Page 81 of Best Man on Campus

“Good to know,” he whispers back, “I put you before anyone else too, Jazzy.”

We’re quiet, my soul is quiet and I want it to last, clutching onto the moment with everything in me, when his phone rings.

“Your fucking phone,” I say, the violent urge to take it and smash it to bits shooting through me. He rises from the bed and I strain to stop myself from grabbing his arm and pulling him back. That would be fucking stupid. I’m not that girl.

“It’s my alarm,” he says. “I have a light practice and a team meeting.” He starts putting on his clothes but I don’t bother, instead pulling the covers over me.

“The senior night hockey banquet is tomorrow night,” he says.

“So?”

“So you need to come with me. As my date. We’ll sit with my friends and their dates.”

Horror at the prospect makes my heart pound, tightens my chest.

“When hell freezes—”

“You’re coming, Jazzy. It’s your test.”

“Fuck the test,” I say, but confusion and shame combine to weaken my resolve.

“You need to be there. It’s my big night. I might be getting an award.”

I snort. “Of course you’re getting an award.” Shit.

“Then you’ll be there.” He stares me down, but I stay silent, biting my tongue to keep from agreeing to the worst way I can think of to spend a night, sitting at a banquet with a bunch of jocks and their girlfriends who I don’t know and could care less about. The fucking problem is that I do care about Ben.

“It would mean a lot to me, Jazzy.” He sits back down on the edge of my bed, dressed and ready to go, and touches my face. The bastard.

“Who says I need a test?”

He raises one brow and smirks. “Says the girl who claims people are poison.” It’s a stupid fucking test, the bastard. A test I intend to pass, damn it. My sense of defiance wins out over my cowardly fear. For once.

“Because people are poison,” I say. “My worst fucking nightmare. Let me take Dooley with us. I’m begging you?”

“Dooley can bring his own date.”

“Fine, but you have to get him a ticket and he has to sit at our table. I need at least one person I know.”

“What about me? I’ll be there with you, Jazzy.”

I stare at him and all the apprehension drains from me in a rush of hot affection, twisting my chest so that whatever happened to my ribs feels like child’s play. The longing is so sharp and painful I want to cry. Except the tears backed up in my head don’t feel sad.

“My fucking BAE.”

* * *

The Senior Hockey Award Banquet is at the St. Paul Alumni House, which is a total misnomer because the place looks more like an antebellum estate inside. It was humiliating to have Majik help me dress, but I kept it simple. The only dress I own is a black slip dress and all I have underneath is my panties. Dooley said I look like I’m going to a Goth wedding, but fuck him. Even with Ben pulling the car up to the front door, it’s a long fucking walk to our table when I can only take baby steps.

Ben says, “Stone’s a Senior, but Kace is only a Junior so he won’t be getting any awards.” We walk slowly towards the table, his arm around me and I try not to lean.

“Why are they having a banquet on a fucking Thursday night? Don’t they know we have classes tomorrow?”

“Because the frozen four championship game is this tomorrow night. In Boston. And you’ll be there. Leon told me you have the night off because everyone will be at the game anyway.”

“Of course. The championship game. You’ve mentioned it once or twice. I don’t live under a rock.”

I’m stalling, because I’ll have to see his mother at the game and everything’s changed now. I can’t tell her I’m just friends with her son. Not so she’d believe me. That has me nervous as fuck because I’m not sure I can live up to any mother’s standards.