R U S S O 18+

R U S S O 2

R U S S O 2

Mateo played around with the pen in his hand, the slender writing utensil gliding between each of his fingers as he stared at the large board. He was focused throughout the lesson, so now he was just waiting for his professor to announce the homework before he would get up and leave.

"I don't want to make you guys feel the pressure as of yet, so there's going to be a small discussion board for you to respond to online," his professor said once he wrapped up the slideshow, taking a seat at the edge of the desk, "but next week will be an entire different story. I will start marking the late submissions and throwing tons of assignments at you guys because I feel as though people work better under pressure."

The students groaned as yet another class was going to be a cause of their stress.

"What time are you going to post the assignment?" a student asked once, raising their hand, the gaze of many adults falling onto him as they wondered the same thing.

Professor Atkins replies, "it'll be uploaded when I upload it."

Some professors were a bit too much to handle and gave signs that the students stress levels were not their concern. Full-time students had five classes a week with a bunch of other tasks to finish, so trying to remember when to look on the discussion board for an assignment was going to be a reason late submissions continued.

Mateo started packing his things to leave, shutting his laptop to slip inside his book bag. It was his last class for the day before practice, and he was wondering if he should get food in between or just go home to get some rest before getting onto the field.

He knew drills were going to be intense, and he was somewhat dreading them. Quarterbacks were always highlighted, but the entire team is what made the wins come in, especially when it came to wide receivers and running backs.

The quarterback was looked at first as they were passing the ball, and since Mateo had a love for being a wide receiver, he was catching the ball the moment the qb tossed it. Mateo was the guy on the field who had to use a variety of techniques to confuse his opponent, avoiding as many obstacles as he could just to make a touchdown.

He's broken records and caught the eye of some very important people. It was his instincts and his ability to block—to catch a ball mid-air from any yard of the field while also having this incredible amount of speed and tempo while controlling his body. He was competitive, dependable, quick, had vision, and had a bunch of other great qualities that were good on and off the field.

He was better than good, and this range of talent didn't happen over night. It took some adjusting to gain a high level of agility.

"He's a dick," Mateo heard to the right of him, looking over at his friend, Felix, who was talking, "I gotta see if I could drop this one and find another class."

Mateo said to him, "it's too late. Last week was the deadline to do all that," moving between people in order to get out of class.

Some students signed up for classes too late and got stuck with the ones they would've never picked because they were waiting until the last minute. It was already a fight when students were granted access to create their own schedule, everyone fighting over spots.

"Maldita sea," Felix cursed before huffing, "did you hear about Jason?" he asked as he pulled a granola bar from his bag. damn it.

"What about him?" Mateo asked as he typed away on his phone, replying to a message while walking through the less congested area.

"He might be cut from the team," Felix exposed; "he said someone might've ratted him out for using performance enhancement drugs, and he thinks it might even be his girl."