Madden pins him with a look. “You better meanright now,notneverwith that statement.”
“Of course I mean right now. But we can wait a year or two, let you settle into the team before we get married.”
Holden chooses that moment to join the call, appearing on the screen in what I believe to be his and Phoenix’s apartment.
“Cam, what’s going—wait. Did I just hear you’re getting married, Theo?”
Theo lets out a disgruntled huff, but Madden chuckles before saying, “No, my cousin is getting married in Vermont. We’re on our way to the airport right now.”
“The same cousin who Theo, in a fit of jealous rage, thought you were going to screw the last time you were there?” I ask, unable to hide my grin.
Holden bursts into laughter, Madden quickly joining in.Meanwhile, Theo looks like he’s ready to strangle me through the screen.
“Okay, how the fuck did this get turned around on me?” he admonishes, tossing one hand toward his phone. “Camis the one who is in a crisis. That we still don’t even know about, by the way.”
Holden chuckles some more. “Okay, okay. You better fill us in before Theo changes his flight to come murder us instead.”
The jovial tone of the call sobers, all of them giving me the floor.
Ah, hell.
Rubbing my forehead, I mumble, “Well, uh. I’m close to losing my eligibility to play this season.”
My friends are surprisingly quiet as they process the news, but even more surprising, it’s Madden who ends up breaking the silence.
“The video went over that bad, huh?”
A wry laugh comes out, and I shake my head. “Ah, I mean, yes. But my grades are actually the problem.”
Theo’s brows raise slightly. “We leave you to your own devices for half a semester and now you can’t pass your midterms?”
“I skated by on all of them except for Philosophy 101,” I reason defeatedly. “That stupid class has been an issue for me most of the term.”
Phoenix pops into the frame behind Holden, glancing at his boyfriend while asking, “Didn’t you and Theo take Phi 101 last year for an easy A?”
”Yes, and webothgave him our notes for it. And thosealsoincluded Oakley’s from the year before,” Theo replies for Holden, the words coming out equally exasperated and dry. “Cam, we literally gave you the blueprint to pass the class. How the hell are you failing?”
I run my tongue along the inside of my cheek, knowing I have absolutely no excuse for this. Well, actually, Ido,though none of them are aware of it.
I’m in the middle of working through an explanation when another box pops up on the screen, Oakley appearing inside it. He’s sitting in the kitchen of their New York apartment, in the middle of eating what looks to be…Thai, maybe?
“Well, I see the whole gang is here,” he says in greeting. “Someone catch me up on what I missed.”
“Theo and Madden are not getting married, and Camden is flunking out of college,” Holden supplies before anyone can say a word.
“Oh my God!” Theo exclaims in exasperation. “We’re not getting marriedat this wedding.”
Oakley blinks a couple times, clearly taken aback. “Okay, so we’ll come back to that,” he says slowly before bringing his focus back to the problem; also known as me. “You’re flunking?”
“Only one class,” I correct.
“Yeah, but it’s fucking Phi 101,” supplies Theo, which has Oakley’s expression shifting into one of thoseyou’ve gotta be jokinglooks.
“How?”
“The million-dollar question,” comes from Holden. “But we’ve yet to get an answer for it.”
I take in a deep breath and then exhale slowly, at war with myself about telling them what’s really going on. But just droppinghey, by the way, I’m actually dyslexicafter years of friendship doesn’t really feel like the best game plan. So I offer a vague alternative instead.
