Page 23 of Enemy Games

He stepped back. “You’re not my partner for the park clean-up?”

Well, crap.

What had I done to deserve this?

“Oh, right. Yeah, that’s me.”

His face lit up with a grin. “Thought so.”

He sat across from me and dropped a few notebooks on the table between us. “I’m Hunter, by the way.”

I watched him, waiting for him to make the connection.

“Presley,” I replied. “Stone.”

He smiled, but no reaction whatsoever to my name. Nothing. It wasn’t like it was common. How many other Presleys could he have known in his life? I’d bet zero. It shouldn’t bother me so much, especially since I’d essentially forgotten about him too, but now it was pissing me off. I wanted him to finally see me and fall to his knees to beg for forgiveness.

Too much?

I didn’t think so.

“Good game yesterday.”

He was there? I noticed some of the men’s team in the audience but hadn’t paid them enough attention to know who had stayed. “Thanks.”

“Yeah, you guys killed it.”

Ah, there it was. A general, blanket compliment. He didn’t mean me specifically. Of course he hadn’t noticed me in particular.

“It went better than expected. We were prepared to do our best and learn from our mistakes, but we came together for the win.”

“That’s great.”

With nothing left to say, I looked down at my books, wracking my brain for something to say.

He opened the top notebook and flipped to a random page. “Cool. So I thought we could start with programming.”

Wait. That was it? He really didn’t remember me. I refused to accept that he managed to block my entire existence.

That was entirely unfair. How could he go on, living his life and having a successful hockey career, without even a flicker of a memory for the person he tormented?

It wasn’t like I wanted him to shout and jump up, pointing at me and calling me stupid, like he did when we were kids, but come on! Nothing?

Where was the justice? The karma?

“Fine.” I forced my quiet rage to the back of my mind and focused on the coding he was showing me.

“This was where I got stuck.” He pointed to one line and I nodded. “But as long as you remember to include this bit here, the whole thing will work.”

I added that to my notes, then went to my computer to plug it in. I refreshed the page, and suddenly it loaded with all the pictures and text I’d wanted.

“How?” I gasped. “That was all I was missing?”

He smirked. “It’s pretty cruel, but it’s the one detail Professor Nox doesn’t include. It’s in the required reading, though, but almost everyone misses it.”

“That jerk,” I muttered.

“That’s what I thought too. If it wasn't for one of the older guys on the team helping me, I never would have figured it out.”