Josh McGrath groaned as he examined the paper his history teacher had just handed back to him. With a big "F" at the top, the essay seemed to have more red marks than the black letters he had actually written.
"I'm beginning to think that history isn't your thing."
Josh leaned back in his chair. "You trying to tell me you did any better, Costas?"
Pete waved his substantially longer "C" paper at him. "Some of us have time to do things that don't involve defying gravity."
Josh rolled his eyes and crumpled up his paper. Hardly looking, he tossed it into the garbage can. Getting up to leave, he was stopped by a loud throat-clearing noise.
"Mr. McGrath, why don't you grace me with your presence over her?"
With a loud sigh, the younger man looked at his watch and rolled his eyes. "I have to be at a park opening in 20 minutes."
"Humor me."
On the drive over to N-Tek, Josh practiced in his mind how exactly he was going to tell his dad that he was dropping out of college. It was summer semester- not during the school year- so his absence would probably go unnoticed. He sighed. It shouldn't be that difficult to tell the CEO of a sports company that he was going to focus on pursuing his life as a sports superstar…right?
He got up to the gate to the parking garage, then abruptly turned the car around. He needed more time to think. And why not wait until his dad was out of work? It was five in the afternoon then- shouldn't be too much longer. Parking instead by the side of the road, he got out and walked over to a big tree a few yards from what he supposed was a gardening shed. The shade was a nice escape from the June day's heat, and somewhere between thinking about what he'd say and Jeff's reaction to it, he fell asleep.
His cell phone woke him once, but seeing that the caller was only his girlfriend Laura Chen, he didn't bother picking it up. Drifting back to dreams of success and glory, he was completely unaware when heavy feet in metal boots ran past him.