Page 24 of Halftime

“Well, why would you?”

He stared over the lawn, slowly shaking his head. “I feel kinda stupid.”

I gave him a shove with my hand. “Yeah, you look it, too.”

That brought his grin back to me. “Who’re you calling stupid, stupid?”

This was where I was supposed to grin back and keep up the incredibly stupid insult trading. We’d done this a lot. But right now, that D on my paper said one of us was stupid, and I wasn’t looking at him. I sighed.

“Wait, what’s that face for? I didn’t mean it, you know that.”

It was still a shittastic day, even though goofing with Seb had made me forget that for a bit.

“I got a D on my first psych paper. I feel like stupid isn’t far off the mark.”

Next thing, Seb’s arm was wrapped around me, pulling me in and feeling way too good. Way too familiar. But for a few minutes, I took that comfort. I needed it.

“You’re not stupid, Faith. You’ve never been stupid.”

He pulled back, removing his arm, and I did not almost whimper.

“Who’s your prof? What class is it?”

“Warner. Intro to Psych. It’s not anything related to what I want to major in, but I needed to clear out some of the required courses.”

“I took that course with her. Maybe I could help you.” He tilted his head, waiting to see if I’d jump at the offer of help.

“What grade did you get?” I was going to need a lot of help, and if he’d just scraped by…

He twisted his lips. “A.”

“What? You got an A with Warner? A couple of my teammates told me she’s really hard.”

He shrugged and looked away. “I liked the class. I think I’m going to major in psych.”

Thingshadchanged this past year. I wanted to ask him why, but I wasn’t sure I could ask something that personal. Not now. This was the first conversation we’d had since “the talk” after the exhibition game party. The second conversation in a year. We still had to work out what being friends would be like.

“So do you want my help?”

I bit my lip. I hated asking for help, but I needed it, and Seb was apparently a psych wiz. I couldn’t do anything about my coach right now, and it would be nice to get a handle on something this year.

But that hug… Was I a little too happy about that?

“Come on, Faith. It’s my fault you’re in trouble with your coach, so let me do something to make up for that.”

Okay, I needed the help, and I didn’t know who else to ask for it.

Seb rose to his feet. “Come over to the hockey house. I’ll hunt up my paper, and we can look over what Warner said about yours.”

He held out a hand, and without thinking, I let him pull me up. I ended up a little too close to him, closer than friends would face each other. Close enough to bring back memories that I had no business indulging in. I took a quick step back. Just friends. Seb had a girlfriend, and I didn’t want any distractions, especially not now.

I bent down to grab my backpack. “Okay, buddy. Lead the way.”

* * *

Sebastien

One thing about living in the hockey house was you never knew what you were going to find when you got there. I didn’t have to worry about Faith though. She was used to guys being idiots. One of the boys’ teams she’d played on had thought it would be funny if they all simultaneously flashed her. She asked if they’d like her to rank their dicks, and if she should grade on a curve. They didn’t try anything like that again. Especially when she muttered they were all below average.

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