“Hi. Um.” I look up at the menu. I don’t think I want my usual. I open my mouth. “Hibiscus tea,” I hear myself say. Surely that won’t give me bad Camdenth, I hope.
“On it. Four eighty-five.”
He steps away while I search for my card. I see him grab something from the fridge and pour it into a plastic cup. I tap my card and leave a tip. Matty hands me the cup. I smile and thank you. I turn on my heel and walk out of there.
On my walk back to the library, I think, briefly, about Benson Reeve. I wonder if he is currently around here somewhere. I wonder if he is anywhere near nervous about this. Gianna said he could be benched if he doesn’t bring up his grade, and I can’timagine that feels good to hear. But he is the captain of a Big Ten hockey program and people who are the captain of a Big Ten hockey program would not be nervous about a tutoring session. That’s ridiculous of me. I wouldn’t even be surprised if he’s forgotten all about it. It wouldn’t be the first time an athlete has stood me up. I could get a text in approximately twelve minutes apologizing and asking to reschedule, and I will say,of course, no problem.
The room is just like I left it. I take the first sip of this hibiscus tea, and it’s very sweet. I wince at the taste filling my mouth. It’s fruity, for sure. I set it down and sit in the chair facing the door. The clock above the whiteboard says 3:55.
If I wanted to avoid this, I still have time to make a run for it. I could say that I got sick, or I had too much on my plate at the moment. I could make any valid excuse and get away with it. Right now’s my last opportunity.
I look at the clock, and my gut sinks.
Chapter 3
Benson
Mydeskisclear.My laptop is in my bag. The Stats textbook is in there too, the one I have technically owned since the second week of class and have only opened twice. A notebook. Three pencils, because my dad has been telling me since I was nine that any system that doesn’t tolerate at least one failure isn’t a system. A highlighter. My calculator, which is the same TI-84 I had in eleventh grade and which hasPROPERTY OF B. REEVEin Sharpie on the back in my mother’s careful handwriting.
I check the time. Two-thirty. It’s my time to go. The second my foot hits the living room, Stanley pauses the FIFA game on the TV.
“Where are you headed?” he asks, scratching his balls.
“You know where I’m headed.” I look at his pajama pants that have small pucks on them. I have asked, in the past, where hegot these, and he has refused to tell me. “You’re getting your ball sweat all over the controller, man. Wash your hands.”
He wipes his hand on his knee and says, “I don’t actually know where you’re going. The store?”
Christ. “I’m going to the library.”
He chuckles, “What the fuck for?”
“For my tutoring session.” I hike the bag higher on my shoulder. “So I don’t get benched. Remember?”
“Already?” he asks.
Blue, on the other end of the couch with the second controller, hits play. The FIFA crowd noise comes back. Blue’s player runs unattended down the right wing.
“Stan,” Blue says, “I am about to score on you.”
“Score on me. I need a moment with Reeve.”
“I need to go, or I’m going to be late,” I say.
Stanley flings himself up off the couch. “I need you to repeat the rule.” He points at the whiteboard. In the corner, he has written rule number one in big letters: NO FALLING IN LOVE BEFORE THE DRAFT.
“I need to leave—”
“You are not going to be late. It is atwelve-minute walk.You are early like a Catholic.Repeat the rule.”
Rowan, on the floor doing his hip mobility thing in shorts, does not lift his head from the carpet. “Stan, leave him alone.”
“Et tu, Laurens?”
“Stop saying et tu. You don’t know what it means.”
“I absolutely know what it means.”
“Tu means you,” Percy says, from the dining table, eyes on his book, “in Latin. And et means and.”
