Chapter 28
Ethan
This can’t be real.
‘You did good work there, Ethan,’ Dr Vine says when I make no attempt to leave her office after our tutorial. ‘I was particularly impressed with your research, it’s always clear to me when someone has put the hours in at the library.’
‘Thank you.’
Getting the words out is a struggle, I’m still staring at the number.
‘Keep it up and I’m excited to see where you get to by the end of the year.
’ Dr Vine smiles at me from behind her desk, the office warm with the scent of her peppermint tea.
‘Perhaps you’ll be the first Premier League striker-slash-psychologist. If we can’t pry you away from sport and lure you over to the exciting world of research, that is. ’
‘Hey, you never know.’ I turn the paper over, tugging at the stapled marking sheet. ‘You’re sure this is my paper?’
‘Positive. Is there something wrong?’
Only that I’ve never seen such a high score next to my name in my life.
‘Nothing, all good. All great. Thanks, Dr Vine.’
I stumble out of her office and into the hallway, heading straight for the closest set of double doors until I’m outside in daylight.
It’s still a 72. It’s still a first. I’ve been satisfied to be a low B student my entire academic career.
Good enough to keep me on the team without demanding too much effort.
This is … unreal. All I want to do is text everyone I ever met and brag but I can’t.
My brick of a phone is back in my room and even if I had it here, who would I message?
It doesn’t matter because there’s only one person whose opinion counts right now and I know exactly where she is.
After Indiana Jones traded diamonds in Club Obi Wan but before she ran out of my room, Mia mentioned she was working the lunchtime shift at Members.
According to my watch, it’s twelve-thirty p.m..
Definitely lunchtime. It’s an effort to remind myself that what happened last night was a mistake in her eyes, a one-time thing never to be repeated.
I’ve thought about what she said, laid awake until the sun came up thinking about it, and I can live with it, as long as she stays in my life.
What I cannot stand is the idea of losing her all together.
Being just friends with Mia might be the death of me, but what a way to go.
I’m not the only one who decided to pay Mia a visit at work.
As I tear through the door of Members, she’s the first thing I see. The second is that floppy-haired, leather jacket-wearing asshat, Oliver.
‘Oh, hey.’ Mia looks startled when I come to a sudden halt like that cartoon roadrunner, a look of disdain frozen on my face. ‘Hi. Hello. You know Oliver?’
‘Yeah, we’ve met.’
I give him the dude’s nod, but all I get in return is a condescending smile.
‘Remind me of the name again? Steven, was it?’
‘Ethan,’ Mia says quickly. ‘It’s Ethan. Can I get you anything?’
‘Just a Coke,’ I tell her as I squeeze the straps of my backpack so tightly the leather cuts into my palms. ‘I have training this afternoon.’
Oliver swirls a pint glass filled with dark brown beer in circles on the bar, leaving a trail of condensation that Mia immediately moves to clean up. ‘What are you training for? Spelling bee?’
‘Football.’ It comes out through gritted teeth. ‘I’m on the football team.’
‘Captain of the football team.’
Mia swoops in with a save Michael would be proud of, but it’s too little too late.
He knows he’s scoring points off me, I can tell by the smug look on his face.
If I’m totally honest, he’d won before I walked through the door.
It’s obvious Mia is into him and not me, or she wouldn’t have left my bed in the middle of the night.
‘So it’s you, is it?’ Oliver clucks his tongue as though something suddenly makes sense. ‘I’d heard there was a Yank causing trouble on the team. Showed up at the last minute? Stole the captaincy from Assad?’
‘Hey, fuck you, I didn’t steal anything. Assad is co-captain.’
‘Okay, calm down,’ he chuckles. ‘Just what I heard. My mistake.’
The insult hits harder than it should. He’s pushing my buttons and I’m falling for it. Mia hands me the Coke with a look that could be concern or a warning.
‘Yeah, well, there’s no tension in my team. Coach made me co-captain because I’m good.’
‘No need to take it so seriously, it’s only a game. I used to play when I was a kid. I was bloody good as well, but I had to pack it in when I got serious about my music. Can’t risk an injury taking me out. If I broke my arm and couldn’t play guitar, I don’t know what I’d do.’
‘How would the world survive?’ I mumble into my glass.
Wringing a damp bar towel between her hands, Mia wears a tense expression that makes me hate this guy even more.
She’s so awkward around him, like she’s afraid of saying the wrong thing, as if his opinion even matters.
She’s so far out of his league and she doesn’t even know it.
Casually, I lean over the bar to check out the rest of her outfit, a cute blue sweater and a long skirt with a slit that flashes enough thigh to make me choke on my soda when she moves.
‘We were just talking about the dance this weekend,’ she says as I cover up my splutter with a forced cough. ‘Are you going?’
‘There’s a dance?’
‘No one told you?’ Oliver might sound surprised, but he looks thrilled. ‘And just so you know, at Hemden, it’s called a bop.’
‘A bop? What the hell is bop?’
‘It’s a Hemden tradition.’ Oliver pauses to take a long drink, like he expects us all to hang on his every damn word. ‘My grandfather was a student here in the Sixties and they had bops back then. Most Hemden traditions are older than your country.’
‘So is the bubonic plague but I don’t think anyone is fighting to get that back.’
‘It’s going to be fun,’ Mia interjects before I can lose my shit. ‘It’s a costume party, the theme is “Anything but Clothes”.’
‘Costume party? Sweet.’ I snap my fingers with approval. ‘I can get on board with that. You ever go to the Marshall “You Are What You Drink” party?’
Alice emerges from the stockroom, wrinkling her tiny nose. ‘“You Are What You Drink”? How does that work?’
‘Dress up as your beverage of choice,’ I explain. ‘There’s usually more than one Captain Morgan and at least ten Jack Daniels but people get creative. Last year I went as a Pabst Blue Ribbon.’
‘And what did you wear?’
I grin right at her. ‘A blue ribbon.’
‘Sorry, Mia, I’d better go,’ Oliver announces even though no one was talking to him in the first place. ‘I’ve got a tutorial in fifteen minutes and it’s all the way over in Lawton, but I’ll see you tonight, yeah?’
‘Tonight,’ Mia repeats as she takes his pint glass and places it in a crate at her feet.
‘Steven,’ he says to me as he walks past, brushing his shoulder against mine.
The fact I don’t knock his head clean off his shoulders is almost as impressive as the score on my psych paper.
‘I’m going to collect some empties,’ Alice says, slipping out from behind the bar. ‘Shout if you need help.’
She’s talking to Mia but looking at me, flashing a smirk in my direction.
‘What’s tonight?’ I ask when it’s just the two of us.
‘Bryn has a performance.’ She takes my Coke and refills it from the soda gun without asking. ‘He plays violin with the school orchestra, they’re playing a new piece tonight. We’re all gonna go.’
‘That sounds cool.’
She looks more surprised than I would prefer.
‘It does?’
‘A guy can have layers,’ I tell her, full of mock offence. ‘Just because I’m a dumb jock doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate classical music. My soccer coach at Marshall turned me on to it, for studying mostly, but I know my Mozart from my Mahler.’
‘Colour me impressed,’ she replies. ‘I assumed you’d be more of a rock or rap kind of a guy.’
‘Just because I’m blasting Kendrick before a game doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate a little Debussy when it’s time to concentrate.’
‘Well, Claire De Lune is great.’
She smiles at me and I smile right back because as soon as that dipshit is gone, she’s right back to being herself. A happier version of Mia, who doesn’t walk on eggshells. The same Mia who was pressed against my body in the early hours of the morning.
‘And enough of that dumb jock stuff,’ she says as I hose those thoughts down with a deep chug of soda. ‘I thought we’d agreed to knock that off.’
‘That reminds me.’
With an impossible amount of pride, I throw off my backpack and pull out my psych paper, holding it up for her approval.
‘Ta-da.’
‘Ethan!’ she exclaims, snatching it out of my hands. ‘You got a first on your paper?’
The look on her face is an even better reward that the score itself. ‘Can you believe it?’
‘Yes. I absolutely can.’
Shit. Something inside me swells up, and for once, it is not my dick. The way she’s looking at me, the conviction in her voice.
‘You studied your ass off, you got a good grade,’ Mia says. ‘You deserve this.’
I take a mental picture of the moment, Mia looking at me from behind the bar, the sun shining in through the window to light her like an angel, and add it to my mental scrapbook of positive reinforcement.
Along with Clive’s approving nod, the peppermint scent of Dr Vine’s office and …
and that’s it. Woah. Everything suddenly feels shaky and I have to pinch my thigh through the pocket of my pants to distract myself. Am I about to fucking cry?
‘It’s nothing, one paper, just a fluke.’
I shove the essay back into my backpack and zip it up tight, as though I’m afraid it might escape somehow.
‘So, this thing tonight, Bryn’s recital,’ I say, switching subjects to the only other thing I can think of. ‘Am I the last person on campus to hear about it? Like the bop?’
‘I don’t think so,’ she replies. ‘According to Alice, we’re mostly going so he doesn’t end up playing to an empty auditorium.’
‘You should come!’
Alice reappears with perfect timing, beaming at the side of me like the sneaky little pixie she’s turning out to be.
‘Tonight?’ I reply. ‘Me?’
She nods slowly. ‘Yes, Ethan. Tonight. You. Come on, it’ll be fun.’
Hanging out with Mia and Alice would be fun. Could be fun, if it weren’t for the fact Oliver will be there too.
Mia lets out an uncomfortable laugh. ‘I think Ethan has better things to do than sit through a student orchestra performance, right?’
There’s a question in her voice and in her eyes and it doesn’t make me think she doesn’t want me around.
‘It’s not just any student performance, Mia,’ Alice argues. ‘It’s Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto in D major.’
I hold up my hands in surrender.
‘Say less. I would risk it all for Tchaikovsky in any key. Unless …’ I look over at Mia, needing confirmation. ‘Unless it’s a date situation?’
‘It’s a group hang situation,’ Alice says before she can speak. ‘You should definitely come. It’s at the Goldbeck Theatre, starts at seven. We’ll meet you there.’
‘You’re sure it’s okay?’
‘It’s okay,’ Mia answers this time. ‘I guess we’re all going to suffer together.’
I pound the rest of my Coke and she shakes her head when I take out my card to pay.
‘On me,’ she says and I’m relieved. She can’t be that mad about me crashing her date if she’s paying for my drinks, even if it is just a soda.
A quick glance at my watch says it’s twelve-fifty, time for me to head to practice.
‘I’ll see you both tonight,’ I say, sliding my arms into the straps of my backpack and pulling tight. And, yeah, I know exactly how they make my biceps bulge against the tight sleeves of my T-shirt, but more importantly, unless I’m mistaken, Mia is totally checking me out. ‘Seven p.m.?’
‘Seven p.m.,’ Alice confirms. ‘Don’t be late.’
And risk missing out on even one more minute with Mia?
‘Wouldn’t dream of it,’ I reply, watching as my roommate wipes down the bar, completely oblivious. ‘I’ll be there.’