Page 35 of Blueline Baby

Britt hasn’t set foot in the apartment since the morning she stormed out. I haven’t seen her at a single game or party since. Though, to be fair, I’ve only been to a handful of parties lately, and we never last long at them anyway. We show up together. We make the rounds for twenty minutes while Jack keeps me tucked tightly to his side the entire time. Then he’s hustling us back to my apartment before I’ve even finished my first drink.

Mostly, we just stay in. He’s got a whole routine now. He stretches out along my small sofa with my feet in his lap, rubbing them absentmindedly while I sit at the other end flipping through notecards for whatever quiz is coming next. He’ll test me on them if I ask, usually mangling every scientific term badly enough that I lose my place laughing.

One night, I look up from a stack of cards and ask him the thing that’s been bothering me. “Don’t you ever want to go out with the guys? Jude, the team? You can, you know. You don’t have to sit here babysitting me while I study.”

He doesn’t even open his eyes. “Nah.”

“Nah, what does that mean?”

“Did all that already. Years of it.” He digs his thumb into the arch of my foot and I try not to moan. “It was never as good as it looked from the outside. You do one party and then the next one, and the whole time you’re just chasing the next high, waiting for one of them to actually feel like enough. It never does.” He shrugs. “This is the first time I can remember not wanting to be anywhere else.”

I feel a blush crawl up my neck. He smiles like he knows exactly what he just did.

“We’ve got a game in Seattle at the end of the week,” he says, his thumb still working slow circles up my calf.

“Okay.” I turn a card over. “I’ll miss you. Try not to fight anyone taller than me, which is everyone.”

“I want you to come with me.”

I look up. He says it lightly, but he’s watching me with that careful, absolute stillness he’s gotten lately every time he says something serious.

“To Seattle?”

“It’s only two nights.” He sits up a little. “You’ve never even seen me play anywhere but here.”

“I have a lab Thursday I can’t miss, and a quiz Friday.” I set the cards down in my lap. “And—” I stop, because the last reason is significantly dumber than the first two.

“And?”

“And I’m not flying off to a city I’ve never been to, by myself, to sit with people I only halfway know.”

Something in his face softens. “You wouldn’t be by yourself. You’d be with me.”

“You’d be on the ice.”

“Before the game. After it. Every other minute the whole time, we’d be together.” He catches my foot before I can pull it back and holds on to it. “I want to show you off. That’s the entire nefarious plan.”

And there’s the problem. Because part of me actually wants to toss the notecards and go throw caution to the wind. That part scares me a good deal more than skipping a class or failing a quiz does. It’s the same part of my brain that keeps quietly, subconsciously rearranging my entire life’s schedule to fit around his. I’ve been calculating for weeks that if I just don’t encourage the butterflies, it’ll eventually stop feeling like this every time I look at him. It hasn't.

“I can’t, Jack. Not this one.”

I expect him to push back a bit, but he just shrugs. “Okay,” he says. “Then here’s what happens. When I land Sunday night, I’m coming straight to you. I don’t care what time it is. I’ll be at your door before I’ve even dropped my bag at my place.”

“You never unpack your bag anyway.”

“Before I don’t unpack it, then.” He tugs my foot until I give up and let him pull me down the couch into him. “Try not to forget about me.”

“I’ll do my best.”

He leaves Thursday morning, and by nine that night I’m incredibly lonely and bored.

I’ve had the apartment to myself plenty of nights, but that was before Britt left. Back then, quiet meant I could finally get some studying done. Now, I’m just sitting cross-legged on my bed with a textbook I’m not actually reading when my phone rings.

“Tell me you miss me,” he says, instead of hello.

“It’s been less than 24 hours.”

“So that’s a yes.” I can hear a TV in the background. “Jude is still at dinner, I’ve got the room to myself, and the first thing I did with my freedom was call you. Draw your own conclusions.”