Nothing.
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“To recover from last semester, I might need straight As. But if that’s impossible, I’ll concede with a mix of As and Bs.”
Finally, he opened his eyes. “How badly did you do?”
“Under a two-point-oh.”
His brows shot up, but he wasn’t even looking at my chest. Like he didn’t even care. I drew my arms together to make my cleavage more pronounced.
“You need a two-point-eight to get into the third and fourth years of chemical engineering.” His eyes didn’t stray. He barely even blinked.
“Duh, I know that. Hence the plea for help.”
He placed his arms behind his head, his elbows sticking up in the air. Still nothing. Not even a stealthy look.
“Doing old tests from previous semesters is a good way to study before an exam,” Jay said.
“And where would I find those?”
He sat up. “The school has an online database.”
“They do?”
“Yes, but I’m not sure how current they are. I could talk to some of the sophomores and juniors on the cross-country team who are in engineering. They might have kept theirs.”
“That would be awesome, Jay.”
“No problem.” He grabbed onto the sides of the chair, pushed himself up, and then gathered his things. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Sure.”
And without glancing at me again, he left.
I stared at the closed door, then down at my boobs. Interesting. I mean, not Jay’s willingness to help me with my classes or his concerns about my well-being, but his complete disregard for what any straight, horny male would like to look at without having to page through a Victoria’s Secret catalog. Not that I wanted him to, because we were friends, but wow. I’d expected at least a snide comment, not complete indifference.
Back at my closet, I changed and then started digging for my ice skates.
I wasn’t going to confront Jay about his sexuality. I wouldn’t want to put him in an awkward position, and I didn’t want to offend him if I was wrong. But I was going to have to pay more attention to the words I used, the actions I took. I wanted him to know I would be supportive of him no matter what.
My hand landed on my skating bag, and I pulled it out. I unzipped the top and lifted one of the boots out. The Vaseline I’d applied to the blades last summer to prevent them from oxidizing was still intact. I grinned.
It was going to be fun skating with Dallas.
Nineteen
The Skate Date
Ilaced up my skates. They weren’t as comfortable as I remembered, and the blades needed sharpening, but otherwise they felt all right.
I stood, my heart beating a little faster. It had been a while since I’d stepped onto the ice. Too busy with school.
After I did a couple laps, Dallas was still nowhere to be seen, but at that moment, I didn’t care. The cold air whooshed across my face, and the edges of my skates carved deep into the ice underneath me. It couldn’t get much better. I turned around and did some backward crossovers into a spin. I’d missed this. The feeling of flying.
Until Dallas whipped past and bumped my shoulder. That was the thing about hockey players. They always wanted to show off how fast they were, and how they could stop on a dime and switch directions. That trick didn’t impress me. I was influenced by gracefulness. The movement from one technical element to the next with the ease of a plane lifting off the ground and into the sky.
To me, figure skating was the superior sport. Of course, I was biased because I was never good at stick handling. When I’d played hockey, I was the outcast. The shy girl who didn’t play tough, who kept her angst inside and didn’t have the internal desire to be the aggressive scrapper my father had wanted me to be.
