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“Just pull your grades up and we don’t have to worry about it,” I tell him. “Let fuckface over there say whatever shit he wants. He’s not Coach, and he doesn’t have any say in what happens to any of us.”
“Exactly,” Zach chimes in. “Just focus on what we’re doing with Tori and the rest will come together as it’s meant to. She’s teaching us textbook chemistry, and we’re teaching her the real kind of chemistry, if you know what I mean.”
He winks and the three of us laugh once more.
I have to admit, this whole idea really is working out better than expected.
And with how well things are going, I have full confidence we’re going to be able to get our grades up where they should be. This is the most unconventional way of doing things possible, but who cares?
If it works, it works.
And I’m okay with that.
NINE
ZACH
“I’m telling you, by the time Monday rolls around, I’m going to do something in class to make Professor Hudson feel stupid for calling on me,” I announce as the three of us head over to Tori’s dorm.
“Um, how are you going to make her feel stupid?” Cory asks.
“You know she’s calling on us with the idea we’re going to mess up,” I reply. “And that’s not going to happen. She’s going to have some bullshit question she wants answered, and I’m going to spit it out like it’s nothing.”
“As much as I’d kill to see you embarrass her, I don’t think you will,” Taylor says. “She’s just one of those people who doesn’t ever seem to let herself be caught off guard.”
“I’m sure she’s used to ruling the roost, but I’m telling you I’m not putting up with it. She’s met her match with me. What is she? Some middle-aged woman who’s done nothing with her life but become a professor at some collage. It’s not like she’s some world-renowned anyone who has done anything great,” I say. “And I’m telling you, when the three of us get out of this place and our hockey careers blow up, she’s going to feel really stupid with what she did.”
“Or she’s going to take full credit for being the one who pushed us to do better in chemistry and stay on our hockey team,” Cory says with a shake of his head. “I bet you anything that’s the angle she’s going to take with this. Not that she’s fucked up and pushed us in the wrong direction, but more like we’re somehow going to have her to thank for us making it in the pro leagues.”
“Fuck, you’re right,” I say. “That pisses me off!”
“But you still get your day in court, so to speak,” Taylor tells me. “It’s not like you’re ever going to have to see her again after we leave this place, and you’re still going to get the satisfaction of pulling up your grades and acting like it’s nothing while you do it, you know?”
“That’s fair, but it’s not the same level of satisfaction I feel like I’d get if I were to just, I don’t know, be able to prove a point and show her that we don’t need the damn chemistry to be able to make something of ourselves,” I say.
“Feel that.”
“Heard.”
Cory and Taylor both agree with me, but we’re nearly to Tori’s place, so the subject changes from Professor Hudson to our current project.
“We going to hop right into things with her tonight?” Cory asks. “I don’t want to deal with chemistry.”
“I feel like if we don’t do chemistry first, we’re not going to get to it,” Taylor says.
“Hence why I don’t want to do it first,” Cory says.
“Come on, you’re the one who’s insisting that we get this shit up so we can stay on our team. Don’t get cold feet on us now,” I tell him.
“I’m not. It’s just, I don’t know,” Cory says. “Doing the tutoring work with Tori is fun at least. But when we have to deal with the chemistry shit it’s not. I would way rather practice making out and shit like that than dealing with the science and numbers and all that fucking stupid shit that goes into chemistry.”
“Fair, and I’m right there with you,” I say. “But again, you know we have to put up with this shit if we’re going to stay on the team. And I’m serious. The day is coming when I put our dear professor in her place when she tries to humiliate us in front of the entire class. I’m over it.”
“Same,” Taylor says. “I almost feel like she’s doing what she can to hide a smirk or something when she picks one of us.”
“Fucking right?” I say as I knock on the door. “But like we talked about already, this is our key to staying on the team and getting through this place. It’s the thing we’ve got to do to go big, and believe me, we’re going big.”
My two best friends agree with me just as Tori opens the door.
