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Classes are proving to be challenging already; junior year is no joke. I’m studying every night at this point until my head hurts from a variety of Environmental Science and genetic terms. Today in class, I sit next to Derek like I always do, but this time he’s acting different, a bit fidgety.
“What’s up?” I ask halfway through lab.
“Would you want to study together sometime?” He looks at me with hopeful eyes and brushes his blonde hair off his forehead.
“Sure, you can come to my place, I’ll text you the address.” I give him a smile, and adjust my glasses that are slipping down the tip of my nose.
“Really?” he says, his blue eyes lighting up in excitement.
“Sure!” I reply, it’s not like I’m inviting him to fuck me, and we have a big test coming up.
After my next class, I walk to my usual corner in the outdoor cafeteria, but I’m starting to think I need to find a new spot somewhere inside as the weather gets chillier.
I pass by a person unfurling a sign from one of the various flag posts on campus and Elijah's face looks back at me. I almost fall backwards. That’s when I notice the posters all over campus of Elijah’s face on them, him in his hockey jersey, posing with his stick. Fantastic. I decide that skipping lunch would be in my best interest and hang out in the library until I have to go to my next class.
When I get home, I text Derek right away as I grab a snack in the kitchen. The text bubbles pop up as soon as I hit send. Elijah walks through the door the second Derek responds. I put my phone facing downwards as if I have something to hide.
“Elijah,” I say. “Saw your face all over campus today.”
“Taylor,” he says back in the same tone. “Did you like what you saw?”
I roll my eyes and grab my phone. “Can you just admit you were being an ass before, so we can move on from whatever this thing is?”
“What thing?” he says, acting innocently. He walks to the pantry and grabs a jar of peanut butter.
“Don’t you have practice today?”
“Finished early, why do you care?”
“I never said I did.”
“Seems like you care a little,” he says, grabbing a spoon and digging into the peanut butter.
“Whatever, if you don’t want to admit you were being an asshole, we can just go back to not talking.”
“Works for me.” He shrugs and takes another spoonful into his mouth. I cringe at the way he leaves a little bit on the spoon each time before digging back into the communal tub.
An hour later, the doorbell rings, and I race down from my room to the foyer. Elijah beats me to the front door and swings it open, revealing Derek. Derek’s face droops when he sees Elijah.
“Derek,” I say, shoving Elijah out of the way. “Come on in, my rooms upstairs.”
He walks in cautiously with his backpack cinched tightly to his back. He kicks off his shoes, revealing cartoon socks underneath. Elijah laughs, looking like a giant next to him and shuts the door.
“Freak party?” Elijah asks with a grin on his face.
“Hey, Elijah,” Derek says, clearing his throat. “Sorry, some of us actually care about our grades and want a good future.”
Elijah cocks his eyebrow and leans forward. “You’ll be sorry when you’re the one cheering at my games when I’m playing for the NHL.”
Derek scoffs, and I glare at Elijah. “Knock it off,” I hiss, grabbing Derek’s arm.
When we get to my room, I lock the door and dig out my book from my desk.
“Sorry about him,” I say as Derek plops his backpack onto the floor. I never noticed how scrawny he looks, especially side by side with Elijah. We’re the same height, but that’s about average for a guy. I probably outweigh him by ten or twenty pounds. But that extra weight is carried in my curves.
We both get comfortable sitting across from each other on my bed and begin quizzing each other on different molecular terms.
“Tell me the difference between Bcl-1, 2, 3, and 6 genes,” he says, looking down into the heavy textbook glossary.
