The audience breaks into applause, and I reluctantly join Adam down front.
“If this is your idea of a joke—” I mutter, loud enough for him but not anyone else—especially Professor Frost—to hear.
“It’s not,” he insists.
“Or another chance for you to mess with my head—”
Before he can admit or deny that one, Frosty is speaking again, asking the audience to suggest a situation for us to act out.
“Getting a traffic ticket,” someone shouts.
“Going to the dentist.”
“Job interview.”
“Trapped in an elevator.”
“Buying condoms.”
I’m not sure who the last one comes from, but I think I see Tate punch one of the freshmen on the arm.
“I think we’ll go with trapped in an elevator,” Professor Frost says wryly. “Adam, you’ll start, and Kolby will join you.”
Adam mimes stepping into an elevator and pressing the button. After a few seconds, he makes a “ding” sound, signaling that the elevator has reached my floor and it’s time for me to jump in.
Except I don’t. I stand there frozen, like my feet are nailed to the stage, struck by a sense of déjà vu. We’ve been here, done this before. And I can’t do it again.
“You going up?” Adam asks, trying to keep the scene moving forward.
I guess I should be glad he didn’t go for the cheap sexual innuendo by asking me if I was going down. But I’m not thinking about the scene. Or the fact that I’m possibly about to tank my grade in this class. It’s hard to think about anything with my throat drying up and my palms sweating and my pulse pounding so loud in my ears it’s like a storm inside me, threatening to drown out everything else.
“I can’t,” I finally manage to croak.
“Let me guess.” There’s that smile again. The one that always makes me stupid. And tonight is no exception. Some part of my brain apparently hasn’t gotten the message about my hockey moratorium. “Claustrophobia?”
“Not the damn elevator,” I bark, not even bothering to keep my voice down. I hear my sister’s sharp intake of breath at the curse word, but I plow onward. A little thing like offending her delicate Mormon sensibilities isn’t going to stop the righteous indignation that’s boiling up inside me from spilling out. “Whatever it is you’re trying to accomplish by dragging me up here with you.”
Adam starts to object, but I cut him off. I don’t care how much he denies it. It’s obvious he and my sister have formed some sort of strange alliance, and I don’t want any part of whatever they’ve cooked up. The grand gesture thing might have worked once before, but not this time. It’s like that old saying. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.
“Do you seriously think I’m so shallow that every time you screw up you can win me back with some ridiculous, over-the-top public display?” I snap, taking a step back from him and gesturing to our classmates behind us and the audience in front. “In the middle of our final exam?”
He gives me an apologetic look and shoves his hands into his pockets, rocking back and forth on his heels. “I just thought—”
“No,” I say, this time interrupting him and Professor Frost, who’s stepped in between us, no doubt realizing that this exercise is a train wreck and wanting to stop it from going even further off the rails. “You didn’t think. Our relationship isn’t a game. And my feelings aren’t something you can play with whenever it suits you.”
Then I do what I should have done the second the audience started chanting my name.
Walk off the stage and out of the bar.
26
Kolby
I don’t feel like plowing through the crowd in the mood I’m in, so I duck out the back way and wind up in the alley with the Adirondack chairs where Adam and I sat and talked the first time he came to see me at the bookstore.
Maybe not my brightest idea. Now I’m remembering that night. Helping him pick out a gift for his mom. Giving him that queer romance novel. Asking him to teach me how to skate.
Adam agreeing to my crazy proposal, which led to that on-ice makeout session, which led to—everything else.
