Love, Hypothetically

By Anne Tenino

Hypothetical love can be a real pain in the ass.....

Paul's been called many things—graduate student, humanities tutor, jock-hater, even broke—but "forgiving" isn't one of them. When the new women's softball coach at Calapooya College specifically requests Paul to tutor his athletes, Paul's forced to put aside his strict "no athletes" policy for the sake of his paycheck.

Enter Trevor Gardiner, former Major League Baseball player and Paul’s high school boyfriend. Yeah, that one—the guy who sacrificed Paul for the safety of his closet and his future career. But Trevor’s come out and retired from baseball, and now he’s looking for forgiveness and a second chance.

There’s no earthly reason Paul should give him one, but he keeps letting the man state his case. And touch him. And take him sailing. The waters are far from smooth, though, and Paul says awful things to Trevor he isn’t sure he means. Now Paul has to decide: apologize and forgive Trevor for everything, or chalk it up as revenge and move on.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Riptide Publishing
• Release date: Aug 11, 2016
• ISBN: 9781937551506

Anne Tenino

Anne Tenino began writing for her own entertainment in third grade, but life intervened, and she didn't get around to submitting anything to a publisher until the week of her 40th birthday. While spending most of the last three years recovering from Lyme Disease, Anne started writing for herself again. The Lyme Disease had led to the demise of her "real" job, and the laptop was right there, next to the bed... In the long, rainy, Pacific Northwest winter, writing is sometimes a mood-saver.Anne's husband is adorably confused by her love of reading and writing about man lurve, but he's always been a supportive sort. Just don't ask him to read it. Her two school-aged daughters think it's cool Mom's a writer, but aren't clear on why they can't tell Gramma about it.When not writing, Anne likes to read, travel, cook, and shirk housework.You can see what Anne is up to by checking out her (sadly neglected) blog at http://annetenino.wordpress.com.Available Works"18% Gray", Dreamspinner Press"Happy Birthday to Me", Dreamspinner Press"Whitetail Rock", annetenino.wordpress.com

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Riptide Publishing

PO Box 1537

Burnsville, NC 28714

www.riptidepublishing.com

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. All person(s) depicted on the cover are model(s) used for illustrative purposes only.

Love, Hypothetically

Copyright © 2012 by Anne Tenino

Smashwords Edition

Cover Art by L.C. Chase, lcchase.com/design.htm

Editor: Rachel Haimowitz

Layout: L.C. Chase, lcchase.com/design.htm

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher, and where permitted by law. Reviewers may quote brief passages in a review. To request permission and all other inquiries, contact Riptide Publishing at the mailing address above, at Riptidepublishing.com, or at [e-mail].

ISBN: 978-1-937551-50-6

First edition

August, 2012

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Paul’s been called many things—graduate student, humanities tutor, jock-hater, even broke—but forgiving isn’t one of them. When the new women’s softball coach at Calapooya College specifically requests Paul to tutor his athletes, Paul’s forced to put aside his strict no athletes policy for the sake of his paycheck.

Enter Trevor Gardiner, former Major League Baseball player and Paul’s high school boyfriend. Yeah, that one—the guy who sacrificed Paul for the safety of his closet and his future career. But Trevor’s come out and retired from baseball, and now he’s looking for forgiveness and a second chance.

There’s no earthly reason Paul should give him one, but he keeps letting the man state his case. And touch him. And take him sailing. The waters are far from smooth, though, and Paul says awful things to Trevor he isn’t sure he means. Now Paul has to decide: apologize and forgive Trevor for everything, or chalk it up as revenge and move on.

For mc.

About Love, Hypothetically

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Dear Reader

Acknowledgments

Also by Anne Tenino

About the Author

More like this

June, Present Day

When Paul showed up at work on Tuesday morning, he discovered his carefully nurtured routine had been disrupted. Routine would have been arriving at the Calapooya College Academic Help Center to find his schedule filled with students desperately seeking tutoring assistance so as not to flunk yet another class. Summer term was for the hardcore cases. Only the students on their last scholastic leg needed help then: the morons and the miscreants.

On the miscreants’ team were the hardcore partiers about to be kicked out of school, and therefore Daddy’s good graces—and wallet—if they couldn’t get their sorry, drunken asses off of academic probation once and for all. Or at least until next year. And dude! I think he really means it this time, was a common complaint. The miscreants mostly offered him money to provide them with the answers, and while he could use the funds, he didn’t want them at the expense of his personal integrity.

Paul’s popularity with the miscreants was low, but he wasn’t generally well-loved by the masses, so it didn’t bother him.

Personally, he preferred the morons—the people taking a class for at least the third time that they absolutely had to pass. They were rarely actually of sub-par intelligence; they just had things like mental blocks against certain subjects caused by traumatic experiences in their scholastic history. A high school chemistry teacher who used to hit on them, for instance, or a psychology teacher who picked his nose and ate it while lecturing. Helping the morons comprehend their material was rewarding. They often got it all at once, like a lightbulb coming on. When that happened, he felt as if he’d provided that one piece of knowledge that broke through the student’s brain cell logjam, and then a tidal wave of learning rushed out, smashing barriers with its momentum—a true sense of accomplishment, if a bit unpredictable.

But on Tuesday morning, Brutus the work-study receptionist—or whatever the hell his name was—yelled out, Oy! Paul! Got a note for ya here.

I’m standing right in front of you, there’s no need to raise your voice, Paul said, sotto voce.

I’m not yelling! Brutus hollered, rearing back in his seat and blinking at him.

Are you familiar with the concept of an ‘indoor voice’? Paul whispered.

Brutus blinked some more, then went back to digging through piles of papers on his desk. Paul shifted from foot to foot while he waited. He had to get to the staff lounge before that pseudo-bohemian from the Philosophy Department did, because he knew for a fact that there was only one packet of gunpowder tea left, and he aimed to get to it first. Dammitall, his life had really gone downhill since tea drinking had become a fad and every patchouli-doused, soul-patch-sporting free thinker with a college degree felt qualified to dunk his twig and berries in hot water.

Oy! Here it is, Brutus bellowed. He handed Paul a printout of an email to the Center’s general address.

What is this? he asked in his normal voice, forgetting all about behavior modeling.

I dunno, read it. Brutus went back to his computer, ignoring Paul.

So he took the damn thing and hurried off to the lounge, relieved to reach it before Kendall the Existential Tea Drinker. It wasn’t until he had dropped the tea bag in freshly boiled water that he looked at the printout.

It was a summons from the new Calapooya College women’s softball coach to appear before him, since Paul had apparently been assigned a number of his players as clients.

I have a strict ‘no jocks’ policy! he said aloud.

Well, the rest of us are swimming in athletes to tutor, Kendall said sulkily, standing next to Paul with his supermarket-brand tea bag. You’re going to have to suck it up.

We’ll just see about that.

He stomped toward the office of the Academic Center manager, where he was promptly told to suck it up. You were specifically requested by the new coach. He asked for a list of tutors, and I guess he chose you based on your academic performance or something. Paul could’ve sworn his boss muttered something about it not being on the strength of his personality.

He retreated to his corner of the center, mulling it over.

Quitting his tutoring job wasn’t an option. He had to move out of the dorms by the end of summer; therefore, he needed this paycheck. It was humiliating that he’d had to move into the dorms in the first place, but when one behaved as he had to his roommate’s boyfriend, one might rather suddenly end up without a place to live when said boyfriend moved in with said roommate.

He looked back at the dumb email printout Brutus had given him. The coach—who’d only signed the email Coach—wanted to see Paul to discuss the future academic success of my athletes. He had, it seemed, concerns about their course of study.

Paul absolutely did not want to think about what those concerns might be. Instead he dredged up everything he knew about the new coach. Next to nothing, as it turned out. At a double-A school like Calapooya, the sports program was, at best, an afterthought for much of the student body, so it was easy to miss the fact that a new coach had been hired.

It had, however, been hard to miss when the old coach resigned to run off to a love nest in Mexico with her star pitcher. The student cable news show had covered it as breaking news with one of those ticker-tape things running underneath for three days. Paul had heard that the new coach was a gay man—presumably he wouldn’t poach female student athletes—and he’d stopped listening after that.

He turned on his laptop, ready to do some quick research, when the printout from Coach caught his eye again.

Lovely.

Reviews for Love, Hypothetically

[sharrow_3 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Did not enjoy this one as much. Too much nastiness. Too much angst to believe it could all be wrapped up and solved In so short a time.

[bitchie-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This was a cute story, I just wish it had been longer. I'd like to have known more about the time they spent apart, as well as seen more time spent on the getting back together. Nine years and a big betrayal is a lot to get over in just a few days and a couple of visits.

[mearias-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

3.5 stars

I felt it was a bit too short, although I loved the characters. Very entertaining, but I guess I wanted more.

[tam2603 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

2,5 stars.
I was pretty disappointed because I loved the first installment so much.

But Paul, the MC in this one, is basically a not very likable person. And you can justify bitchiness only so far with something that happened at the end of your high school time. Sometimes authors succeed in redeeming an unlikable side character for their own installment. Here it didn't work in my opinion, as the story was too shallow and without any real development to it - it felt very short and both MCs remained pale and I wasn't interested in what happened with them at all.
The whole thing was mostly boring - it had this strange kind of ready-made-love (high school sweethearts who meet again after nearly a decade and - surprisingly - never stopped loving each other...) - didn't work for me in the least. In most romance novels the most interesting part for me is the falling in love, followed closely by relationship development. This had neither.

[fangirlmom · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Cute, quick read. Paul is pretty snarky but still appealing. Special appearances by Toby, Sebastian & Brad were my favorite parts of the book. And oh yeah, now I want a date on a sailboat :)

[crtsjffrsn · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Paul is a graduate student who works as a tutor for undergraduates and has a strict "no jocks" policy. But when the new softball coach specifically requests Paul to tutor his players, it looks like that policy might be out the window. To make matters worse, the new coach is Trevor, the guy who broke Paul's heart in high school, the one he has been trying to get over ever since. But Trevor isn't just interested in Paul's services for his players--he's interested in a second chance. And that's something Paul is just not sure he can give.

Well, this was a bit of a roller coaster ride, and I mean that in the best way possible. I really enjoyed reading this. The characters are complex and real, and the pacing of the story kept me simply gripped to every page. It's not overly angsty (though, clearly it's not all bright and shiny happiness, either), but it's honestly a lighter story than one might initially expect.

This is the second in a series, but it can definitely be read as a stand-alone. I wasn't huge fan of the first book, so I'm glad that this one was more enjoyable. It has me considering picking up the third installment...