Chapter 2
Gray
I’ve been staring at my computer screen for fifteen minutes. I know because it’s set to go to sleep after that long, and it just went blank.
The empty document reappears and stares judgmentally at me when I jiggle the mouse, each blink of the cursor a finger tap on the desk.
I wanted to start writing a book based on my recent research study today, but it’s not happening, and I grimace at the waste of time.
It’s the fourth week of classes, and it’s that sweet spot between the first few weeks of the semester, when there’s a constant stream of students coming by for signatures to add a class or to ask questions that are answered in the syllabus, and the sixth week when students realize they’re not prepared for their first exam.
For the next week or two, my office hours will be sparsely attended, so I need to use them productively.
I type the word “The.” I have no idea what comes next, but lots of sentences begin with the word “the,” so I’m playing the odds.
I’m about to delete the word when a tall form fills my doorway. The young man in the threshold must be almost six and a half feet tall, and his shoulders are so broad they nearly touch the sides of the doorjamb. He wears loose jeans and a hoodie with the hood pulled over his head.
I assume he’s a football player, and I mentally scan the room in my Introduction to Communication course, trying to picture who this could be.
I’m good about knowing the names of the students in my smaller seminar classes by the end of the first week, but I’ll be lucky if I remember half the faces in my three hundred-person COMM 1000 lecture before the end of the semester.
The young man steps into the room, filling it with his presence, and I feel a tingle up my spine.
It’s that tingle a woman gets when she’s facing a strange man, and instinct tells her to run while years of social grooming tell her not to make a scene.
There’s something oddly…overwhelming about this guy.
I close my laptop and smile up at the young man, social grooming winning out. “Can I help you?”
“Dr. Mackey?” he asks, only half looking up.
“Yes.”
“I was wondering if I can have a few minutes of your time.”
I raise a brow. Maybe a bit too polite for a football player? His voice is soft and deep, and something about it soothes my worries.
“That’s what my office hours are for,” I say. “Have a seat.”
The kid glances down either side of the hall before coming in and closing the door behind him. The closed door puts me on edge again, and I consider reaching into my purse to thread my keys through my fingers, just in case. The guy seems nervous, and that sets off alarm bells.
When he finally pulls his hood back, I have to suppress my shock.
He’s older than I thought, a man, not a kid. He’s likely in his twenties, but closer to my age than to an undergrad. He has a broad forehead and a strong, clean-shaven jaw that narrows into a pointed chin. His deep-set eyes look hazel, but the light in my office isn’t great, so I can’t be sure.
“Thanks for seeing me,” he says as he sits in the chair across the desk from me. It looks laughably small beneath him.
He runs a hand through soft brown hair that’s several inches long on top.
It falls back around his face in a way that gives him a slightly unkempt look, which – now that I’m no longer on edge – is sexy as hell.
The hair would easily cover his eyes if he combed it forward, but it’s only long enough to cover his neck further down.
Somehow the whole package is both boyish and rugged at the same time.
I guess he’s a graduate student, or he wants to be. Potential grad students often visit professors they want to study with before applying to a school, but I pray he’s not here to ask me to be his research advisor.
I recently published a study on trash talk that catapulted me into the spotlight as an ‘expert’ on the subject.
Since then, students have asked me about working on similar studies, but if that’s what this man wants, I’ll have to turn him away.
There’s no way I’d be able to work with him and not have filthy, sinful thoughts that would risk getting me fired.
As it is, I hate myself for caring that my hair is hastily thrown up into a messy bun today or that the florescent lights in this office make it look dirty blonde rather than golden like it is in the sun. I’m also wearing a shapeless cardigan over an even more shapeless skirt.
The man eases back in his small chair, trying to get comfortable, and I note the way his long legs stick out in a manspread.
“Dr. Mackey, I’m Ash Gunnarsson,” he says and pauses.
I cock my head, waiting for more. It seems like he expects me to know the name, but honestly, it sounds made up.
I nod. “Good to meet you, Ash. What can I do for you?”
“You…study trash talk, right?”
“I do.”
He pauses. “Do you know who I am?”
I frown, and now I’m worried. Please don’t let him be the son of the dean or the president of the university. I don’t have tenure yet, and I’ll be fired before the end of the year if I have to take him on as a student.
“No,” I say. “Should I?”
He looks relieved. “It’s probably better you don’t,” he says, “and I need you to keep this visit confidential.”
My frown deepens. “Confidential? Why? Who are you?”
He looks at me for a long moment. “Confidential, right?” he asks. “There’s some law or something about that, isn’t there? You can’t tell anyone what I tell you?”
I smile. “This isn’t a confessional, Mr. Gunnarsson, and I’m not a priest. The law you’re talking about is FERPA, the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act.
It’s a federal law that protects student educational records.
It means I can’t tell people things like your grades without your permission, but it only applies to students, and I have a feeling you’re not a student here. ”
His face falls, and I have mercy on him.
“That being said, I have no desire or reason to tell anyone your business, so why don’t you just tell me what you need.”
He eyes me, obviously weighing if he can trust me or not. At this point, my curiosity is piqued enough that I need to know why he’s here.
“I’m one of the centers for the Hartford Hydra,” he says finally.
It takes a moment for my brain to make sense of that, but then it hits me. He’s a professional hockey player on Connecticut’s new team. Or their relatively new one. If I recall, the team was formed last year and didn’t have the most auspicious start.
Trying to get a new sports team off the ground in Connecticut is an uphill battle.
We’re a small state, and we’re wedged between Boston and New York, two professional sports powerhouses, both with their own NHL teams. The Hartford Hydra’s owner, billionaire Max Kaladin, seems to have more money than brains, though, so good luck to him.
“New to the team?” I guess.
“Yes,” Ash says. “Mr. Kaladin brought me on this season to help turn the team around, but I have a problem we…I hope you can help with.”
My brow furrows. “How exactly can I help?”
He hesitates. “I’m a great player,” he says. “Probably one of the best centers in the league if I put modesty aside, but I have a problem staying focused when guys are chirping at me.”
My brows pinch deeper. “Chirping at you? As in…”
“Trash talking,” he clarifies. “I get rattled. I was able to keep it under wraps for a few seasons, but it just got worse until it came to a head at the end of last season, and…things didn’t end well.”
“I see.”
“Do you follow hockey, Dr. Mackey?”
I shake my head. I don’t watch as many sports as a person who studies sport communication should, and hockey was never at the top of my list.
“So then you don’t know how my last season with Tampa Bay ended.”
“No.”
He exhales deeply. “Long story short, I imploded in the playoffs. My contract was up, and they decided not to renew me. Since then, word has gotten around about my issue, and other teams are reluctant to pick me up. Only Mr. Kaladin was willing to take a chance on me, and I can’t disappoint him.
He’s the one who gave me your name and suggested I contact you. ”
“Suggested?” I ask.
“He said it was my choice to put in the work or not. He wants me to take responsibility for the issue, so here I am.”
“I don’t understand what you need from me,” I say. “I’m a Professor of Communication. I’m not a sport psychologist. I’m not even a regular psychologist. I have no clinical background. Surely you have a sport psychologist on staff who can help you with this.”
He scoffs. “We do, but he has no idea how to help me. Everyone knows trash talk happens, but their attitude is to suck it up and ignore it.”
“So exactly what do you want me to do for you, Mr. Gunnarsson?”
“You know how trash talk works. Can’t you…” He waves a large hand in the air as if he’s flourishing a magic wand. “Fix me?”
I let out a small laugh. “You want an intervention.”
He frowns. “You mean like…you’d get all my teammates together and have them tell me how much they need me and shit?” He closes his eyes. “Please just don’t tell me we all have to hug, because there’s no way I’m hugging Mack or Kingston.”
“No, nothing like that,” I say. “An intervention in social science is when we design a strategy or action to adjust a behavior that addresses a problem. Essentially, it’s an attempt to intervene and alter an existing dynamic.
We deal in inoculations and interventions.
If we want to prevent a certain behavior from starting, we inoculate against it.
If we need to stop or alter a behavior that’s already happening, we design an intervention. ”
His face scrunches as he tries to wrap his head around my scholar-speak. “So…it would fix me,” he says finally, interpreting my words.
I open my mouth to say it’s not that simple but decide against it. “Sure. If successful, an intervention would fix you,” I say instead.