I look up and see my TA glaring at me. “Choose. Your phone or this class.”
Wow, she doesn’t mess around. But I knew that. She’s said the same thing to several others in class. “Sorry.” I quickly slip the phone into my pocket and get back to work. I feel it vibrate several more times, but I don’t dare look at it. No matter. I’ve only got a few minutes left in class; I can check after.
As I’m walking out the door, I half expect the TA to pull me aside and give me a good talking-to, but she doesn’t. Luckily.
Once outside, I hoist my heavy backpack behind me and start the long trek back to my scooter. Just as I step onto central campus, my phone chimes. Pulling it out of my back pocket, I quickly hit the FaceChat icon. “Cooke?”
“Hey, love. You didn’t write back.” Why does he sound a little miffed about that?
“Oh, sorry. I got caught with my phone in class, and that’s a no-no. I’m just leaving now.”
I glance at the time on the Campanile, the ancient clock tower in the middle of ISU’s beautiful campus: 2:00 p.m. Doing some quick math, I ask, “So, is it eight o’clock at night there?”
“It is, love, and I’m knackered.”
He’s used that word before. “Why are you tired? What did you do today?”
“Up with the chickens for our first workout. Then meetings, a workout, lunch, more meetings, a scrimmage, more meetings, dinner, then off to the physio.”
“Physio?”
“Oh, let’s see if I can give you the Americanized name.” He chuckles. “The therapist for my leg.”
“You hurt your leg?” Oh no.
“Years ago, but it still gives me fits now and then.”
I’ve stopped at one of the concrete benches in the grassy parklike spot on central campus. I look around me and sigh. It’s so pretty here, and people love hanging out in this spot. Students are sitting on their sweatshirts talking, and there’s a guy taking a nap to my right. He must be tired, because the other people aren’t quiet.
“What are you sighing about?” Cooke asks with a look of curiosity on his face.
“Campus. It’s pretty. Here.” I turn the phone around and scan the large courtyard. It sits smack-dab in the middle of four of the oldest buildings on campus: Beardshear, the Memorial Union, Catt Hall, and Curtiss Hall.
“It’s lovely.”
So are his accent and the words he says with said accent. “It is. The weather is perfect. Not too hot, not cold yet.”
“It sounds ideal.”
In many ways it is. “So, are you going to bed now?”
“I’m not my granny.” He chuckles. “But I’m no spring chicken either.”
Okay, now we’re getting into some personal questions. “How old are you?”
“Twenty-six, love. And you?”
“Twenty-one.” I almost say “and a half,” but that sounds childish.
“A babe.”
I blush, thinking he means I’m attractive, but then I remember who I’m talking to and who I am and snort as I think better of it. He means I’m still young. “Sometimes I feel ancient.” Without giving him a chance to comment, I ask, “Have you always played rugby?”
“Since I was a lad, yes. My father was quite good, so he taught me the sport.”
I’m almost nervous to bring it up, but he did send them to me. “Oh, I watched those videos.”
On the screen, Cooke goes from standing somewhere in a room to lying on his bed. A white pillow fluffs up around his head as he places one hand behind his head while the other holds his phone above him. It gives me a bird’s-eye view of his chest. The pose makes the arm behind his head look corded with muscles. I’m staring like a dang fool, but I’m forced out of my daze when he asks, “What did you think?”
