‘Captain of the football team.’
Mia swoops in with a save Michael would be proud of, but it’s too little too late. He knows he’s scoring points off me, I can tell by the smug look on his face. If I’m totally honest, he’d won before I walked through the door. It’s obvious Mia is into him and not me, or she wouldn’t have left my bed in the middle of the night.
‘So it’s you, is it?’ Oliver clucks his tongue as though something suddenly makes sense. ‘I’d heard there was a Yank causing trouble on the team. Showed up at the last minute? Stole the captaincy from Assad?’
‘Hey, fuck you, I didn’t steal anything. Assad is co-captain.’
‘Okay, calm down,’ he chuckles. ‘Just what I heard. My mistake.’
The insult hits harder than it should. He’s pushing my buttons and I’m falling for it. Mia hands me the Coke with a look that could be concern or a warning.
‘Yeah, well, there’s no tension in my team. Coach made me co-captain because I’m good.’
‘No need to take it so seriously, it’s only a game. I used to play when I was a kid. I was bloody good as well, but I had to pack it in when I got serious about my music. Can’t risk an injury taking me out. If I broke my arm and couldn’t play guitar, I don’t know what I’d do.’
‘How would the world survive?’ I mumble into my glass.
Wringing a damp bar towel between her hands, Mia wears a tense expression that makes me hate this guy even more. She’s so awkward around him, like she’s afraid of saying the wrong thing, as if his opinion even matters. She’s so far out of his league and she doesn’t even know it. Casually, I lean over the bar to check out the rest of her outfit, a cute blue sweater and a long skirt with a slit that flashes enough thigh to make me choke on my soda when she moves.
‘We were just talking about the dance this weekend,’ she says as I cover up my splutter with a forced cough. ‘Are you going?’
‘There’s a dance?’
‘No one told you?’ Oliver might sound surprised, but he looks thrilled. ‘And just so you know, at Hemden, it’s called a bop.’
‘A bop? What the hell is bop?’
‘It’s a Hemden tradition.’ Oliver pauses to take a long drink, like he expects us all to hang on his every damn word. ‘My grandfather was a student here in the Sixties and they had bops back then. Most Hemden traditions are older than your country.’
‘So is the bubonic plague but I don’t think anyone is fighting to get that back.’
‘It’s going to be fun,’ Mia interjects before I can lose my shit. ‘It’s a costume party, the theme is “Anything but Clothes”.’
‘Costume party? Sweet.’ I snap my fingers with approval. ‘I can get on board with that. You ever go to the Marshall “You Are What You Drink” party?’
Alice emerges from the stockroom, wrinkling her tiny nose. ‘“You Are What You Drink”? How does that work?’
‘Dress up as your beverage of choice,’ I explain. ‘There’s usually more than one Captain Morgan and at least ten Jack Daniels but people get creative. Last year I went as a Pabst Blue Ribbon.’
‘And what did you wear?’
I grin right at her. ‘A blue ribbon.’
‘Sorry, Mia, I’d better go,’ Oliver announces even though no one was talking to him in the first place. ‘I’ve got a tutorial in fifteen minutes and it’s all the way over in Lawton, but I’ll see you tonight, yeah?’
‘Tonight,’ Mia repeats as she takes his pint glass and places it in a crate at her feet.
‘Steven,’ he says to me as he walks past, brushing his shoulder against mine.
The fact I don’t knock his head clean off his shoulders is almost as impressive as the score on my psych paper.
‘I’m going to collect some empties,’ Alice says, slipping out from behind the bar. ‘Shout if you need help.’
She’s talking to Mia but looking at me, flashing a smirk in my direction.
‘What’s tonight?’ I ask when it’s just the two of us.
‘Bryn has a performance.’ She takes my Coke and refills it from the soda gun without asking. ‘He plays violin with the school orchestra, they’re playing a new piece tonight. We’re all gonna go.’
