“Your shoes,” Shane reminded me.
My eyebrows fell, but I did it. Shane measured me wordlessly, not even the barest expression on his face as he mouthed,six foot one, and wrote it down. He showed me a scale and weighed me, writing down a hundred and fifty-four.
“On the lighter side for a hockey player.”
“I keep hearing,” I said.
He measured the circumference of my neck and then mentioned my waist.
I lifted my sweater, baring my lean torso, only to earn a flaming blush from Shane.Gotcha, I thought as he movedaround me and took the measures medically. “Perfect,” he said. “I’ll calculate your BMI later.”
“And interviews?” I asked.
“Nothing immediate,” Shane explained, looking away from me. His cheeks were still pretty pink long after I had pulled my sweater down my abs. “We can schedule that on the fly.”
“Alright,” I said.
He bit his lip and looked at his bed, then the window, then at my lips, but not all the way to my eyes. “That’s sort of it for now.”
“You want me to go?” I asked.
He hesitated, then nodded. “It’s better if we’re not too familiar. There has to be some distance.”
“Strange idea when you’re my shadow,” I mused.
“It’s a thin line, but I’m the one who has to walk it,” Shane said with a small smile. Yeah, he was fully capable of talking when he was in the right mood and setting. “You just have to understand that it’s not personal. I need to remain professional, that’s all.”
“Got it,” I said.
And we parted there. I left with a light stroll, and Shane stayed behind with a constant blush on his pale cheeks. Everyone liked the goddamn abs.
THREE
SHANE
The final preparationfor my study took two days. It was mostly an administrative task, aligning my schedule with Patrick’s. A lot of our lectures overlapped in the timetable, giving us a lot of free time for interviews and shadowing.
Once Patrick approved it, we were good to go. That was how I found myself stepping out of the shower and looking at the mirror while a knot was twisting and tightening inside my chest. I held my breath as I stared at the thing in the mirror. I had a strong hunch I was looking at the sole responsible person for all my woes. I could go on blaming Professor Halden for pressuring me into this research, but the guy in the mirror was the one who pitched the idea so well.
I had imagined it as a sort of academic commitment that would put me on the map. If I picked an interesting subject and dug deep into his psychology, my paper would be far ahead of anyone else’s this semester. I’d be given the green light to go really big for my final thesis in my senior year. These things mattered when academia was all that was left to you.
Liar, I thought to myself. That wasn’t all I’d been thinking of. I had once been an athlete, too, but the course of my life had diverged from it. I had withdrawn into myself over the years,avoiding all the typically popular social circles. I didn’t go where hockey players went. I didn’t hang out with football players. I crossed the street when I saw a swimmer walking. They intimidated me, but they also attracted me. That was the crux of it: they attracted me so much that it scared me.
Why couldn’t I be into regular people? Why couldn’t I just meet a nice guy andlikehim? For a psychologist in the making, this was an interesting question to ponder. Was I attracted to them or to the idea of what I could have been? And what was that idea, after all? To be a good player or to be abad player? Patrick was both; not that I should have had that opinion so early, but he was. He was a great hockey player and a notorious campus flirt, exactly the type I had dreamed of being.
The very worst part of it all was this nagging thought I’d had underneath the surface from the start. If I had an excuse to be around a fiery ice demon for a long time, he would notice me.
Not that I was so delusional to think he wouldnoticeme in that way. Patrick was a devil off the ice, flirtatious to a fault if the few passing encounters were anything to judge by, and with a temper that somehow went from zero to a hundred as soon as he laced his skates. I’d be crazy if I wanted that kind of attention.
But as I sprayed my cologne along my neck, I pumped out more than I strictly needed.
I dressed quickly, piling layers over layers, from an undershirt to a checkered shirt and a loose sweater over it. The Saints had drills in an hour, so I packed my blue and red notebooks, enough different-colored pens to last a lifetime, and only the three most important psychology textbooks that I might want to consult during the drills. I made my way to Patrick’s place, pressure rising on my chest as I neared it.
No wonder I was still a damn virgin. Despite dying to be social, I was terrified of people. Especially cool, successful people like Patrick and his friends. One evening with them hadmade my hands sweat so much that I didn’t need any workout. I was melting around them. The other two were gay, but you could trust me not to even have a passing interest in openly gay guys whomighthave an interest in me. Oh no. I was the type who went all in on the least likely ones to have a sliver of interest in me. The less they wanted me, the better.
I crossed the campus space on my way to Patrick’s dorm, then worked up the courage to knock on his door. And holy fucking shit, he opened it after two heartbeats, steam still rising from his honey-tanned skin, droplets of water-like constellations scattered over his bare shoulders, a fluffy white towel wrapped low around his waist, leaving his Apollo’s belt in the open to feast my eyes on. His chest was broad and lifted like he was proud of his appearance, while his waist was trim and narrow, his abs cut and defined like he was made of marble come to life.
“Come in,” Patrick said. “I’ll only be a minute.”
