Page 19 of True Blue

“Of course, you are,” I say, leaning back and stretching out my legs in front of me. “But maybe I didn’t want to get left alone with this one in the back again.” I tap Bentley’s chest as I say it and he looks very unamused.

Janette snorts. “Fine, whatever. You’ll have to actually pay attention though. Howards can see you down here.” She goes back to scrolling through her phone and I smile at the side of her face.

I can feel Bentley staring and look over to see him glancing between the two of us before facing forward again. The noise of the doors closing comes from behind us and Dr. Howard passes to set up at the front of the room. Janette puts her phone away, uncapping a navy-blue pen and I smirk at the neat rows of notes already at the top of the page when she opens her notebook.

“Group assignment day!” Howards says with a clap of his hands. He looks over the room, and I sit up when his eyes rove over the three of us. Bentley tenses next to me. “Let's get started. You three up front can be our group of three and then the rest will be groups of four.” He waves over to us then starts splitting the rest of the room into teams of four.

I smile, looking at first Bentley then Janette, practically jumping up and down in my seat. But both of their wary expressions temper my excitement. Janette glances over at Bentley, who side eyes her across me.

“It’ll be fine,” I whisper while Howards continues directing the room. “You can both play nice for one semester.”

Janette sighs, pulling her hair up and fastening a high ponytail with a periwinkle scrunchie from her wrist. Bentley taps his pen against his notebook, leaning his chin in the palm of his hand.

“Okay, the rest of class can be used to pick your topics and start planning or researching. Use your time wisely. This will be the only class until December that you can use the time toward the research project. Topics are due by class on Friday, but no group can repeat topics. It’ll be first come first serve.” Dr. Howards sits down at the desk, pulling his laptop toward him and ignoring the room.

“I’m thinking something about the knights,” I say, getting out of my seat and sitting crisscross on the floor facing the two of them. The rest of the room regroups behind them, the noise of chatter ringing around us.

“Which knights?” Janette asks, flipping to a clean page in her notebook.

“Move closer, Bent,” I say, waving him to the seat I just vacated. “The knights in the shiny armor with the big swords.”

Janette’s face scrunches up. “What?”

“He wants to rent a suit of armor for the final presentation,” Bentley says, settling into the seat next to Janette, but leaning away from her to use the opposite arm as a rest for his notebook. Janette looks at him with furrowed brows before turning the look on me.

“I think we’d get points for style.” I shrug.

Janette closes her eyes and Bentley chuckles. “We could do The Crusades,” he says, sliding the syllabus out of the back of his notebook and pointing to the example list of topics. A few of them are circled and underlined and I watch Janette lean over and read the ones he’s marked.

“That’d be really broad, and another group will definitely try to take it,” she comments. I lean back, extending my armsout behind me and watching them. “Something like The Class Structure of the Middle Ages or Fashion of the Middle Class would be easier, but again, another group might choose it first.”

“We could do The Impact of Gutenberg’s Printing Press,” Bentley suggests, pointing to the one on the list he’s underlined twice and starred.

Janette pauses, looking over his shoulder at the list one more time, checking all the other topics. “Yeah, that would be a good one.”

They stare at each other for a moment, and I feel my blood heat before they both turn toward me, and the simmer ratchets up to a boil.

“That work for you?” Bentley asks with a quirked eyebrow.

“No suit of armor?” I ask, pouting.

“No suit of armor,” Janette replies sternly.

I sigh dramatically. “Fine, but you both have to make it up to me.” I grab Bentley’s syllabus and get to my feet, walking over to Howards.

“Do we just tell you the topic we’ve chosen?” I ask, scratching the back of my neck. He nods, grabbing a pen and looking up at me. “We want to do The Impact of Gutenberg’s Printing Press. Is that one still available?”

“Sure is,” Howards says, jotting down the topic and our names on a scrap piece of paper. “Good choice.” He smiles up at me and I walk back over to Janette and Bentley.

“Are you a history major?” Janette asks Bentley quietly.

“No, English. Pre-law track.”

She nods, chewing the inside of her cheek.

“But I don’t like getting bad grades, so I’ll take this project seriously,” he adds.

“We both will,” I say, plopping back down in front of them. “We got the Gutenberg one.”

---