Page 13 of Josh’s Play

“Yeah, she wrote Frankenstein. I refuse to call you a monster.” He was speaking softly still, forcing me to stick close to him and strain my neck up to hear him as we walked down the hallway.

“All right, Fifty-Nine, I’ll take it. Hand’s about the same. I have an appointment later this week. Hopefully the pins will come out.” I flashed my brace at him, and we both smiled.

“That’s good.” The hall we walked down felt miles long, and I had no idea how to fill the silence. There were people everywhere, moving to and from classes, chatting as if walking down the hallway with another person and having a conversation was a normal, easy thing.

In that low, soft voice, Campbell said, “Everyone calls me Fifty-Nine.” He sounded less than positive about it.

“Oh, shit, sorry. You don’t like it?”

“It’s not that …” He shrugged but didn’t explain.

“Okay, a challenge, then. Hmm? Fifty-Nine. FN. Ooh, how about Finn, like that movie?” I pulled out my phone and quickly changed Campbell’s contact information from Fifty-Nine to Finn. I flashed my phone for him to see, and he smiled.

We kept walking until I stopped outside a classroom door. “Room 105; this is me.”

I wouldn’t have thought it possible, but his blush deepened. “Sports journalism? Me too.”

“Well, alright, then, Finn, let’s get to class!” As it turned out, talking to Campbell Ryan was fairly easy.

He opened the door for me, holding it open by the doorknob, forcing me once again to brush past him to fit through it, close enough to smell man and citrus and spice.

“After you, Shelley.”

I looked back as he followed me in, and his face had gone absolutely crimson. Fuck me, how was I going to survive three months in a class with the closeted hockey player?

We walked in, and of course he sat right next to me, but no sooner had we sat down than the man standing at the front of the room, whom I assumed to be the professor, came over to us. He looked vaguely familiar, like I’d met him at some faculty event my parents had dragged me to. It wouldn’t be the first time a professor sought me out in class to talk about one or both of my parents. I sat up straighter, noting how I was still a head shorter than Campbell, who sat slumped in his seat next to me.

To my surprise, the man went right up to Campbell.

“Campbell Ryan, I saw your name on my roster. I’m Professor Dayden. It’s really nice to meet you. I’m looking forward to this season. The team’s looking really good this year.”

“Nice to meet you, too, Professor.” I noticed that Campbell avoided talking about his team’s prospects.

“How’s the ankle?”

“Almost good as new.” Campbell stuck his foot out and swirled his ankle, and how adorable was that? “I was cleared for practice over a week ago. Great to be back on the ice, sir.”

“Glad you’re here, Ryan!”

“Thank you, sir.” Campbell shot me an embarrassed smile.

Class started, and Professor Dayden read down the roster, eventually getting to “Joshua Marchetti-Gordon” and looking up in acknowledgment but refraining from calling me out in front of the class.

“Welcome, class,” the professor began. “You should have the syllabus on the portal, and we’ll spend most of our classroom time discussing the various articles and broadcast videos I’ve assigned. There will be no final exam in this class, only a final project. Each of you will be assigned a sport, and you will either write an article or create a video about it. The criteria other than that is intentionally nonspecific. You can partner up or work alone. I want you to create the project you want. Check your email later tonight for your assigned sport.”

Great, I thought. This would be the perfect opportunity for me to bond with Hunter and feature Hampstead Valley’s own high school pitching phenom in a news article. I bet I could even get it published in the school paper, seeing as the article would feature the child of two of the school’s favorite academics.

And how bad could it be to have to sit next to Campbell Ryan for the rest of the semester? We’d had a moment, that was all. I had moments with guys all over campus all the time. I could handle one cute hockey player twice a week.

We walked out of the building together after class, and he held the damn front door open for me, like some kind of gentleman. I mumbled a, “Thank you,” and a, “See ya,” and intentionally headed in the opposite direction from him.

“Yeah,” he said to my fading back, and I had to turn around and throw a lopsided smile to match his. He sent a thumb over his shoulder. “I’m off to practice. But I’ll see you in class on Thursday, yeah?”

All I wanted to do was walk with him to the sports complex and chat some more, so I intentionally took a few steps backward to make it clear to him I was thinking just the opposite.

“Glad to hear your ankle’s better. See you Thursday, Finn.”

His face lit up at that before he averted his eyes. Fuck me, had I been flirting?