Page 205 of Well Played

Beast: Maybe your team will let you skip.

Yes, I just used a winky face emoji. Who the fuck am I?

Camille:

I pump my fist in the air.

Beast: Excellent. Also, what’s a worry dragon?

Camille: It’s another tool from when I was a kid. I write down what’s scaring me or triggering me on a piece of paper and leave it in front of a stuffed dragon named Sapphire. Overnight, Sapphire burns the worry away. (Though these days I set the paper on fire myself.) It reminds me to focus on the things I can control and not stuff I can’t. Like your reaction earlier.

Beast: I’m a total dumbass. Tonight was amazing. Sapphire should absolutely torch me.

Camille: I’ll tell her to hold off until after Thursday. Goodnight, William.

Beast: Goodnight, Camille.

The last twoweeks have been busy: classes, video calls with Dad and my family advisor to prep for what’s coming after graduation, working out. Camille and I have gone for coffee a couple of times, learning about each other. She’s fucking amazing: funny, smart, driven, down-to-earth, and gorgeous. I’m taking it slow, keeping it public because I don’t trust what will happen if I get my hands on her again. Camille has smiled at me a couple of times with this look in her big brown eyes, and I swear, my dick gets so hard I could pound a six-inch spike through a board with it. I must own the record for the most jerk-offs in a twenty-four-hour period just from imagining those big, dark eyes looking up at me. I want to gulp her down. Hold her so close that I won’t be able to tell where her skin ends and mine begins.

I walk her to and from class. The one time Watts seemed like he wanted to say something to her after, I waited in the aisle behind her, clearly staking a claim. He had shot me a cold, hard look, said his piece, then left. I’m not stupid enough to think whatever’s been going on is over, but I’m doing my part to close the gap and not give him a clear shot. I’ve even been reading up on Nabokov—like I’m watching tape on an opposing team.

It’s a Thursday and Camille is sitting down front and I’m in back with the team, as usual. Otterbach’s up to his usual idiocy, bragging about some junior puck bunny.

“Dude,” he announces to our row and most of the three in front of us, “her blowjob gave my dick magic powers. I’m telling you; I could go all night.”

Patrick’s on top of putting him in his place while he fiddles with his laptop. “Otterbach, your dick is practically voice-activated.”

I scowl at the freshman and lean forward so he can see me. “Have some respect. Not everyone needs to hear about your sexscapades.”

Otterbach makes a show out of grabbing his chest. “Words, not punches? From the Beast? Is the fact that you’re finally getting laid mellowing you out, asshole? I swear, you’re the worst thing to come out of Canada since Nickelback.”

My hands fist at the reference to Camille and Patrick notices. Tapping his pen on my desk to get my attention, he leans over, “Stop letting that prick get to you. He’s not your problem now.”

He’s got a point: now isn’t the time. Plus, I have bigger things to worry about. I unclench my fingers one at a time and run them over my thighs, eyes finding Camille. Just the sight of her head bowed over her laptop calms me and makes me smile. I’m sure I look like an idiot, but I’m gone for this girl.

“Class, let’s revisit a controversial piece of Nabokov’s work. Did Lolita seduce Humbert?” Watts asks from the podium at the front. Silence falls over the class because, well, fuck. No one wants to touch that question. If you say yes, you’re a perv. If you say no, he’ll eviscerate youandhumiliate you.

He takes his time picking a victim, making a show out of taking off those damn glasses and cleaning them. By the time they’re back on his face, I know where this is going. He might be a dick, but he’s consistent.

“Ms. Bazzi? How about you regale us with your enthusiastic, yet fallacious, thoughts?”

Next to me, Patrick whispers, “Man, he really has a hard-on for your girl.”

Meanwhile, Camille’s head has popped up, but she barely looks shocked. Instead, there’s a look of total disgust, like she’s been picked to clean the hockey house bathrooms after a post-win rager.

No one wants that job. I did it twice freshman year before it drove me to ask good old Dad if he could front me money for a place of my own.

I blurt loudly, “Humbert’s assertion that Lolita seduces him is his way of avoiding culpability for his actions. There’s no way she was sexually mature enough to engineer a seduction of the sort he narrates. And later, we know she fights him from the scratch marks he describes.”

Dr. Watts—and the rest of the class—turn to face me. Watts looks angry, but he masks that quickly with surprise. “Ah, Mr. Rochet. A new voice enters the fray. “Are you saying when Lolita sits on his lap, that she has no understanding of how that action titillates and entices?”

I wince, because that is so gross it’s beyond consideration. I stayed with a billet family that had a little girl. Lily was eight. And the mere thought of some older predator…just big fucking no.

Camille comes to my rescue like a D-man. “Of course she has no understanding. She’s twelve. Enticement means she would have had to be exposed to that behavior and internalized using it to manipulate. He outlines a wish fulfillment fantasy without factual basis. And frankly, the purple prose and egocentric description Humbert uses is worse than any romance novel love scene that you probably mock.”

Holy shit. Again, this girl with her quick wit and that smart mouth. I would fist pump her answer if I weren’t still on the hot seat with Watts.

“Mr. Rochet? Do you agree with Ms. Bazzi?”

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