0/47156/coverbig.jpg?v=3927ba959dd1383fd9c001ae80fa36ae)
Insomnia Story.
Sophia: I didn't ask for my mother to get married, I didn't ask for five protective step brothers, and I definitely didn't ask for him to become my daddy. Victor: I'm an alpha, a werwolf, I'm a possessive beast. She's my new step sister, my new baby, she's mine. The family: We only find our mate o
/0/3004/coverbig.jpg?v=1d8584db4c1d1035fdcb9edc65914f1d)
An Eye for an Eye
An Eye for an Eye was written in the year 1879 by Anthony Trollope. This book is one of the most popular novels of Anthony Trollope, and has been translated into several other languages around the world.This book is published by Booklassic which brings young readers closer to classic literature glob
/0/88053/coverbig.jpg?v=b26236abb634bf2ada7ca3c2c99e5b06)
LOVE STORY
In a life painted with shared laughter, quiet moments, and a love that defied time, Damilola's heart was shattered by the loss of her beloved David. Now, she embarks on a journey through the tapestry of their life together, from their first meeting under the summer sky to their final, tender farewel
/0/35202/coverbig.jpg?v=39e16d1b1a525d4d43f10fb7a45cca3f)
An Outsider
Waking up and settling into a dangerous situation, Jordyn Barker suddenly turned into a special soldier of the future, when the world had just experienced a terrible disaster with thousands of dangerous monsters always lurking human's life. Her journey to become a great soldier begins here.
/0/1769/coverbig.jpg?v=7063d61d8d7688e4f5f4a7e4c15952f5)
/0/12140/coverbig.jpg?v=3126c2f82026ee356b8e050f17f081b7)
/0/91303/coverbig.jpg?v=209255a9a6fb50179ca61613e654740c)
My nerdy love Story
MY NERDY LOVE STORY In Love with Someone from a Different Background By deeva Reyna Davis never imagined that a scholarship to the city's most elite high school would upend her life. Raised by a single mother and used to keeping her head down, she finds herself thrust into a world of privilege, pow
/0/1220/coverbig.jpg?v=21ea895963ebcec4611b376951697ad6)
Danny's Own Story
DANNYS OWN STORY ... FACING PAGE All of a sudden, a live fish come a-whirling out of that hole . and it lands ker- plump into Mis Rogerss lap ... 22 Man alive you dont know what disease you may have . Stick out your tongue . . . . . . . . . . 42 66 Squir
/0/61790/coverbig.jpg?v=ea0416df32270cbb0065c813eea13a93)
THE LOVE STORY
Aurora's eyes sparkled like diamonds in the moonlight, her long, curly brown hair cascading down her back like a waterfall. She was a beautiful and kind-hearted young woman, with a smile that could light up the darkest of rooms.
/0/60258/coverbig.jpg?v=693b606dd2348ec3bdd7a1d9db426461)
Two Faces One Story
Melva Karenina Putri's wish is simple, to pass the job interview after graduating from university and live a normal working life, even if she gets a bossy boss. However, her encounter with Zeon Pradipta taught Melva that life has times where she has to hate and love at the same time. And Melva didn'
/0/23417/coverbig.jpg?v=6e0c7fd47bee3548db89f5bcbed8a166)
THERESA's Life Story.
"I have always wanted him to leave us alone, he doesn't deserve any of us! He doesn't deserve love" "I am just glad I made it here. I miss my mom,I wonder if she's okay". . . Theresa Lawson, a young lad whose childhood was traumatic, courtesy of her father. Her mom has always been her best friend,
