I was a nice person.

Growing up, I was the girl that all the parents loved and wanted their kids to be like. I was the favorite volunteer of the grandmas and grandpas at the old age home in my hometown. I never had any issues with my teachers or my classmates. Not even my coworkers at my part-time jobs.

Why? Because I was a freaking nice person.

But Atlas Griffin, the captain of Wellsfield University's ice hockey team, made me want to embrace my inner Klaus Mikaelson and either rip his heart out or head off. Preferably both.

As I spotted his black Mercedes in the side mirror of my car only seconds before the crunch of crumpling metal, that urge was stronger than ever. There was no way in hell this bump was accidental. Not when Mr. Hotshot was involved. If it was someone else, I would have given them the benefit of the doubt. But not him.

"This bitch," I cursed lowly as I stepped out of my car, slamming the door shut. My beat-up Honda rattled with force, and I immediately felt guilty for taking my anger out on her. She didn't deserve it. He did.

The first thing I noticed was the big dent in the side of my car where his car had made contact. Seeing the perfect silver paint scraped off and replaced with black scratches made me want to cry. Fixing the dent and repainting the site would be at least a month's salary, putting a crater in my already minimal savings account.

"Of course, it would be you." I heard Atlas groan as he stepped out of his stupid, expensive car. "Should have guessed from the crappy driving skills."

My blood boiled at his condescending tone. He strutted around the campus like a self-proclaimed king, but I refused to let him treat me like a doormat. Maybe that was why we butted heads so often. Or maybe it was because I was good at holding grudges.

"Excuse you!" I snapped, glaring at him. "If anyone here has crappy driving skills, it's you. I was backing out of the parking spot."

He folded his arms across his chest, his dark eyes squinting at me. "Ever heard of looking back to check you won't bump into others?"

I mimicked his stance. "Ever heard of slowing down while in a parking lot and keeping your eyes ahead?"

He opened his mouth to respond but I cut him off. "Apparently not because this"—I gestured to our cars—"wouldn't have happened otherwise. And you wouldn't have to reimburse me."

"Excuse me, what?" he asked, sounding incredulous. "You should be the one reimbursing me. It was clearly your mistake."

I looked at his car, which had a tiny dent in comparison, and snorted. "Yeah right. Because how could the hockey God ever be wrong, right? It's us peasants who mess up."

A muscle ticked in his jaw. "I don't have time for this Rosy. I have somewhere to be. So if you move, I'll forget about it too."

The audacity!

For some reason, Atlas refused to use my actual name. Instead, he called me some stupid nickname he'd coined the first time we met three years ago, when he had arrogantly brushed off my team and our very genuine needs because the hockey team wasn't satisfied with the colors of their jerseys and wanted an unnecessary rebrand. The same day he had called me a naïve, googly eyed girl who was unaware how the world worked and told me that I should learn to recognize what was more important.

Translation: Learn that the hockey team was superior to the media team, and I should suck it up.

The memories of the damned meeting resurfaced, making me bristle. I propped a hand on my hip and looked up at him.

"No can do, your majesty." I smirked as his scowl deepened at the nickname I'd given him in return. "I'm not moving until you apologize and pay for the damages. Surely that won't be such a big amount for you? Would it, your majesty?"

He took a threatening step forward, but I refused to back down. I lifted my chin and stared right into his onyx eyes. "I'm not in the mood for games, Rosy. Move out of the way. I don't have time for this today."

His minty breath fanned across my face as he glowered down at me. In moments like these, when he was mere inches away, I realized how beautiful he was. I understood why every girl and guy on campus agreed to do his bidding.

The man was built like a mountain of solid planes and hard muscles. Combined with the bad boy allure he liked to portray with leather jackets, all-black outfits, and brooding stares, he didn't have to do much to gain female attention. But that's not what made Atlas so convincing.

It was his words that knocked you out. He was always the charmer with his easy smiles, sharp wit, and compliments that felt genuine enough to wrap you around his finger.

Except with me. Because I saw the real Atlas. The arrogant, self-centered, manipulative prick that he was underneath it all.

"Neither do I, Griffin. So apologize, and we all can go our merry way," I said.

His gaze ran over my face and halted on my lips. He opened his mouth to speak but a high-pitched voice interrupted him.

"Atlas? What's going on?" A brunette poked her head out of his Mercedes, eyeing me like I was a two-month-old expired, stinky cheese.

An involuntary snort escaped me. "Of course. Now I know why you couldn't see the car right in front of you."

Leave it to Atlas Griffin to get into a car crash because of some pretty girl in the passenger seat.

"Look," he started, but I cut him off.

"No, you look," I said, placing a hand on his chest and pushing him away a little. The palm of my hand tingled from the warmth underneath, so I quickly withdrew it. "It was your mistake, and I won't be paying for it. We should call campus security to check the CCTV footage. That'll prove everything."

A loud honk came from a red jeep stuck behind Atlas's car. "Can you guys move? Or at least take this lover's quarrel somewhere else?" the driver of the jeep said.

"Shut up!" we yelled unanimously before scowling at each other.

"Fine. I'll pay whatever it costs to repair it. Maybe something extra too. After all, doing charity every year is a family tradition for me," he said with a smirk, taking a step back.

My jaw slackened. Did he just...did he just call me a charity case? "You—"

Before I could finish, he got inside his car, slamming the door shut while I stood there in the middle of the parking lot like an idiot. An idiot who got insulted to her face. I imagined myself yanking the door open, pulling him out, and smashing his stupidly handsome face against the windshield of his expensive car while shouting a Viking war cry.

Sadly, I didn't get the opportunity to reenact my fantasy because the impatient driver of the red jeep wouldn't let up on his car's horn. Joining him, Atlas pressed on his car's horn too as if I was the inconvenience holding everyone up. "C'mon!" the jeep guy yelled, honking two more times.

So, I did what any logical person would do. I flipped him the bird and stomped all the way to my car, getting in with a huff. I moved the car back to its original spot and as soon as the road cleared, Atlas and that honking asshole sped out of the lot like freaking F1 racers. And he had the gall to talk to me about how to drive a car.

"Assholes," I muttered and shut my eyes to take deep breaths. Today was a good day. I wasn't going to let that stick-holding figure skater ruin it for me.

My phone pinged with an incoming message on the passenger seat and I quickly picked it up. It was Samantha, the head of the student-run media outlets of Wellsfield University, and my boss. Technically.

Samantha: Where are you? The Dean showed up early and has already left.

Fuck!

I sat up straight as I typed my reply.

Evelyn: But wasn't the meeting supposed to be at 5? She came in a whole hour early.

I had worked so hard for this meeting and stayed up late last night to make my best impression on Mrs. Kapoor, the dean of the College of Media and Communication Studies. She was my idol. I had admired her even before I had seen her on stage on orientation day. A woman of color who built herself from scratch after leaving an abusive marriage and made her name in the industry before becoming a Dean. How badass is that?

And now I had missed my shot. All because of Mr. Hotshot. Fuck you, Atlas Griffin. I hoped he fell and broke all his front teeth.

Samantha: She had to attend an urgent meeting and requested to have our meeting early.

Samantha: I couldn't say no to her.

Evelyn: You did the right thing. I'm sorry for not making it on time.

Got held back.

I'll be there in 5

After receiving a thumbs-up from Samantha, I locked the phone and placed it back on the passenger seat, staring ahead and mourning the lost opportunity.

It wasn't like I had never met the dean before, but this time it was different. I was going to meet her as the person next in line to take charge of all the media outlets after Samantha stepped down at the end of the semester. Now she would think that I was a slacker who didn't respect the work enough to be there on time.

I banged my head on the steering wheel a few times before pulling myself back together. "Okay. What's done is done. I have to impress her with my work," I said, meeting my gaze in the rearview mirror. "You can do this, Evie!"

With a firm nod to myself, I put the car in drive and pulled out of the parking lot, heading in the direction of the media building on the other side of campus.

Wellsfield's campus was sprawled on a tiny hill that once was a settlement of the wealthy folks of medieval times. Most of the old buildings collapsed with time but some of them still stood strong. Like the library that had its very own clock tower. The old townhouse had been converted into the administration's office and the community center into a cafeteria.

The College of Media and Communication Studies building was one that stood the test of time as well. It was an old victorian-style building with a dome-shaped roof, banistered veranda, and large, colorfully tinted windows. It looked like a Disney princess castle. The ivy growing on one side just added another touch to its timeless beauty.

I stopped my car in the parking space beside the building and got out, locking the door behind me. On the inside, the old structure had been fully renovated to fit the modern era with elevators, AC ducts, and fluorescent lights. But I liked to dream about how it must have looked when it was first built. When there was no electricity and hallways were lit by lanterns or torches.

I took the stairs two at a time. Our studio was on the fourth floor, which was the top of the building. It was an attic before it got converted into a storage room for supplies and then into our broadcasting studio and office.

By the time I reached the studio door, beads of sweat had formed on my forehead and I was breathing like I would go into cardiac arrest any moment but hey, at least I reached my daily step count.

"Sorry, I'm late. What did I miss?" I asked as I pushed the studio door open and was instantly hit by the smell of the lavender air purifier that April, our freshmen member, had installed after insisting that the studio smelt too much of stale coffee and potato chips.

What can I say? We were a hardworking lot who at times forgot to get proper meals and survived on chips and caffeine.

The team was sitting at the tiny round table beside the window that we had bought in my first year at Wellsfield. Each of them had their coffee mugs in their hands as they looked at me with various versions of pensive expressions.

"You took your sweet time, didn't you?" Derek smirked. I could already tell that he was in a bitchy mood today from the tone of his words. Then again, he had been in a bitchy mood ever since it was decided that I would be taking Samantha's spot as the media team's head instead of him. Not that he was a ray of sunshine to begin with.

"Who pissed in your cereal today?" I commented as I made my way to the table, taking my seat next to Samantha.

Her blonde hair was tied up in a messy bun and she had her cat-eyed glasses on. Which only happened when she had spent more than half of her day in the studio.

"Do you want coffee?" Mark, our male announcer, asked.

I shook my head. "I'm good. What did the dean say?"

"You're not going to like it," Noor mumbled through pursed lips.

"Well, it's already a done deal. So we can't do anything about it, can we?" Tyler, our camera guy said.

And his comment sparked an outburst where everyone started talking over each other, making no sense at all. I loved my team. I really did. We were like a crazy, dysfunctional family who had stuck together through thick and thin. But at times like these, I wondered how we ever got any work done.

I grabbed the binder lying at the center of the table and banged it hard. The loud thump shut everyone up. "Can someone tell me what's going on?"

Veena, our tech personnel, sighed. "It's better to rip off the band-aid," she said. "The dean came to us with a big project that the university wants us to do. The funding is great. Even if we try to use all of it, we would still have enough remaining to change the broken equipment."

"And get a coffee machine," April quipped.

Veena shot her a look that made the freshman girl cower. "Yes and a coffee machine," she said.

"Isn't that good, then? We've been fighting for the university to give us funds. I don't see the issue here," I said.

"Oh this is going to be good," Derek quipped as he brought his mug to his lips. I did not like the mirth in his eyes.

The rest exchanged looks among themselves before Samantha spoke up. "The university wants us to do special promotional coverage for one of the sports departments. It's—"

"—Okay. We have done that before with the volleyball team. Won't be a problem," I said, shrugging. The volleyball teams were nice. The guys and girls were respectful and kind. Way different from the arrogant jerkface and his band of clowns with skates.

"That's the thing. It's not the volleyball team," Mark added.

"Then who? Basketball? Football?" I asked.

"It's the ice hockey team," Veena said, and an eerie silence settled over us. It was so quiet that the buzzing of our tiny refrigerator sounded loud and clear.

They all looked at me like I was a ticking bomb as they waited for me to respond. We all had our beef with the ice hockey team after our budget got snipped because of them. But nobody's distaste was as strong as mine. All because Atlas kept getting in my way, even when I tried to avoid him.

I didn't know about him, but I had tried my best to steer clear of him. It didn't work and we kept butting heads. Take today for example. It was just inevitable.

A wry laugh ripped out of me, and I ran a frustrated hand through my hair.

"Of course it's them," I said, sighing. "Okay. There's nothing we can do about it. It's just another project. As long as I spend minimum time around his highness, I'll be fine. We can do this."

They exchanged nervous glances among themselves again before turning to Samantha who was biting her lip. Oh God, that can't be good. If there was one person who I had never seen scared or nervous it was Samantha. This had to be big.

"Yeah, about that," she started, giving me a sheepish look. "Since you are the one taking charge after me, you'll be the one leading this project. You have to meet with the coach and the team on Monday."

I sat still, just blinking as I processed the situation. Not only would I have to deal with Atlas's tantrums on a daily basis, but I also needed to be careful not to fuck this thing up. Because if I did, I was sure that Derek—smugly smirking as he swirled his coffee mug—would be right there to pounce on the opportunity to replace me.

Fuck my life.