“I wanted to thank you.” Kelvin dropped a wad of folded up twenties on the bed. “Matty got his first B. It was glorious. He barely finished his test. He had to run it up to the professor. He’s never done that!”
Coop didn’t share in Kelvin’s good news. He imagined Matty scrambling to finish, and he hated to think he was the cause.
“Don’t worry,” Kelvin said, reading his mind. “Because he got a B, the curve kicked in finally. So he still got an A, and I got my first B-minus.”
“Everybody wins,” Coop deadpanned.
“They do. Why do you seem upset by this?” Kelvin adjusted the shiny watch on his wrist. He was an ugly Polo shirt and a motorized cart away from a golf course.
“Matty’s a good guy. I don’t want to see him fail.”
“Matty doesn’t care about anyone else except Matty. You should see him in class. He’s practically staring us down like we’re on a battlefield. I know he wants that precious research position. If that’ll make him happy, go for it. But my future isn’t going down in the process.”
Coop scowled at him, his blood a watched pot waiting to boil. He knew this was how the world saw Matty, but they weren’t looking hard enough. They didn’t know how much it meant to Matty to be the smartest kid in the room. Coop appreciated that Matty made people work to get through his tough exterior. He didn’t want to waste his time being fake friends or trying to be everyone’s buddy.
“He’s not going to fail,” Kelvin said. “Just keep doing what you’re doing. After one more test, he’ll get hooked on the power of the curve in no time.”
Coop felt better. Kelvin, despite his intentions, was right. Matty would never let his grades drop far enough to actually risk failing. Because of Coop, he did slightly less well. He had a good time on Saturday night. That was worth a few points on a test.
He handed Kelvin back his money. “I don’t need these little bonuses.”
“You sure about that? That’s sixty bucks right there.”
He thought of Matty and his family, two forces pulling in his mind. He stuck the cash in his pocket, which he planned to mail off in another envelope immediately. “You can go now, Kelvin.”
“Keep up the good work.” Kelvin gave him one more punchable smile and a thumbs-up before leaving.
* * *
The networking eventwas held in the atrium of the graduate business school building, a place Coop had walked past and never set foot in. He always saw stressed out MBA students smoking in front and checking the stock ticker on their phones.I’ll pass on that.
Inside, the building resembled a swanky office lobby that belonged in Midtown Manhattan. High ceilings, lots of marble, and elevator banks you couldn’t access unless you had a pass.
His client, who seemed too nervous to work at a Denny’s let alone a Fortune 500 company, would nod at somebody he wanted to talk to, and Coop would make the introduction. After almost two hours of smalltalk about Chinese expansion and organizational management, Coop was ready to claw his eyes out. He zoned out during conversations and thought about how Matty was doing. He wanted to make sure the guy was okay and wasn’t spiraling from getting a B pre-curve. And he just, well, wanted to see what was up with him.
Fuck, I do have a crush.
Coop didn’t have any interest in dating all year, and then the one guy he was paid to hang out with, the nerd who nerds, made him lose his mind. He checked the large clock hanging in the lobby, and the second it hit nine, Coop tapped his client on the shoulder. “My two hours are up.”
His forehead creased with a fault line of worry. “Can you stay for a little bit longer? I’ll pay overtime.”
“You got this. You’ve talked to a bunch of people tonight. Just be you.”
“Do you ever feel like an impostor?”
“All the time. But we all are. Every person in this room is faking it.”Everyone was faking it, except for Matty.He was the most genuine person Coop had met at Browerton, maybe ever. Coop clapped his client on the shoulder. “You’ll be great. Fake your heart out to these people. Text me later about how it went.”
Coop whooshed out of the double doors of the mixer and jogged up to Matty’s dorm. His body fizzed with excitement. .
“Hey, it’s Coop.” He said into the buzzer. “Can we talk?”
Coop bounced on his toes waiting for an answer.
“Sure. I’m room 312.” Matty buzzed him in.
Barely a minute later, Coop was at his door. He took in the glorious sight of those big, curious, brown eyes and full lips.
“Did you mean what you said at the pool?” Matty asked, not wasting a second. “Do you see us as being friends? Or were you blowing me off?”
