“Is Bowdoin pressuring you?”
I shook my head, not in the mood to talk hockey tonight.
Paddy didn’t believe me. “If you don’t want to commit, then don’t commit. You also have Williams and Trinity, plus…”
“Hamilton,” I shut my eyes. “Please don’t tell anyone.”
“I won’t,” he replied. “You know I won’t.”
“Thanks.”
“But for what it’s worth,” he added, “you’re going to light it up at whatever one you pick.”
“Yeah, since I won’t have to get past you on the blue line.”
Paddy chuckled. “Nick better get ready.”
“Trust me, he knows.” I forced myself to laugh. “It’s what keeps him up at night.” With Nick at Yale next year, and Paddy at Princeton, I knew their first game against each other would be one for the books.
It was silent for the next few minutes, both of us sipping our drinks and listening to the creaking of the house. My eyes were still closed, allowing myself to picture Luke: his slim body with long limbs that I sort of wanted to hug as hard as humanly possible. But they snapped open when Paddy got up and switched on my fan. “It’s a sauna in here.”
At that, I drained my glass, and said it: “I’m going to end things with Dove.”
Paddy sighed. “Seriously, Charlie? After only two weeks?”
I nodded.
“Is there someone else?”
“Yeah,” I responded. “I think there is.”
CHAPTER 7
SAGE
Thursday night, I waited for Nick onMortimer’s back stoop, the dorm’s outdoor lights having already flickered on for the evening. For the most part, campus was calm—dinner had come and gone, and so had underclassmen curfew. We seniors had an hour before check-in at 9:00 p.m.
“Hey,” Nick said a minute later, pushing through the door. He gave me a hug, my whole body humming in his arms. “You ready?”
“Hell yeah.” I nodded and followed him over to the bike rack.
How’s your day going?he’d texted during lunch, when I was stirring my spoon aimlessly around in my soup.
Not great,I responded.
Why not?he asked.
Mrs. Collings,I wrote, which was all that needed to be said. Mrs. Collings was the evil queen of the science department, and I’d less than impressed her on our latest test. Basically the whole class had bombed it, but that was beside the point. I should’ve studied harder.
Nick sent back an angry-face emoji, along with,We’ll do some cheering up later!
Now we gripped Cherry Bomb’s handlebars and took off, bumpingover Bexley’s cobblestones. Him up front, me in back. We passed under a streetlamp, and the breeze rustled his thick hair. “Do you wanna talk about it?” he asked as we veered onto Darby Road. “The test?”
“Not really,” I answered. “It was a total nightmare, and now Jack’s suggesting we stage a coup.”
Nick stretched his hand back. I latched on to his fingers and smiled against his knuckles before kissing them. “Makes sense,” he said. “His mind was definitely elsewhere at soccer this afternoon. Passes were off, and he kept missing the net.” He chuckled. “I bet he was in the middle of plotting.”
I giggled.
