Briar University sits five miles outside Hastings, Massachusetts, an hour’s drive from Boston. Campus security is heavy, the crime rate is close to nothing, and the town itself amounts to one main street and about two dozen shops and restaurants.
Off-Campus Series
Book 1: The Deal
Book 2: The Mistake
Book 3: The Score
Book 4: The Goal
Book 5: The Legacy
Main Characters
Hannah Wells: Junior at Briar, vocal performance major, waitressing at Della’s diner in Hastings.
Garrett Graham: Junior, captain of the Briar hockey team in his first year in the role. Lives off campus with three teammates.
Supporting Characters
Allie Hayes: Hannah’s roommate in Bristol House, drama major.
Sean: Allie’s boyfriend, a Sigma brother.
John Logan: Briar defenceman, Garrett’s housemate and closest friend.
John Tucker: Briar forward, Garrett’s housemate, and the only one in the house who cooks.
Dean Heyward-Di Laurentis: Briar defenceman, Garrett’s housemate.
Phil Graham: Garrett’s father. Retired New York Rangers forward and two-time Stanley Cup winner, living in Boston.
Justin Kohl: Wide receiver on the Briar football team, transferred in from Seattle this year.
Beau Maxwell: Quarterback of the Briar football team.
Cassidy Donovan: Vocal performance major, Hannah’s partner for the winter showcase duet.
Mary Jane Harper: Songwriting major and composer of the duet.
Dexter, Stella and Megan: Hannah’s friends in the music and drama faculties.
Recap Summary
Pamela Tolbert has taken over Philosophical Ethics after the previous lecturer died two weeks before term, and seventy percent of her class has come out of the midterm with a C-plus or lower. Garrett Graham failed, and he needs a C-plus average to stay on the ice. Hannah Wells aced it, so he asks her to tutor him for the makeup exam. She refuses and he spends the next week wearing her down.
Allie takes Hannah to a Sigma party, where Hannah finally speaks to Justin Kohl, the football transfer she has been watching all semester. Garrett tells her she is not Justin’s type, because Justin’s interest runs to girls with a certain social status. On the drive back he offers her the deal: she tutors him through the makeup exam, and he takes her to Beau Maxwell’s birthday party as his date, so that Justin sees her with the most visible man at Briar. The sessions run for a week and a half at Garrett’s off-campus house.
Hannah’s mother calls on a Sunday to say her parents cannot afford to meet her for Thanksgiving. Garrett’s father trained him ruthlessly from before he started school and told him he would never be a real man if he failed.
Garrett goads Hannah into proving she is not a bad kisser. Dean walks in, Hannah covers by telling him Garrett has been coaching her for an upcoming date, then kisses Dean. Garrett writes the makeup exam the next day and comes out with an A-minus. At Maxwell’s party Justin asks her out. Hannah explains her refusal to drink at parties to Garrett by telling him a friend of hers was drugged in high school.
At Dean’s birthday at Malone’s, Garrett offers to be her bodyguard, her bartender and her friend if she wants a drink and she accepts. While he is out of the room she runs into Devon and his new girlfriend, and the encounter forces her to admit to herself what the assault took from her.
In the morning Hannah asks Garrett to have sex with her, and when he presses her for a reason she tells him the truth: that she was the one who was drugged and raped by a boy from her school.
Hannah learns that Garrett will not go out on Halloween and bails on the dorm crawl and comes to him instead, and they trade the rest of their stories. The case against Aaron collapsed when three of his friends testified that she had wanted it, and the town turned on her family. Garrett’s father first hit him on Halloween when he was twelve, a year after his mother died of lung cancer, and it continued until he was sixteen and big enough to hit back.
Logan tells Garrett that Justin has been telling people he has a date with Hannah at the weekend. Garrett confronts her, she admits Justin asked before Dean’s birthday and that she has not decided, and he walks out. She follows him to the car park, tells him she cancelled the date, and they agree to be exclusive.
Phil Graham orders his son home for Thanksgiving and Hannah goes with him. She notices bruising on the undersides of Cindy’s wrists, and Garrett reads the flinches and the long sleeves and reaches the same conclusion. Phil probes Hannah about her plans and calls the relationship a liability. On his way out he tells Cindy what his father did to him and his mother, and that she can call him for anything. On the drive back he asks Hannah whether he is capable of becoming his father, and she points out that the willpower he just used is the whole difference.
A week later, at a home game, Hannah collides with Rob Delaney, one of the three friends who testified for Aaron.
The next morning Phil Graham is waiting at Della’s. He tells Hannah she is going to break up with his son, and that if she does not he will cut Garrett off entirely. Hannah tells Garrett they are moving too fast and she wants to see other people. He tells her she is a coward and leaves.
Hannah wins the winter showcase. Garrett has concluded that she is lying about something, and every time they cross paths after that he asks her how many men she has dated.
Back on campus, Hannah sets out to find someone to be seen with and discovers that every man at Briar is avoiding her. Sean tells her Garrett has put the word out that she is not to be touched. She goes to shout at him, and when he asks her again why she ended it, she tells him his father made her. Garrett laughs, because his grandparents left him a trust his father never knew about, and it came available the moment he turned 21.
Briar reach the Frozen Four. Hannah is rehearsing for the spring showcase, this time in a duet with Dexter. Garrett has told his team and his coach everything about his father, so when the championship ends, nobody acknowledges Phil Graham in the car park.
Next in Series
In The Mistake, Logan spends his senior year hiding how little he has planned for life after graduation, and a night with freshman Grace Ivers becomes the one thing he most wants to undo.
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