Chapter 19
NINETEEN
SOS: PERIOD
MONDAY
I’m not sure what I expected when Callan sent me an SOS and a live location in Casterby, the building housing Professor Langton’s office, but reality didn’t match up to my expectations.
I didn’t even know he had my number, for God’s sake.
Sure, we hung out most of Saturday and the bulk of Sunday after we won the game, but I didn’t give him my damn number.
Skidding down the hall in my haste, I find him pacing outside the office door.
“What is it?” I demand, slamming my hands onto my knees as I catch my breath. “What the hell’s wrong, and why isn’t Denny the one messaging me?”
“Where did you come from?”
“Outer Mars,” I snap then, at his furrowed brows, concede, “The admin building.”
“You ran all the way here?”
“This isn’t the Enterprise and I don’t have beam-me-up capabilities yet.”
“Huh.”
“Huh?”
“Which gen?”
“Gen?”
“Star Trek. Who’s your captain?”
I groan. “Seriously?!”
“Denny said you were a nerd. That you were big into LOTR—”
“Is this time appropriate?!”
“Sorry, Denny didn’t ask me to message you, but I figured she’d need you around if you weren’t in class.
“Langton has a boner for Nietzche and a complete disregard for anarcho-primitivism. When D used his philosophies and pointed out an allegory to feminism, then threw in an argument for abandoning civilization to heal—” He must see my eyes glaze over.
“TLDR: Langton’s going to fail her if she doesn’t change the subject of her essay. ”
“Can he do that?”
Callan shrugs. “He’s a tinpot dictator.”
The sound of raised voices comes from the office and I press my ear to the door.
“Just fail me,” I can hear Denny shout. “I need to go!”
“You’re not excused!”
“I won’t change the subject of my essay. You shouldn’t have given us the choice if you—”
When her volume lowers, I turn to Callan. “Shit. She’s telling him to fail her.”
He grimaces. “Maybe if I distract them, you could change her mind?”
“What kind of distraction?”
“I don’t know. I speak jackass. I’ll figure something—”
“How am I supposed to talk her out of flunking?”
Callan rolls his eyes. “Do I have to think of everything?”
Another shriek sounds from the office, followed by an, “Oh, my god, I’m so sorry!”
Concerned, I knock on the door and don’t wait for permission to enter.
Sticking my head through the crack, I take in Denny, on her knees, a—
“Denny, what are you doing?”
Callan’s hands rest on my shoulders and I feel him jumping up behind me for a better view.
“Why is she cleaning his armchair?” he mutters.
As perplexed as he is, I shake my head, then I see the tinge of red on the tissue in her hand and the fact that Langton’s about to make the sign of the cross on his chest.
Jeez, tell me the guy’s single without telling me the guy’s single.
I step into the office and shrug out of my hoodie. When she turns around, I see the extent of the situation. She keeps her face angled away from me, but her cheeks are practically glowing with embarrassment.
“Denny.” I amble closer with the hoodie held out. “Let me?”
Though she gnaws on her lip, she nods. I help her stand then wrap the arms of my hoodie around her hips and tie them into a knot.
“May I be excused now, professor?” she bites off as I douse her hands in sanitizer. “Or do you want to humiliate me further?!”
“Yes, of course,” Langton, the asshole, bleats, equally as discomfited.
Picking up her bag and tossing it over my shoulder, I scurry her out of the office and to the nearest restroom.
When she mumbles something, I prod, “What did you say, babe?”
“I don’t have any change for period products.”
“No worries. I carry some of your things with me.”
“You carry tampons?”
What started as a shout ends in a hiss.
I frown at her. “Not for fun. Pecan and I both carry them.”
“You do?!” Her mouth pops open and closed. “Since when?”
I scrub the back of my neck. “Since that time we went to the pool in—”
“Since we were fourteen?!”
“Sure. Mom suggested it. It’s not like we’re lugging around bricks,” I tack on, shuffling her along to the restroom.
“You two numbnuts amaze me,” she counters, her voice high-pitched.
“That doesn’t sound like a compliment to me.”
“Can’t get either of you to remember to buy milk but you go and do something sweet like this.” She sniffles. “I have the best friends.”
Ah, shit.
I should have realized she was PMSing when she yanked on my ear Friday night and stalked off.
Denny’s never been afraid to get in our faces, but she only cries around this time of the month.
“D, this has nothing to do with the pill, right?”
Drenched eyes meet mine. She cups my cheek, the first time she’s ever done that, then smoothes her thumb over the worried crinkle in my brow.
“No.”
The simple answer is all I get before she escapes into the restroom with my backpack. I let the wall prop me up and wait for her.
When Callan finds me, concern etched into his expression, I grunt.
Yes, it’s annoying that Denny likes him.
Yes, it was aggravating that she chose to sit next to him at breakfast this morning—again.
And yes, it’s wrong that she lets him call her Denny.
But… he did her a solid so that means I can’t give him too much shit when I’m the jealous one here.
“Is she okay?”
“She’s fine. How’s her moron of a professor? I heard her tell him that she had to leave. This could’ve been avoided.”
“I have a feeling the last time he came into contact with vaginal blood was when he was born.”
I snicker. “He did look like he’d been crash-landed into a horror movie.”
“Idiot. I managed to get Denny an extension on her essay, and he said that if she can make her topic better fit the requirements, she can stick with feminism and how philosophy can and often does come across as misogynistic.”
“Now I remember why I’m not taking that class.”
He chuckles. “I’ll help her out with it. Don’t worry.”
Folding my arms across my chest, I watch as a couple students pass us by. “You got a crush on her?”
Callan shrugs. “Denny’s cool. Mostly, I just want to be friends with her.”
“Why?”
“Didn’t you hear me say she’s cool?”
“I know that. So does Pecan—”
“Don’t tell me, you think it’s so I can get closer to you two?” He hoots. “Don’t worry about it. I like hockey but not that much.”
Something about his droll tone makes me believe him.
He sounds… indifferent.
Which is very refreshing.
“She’s okay?” He tugs on his ear. “Looked like a lot of blood…”
“More humiliated than distressed, I think.”
“Not her first period, is it?”
“No. Doesn’t matter.”
“What doesn’t?” Denny asks when she steps outside, my hoodie still around her waist, but her expression’s less pinched now that the situation is under control.
Maybe, underneath, there’s still a measure of embarrassment, but I think she’s doing better.
Nothing could be worse than that blood bath of a pool party when we were fourteen.
And I mean nothing.
“We were just talking about Langton,” Callan inserts smoothly.
“What about that asshole? I tried to leave and then when I stood up and I’d bled on his precious armchair, you’d think I murdered his cat!” she proclaims. “Thank fuck that’s my only class today. I’m so ready to go home.”
“I’m done for the day too, but I have practice tonight.”
“I remember.”
“You wanna grab a bite to eat with us at our place, Callan?”
My generous offer is worth it when she beams a smile my way like I’m a toddler who learned to talk and walk at the same time. “That’d be awesome. You don’t have computer science until later, right?”
“You sure?” Callan asks, nervously eying me over—the fucker’s not a total moron, then. He’s picked up on the fact I’m not a big fan of his.
Denny elbows me in the side until I grate out, “Positive.”