Page 92 of The Fake Date Agreement

“Why did you transfer here?” I ask.

He blinks, and I continue, “I don’t mean to say you should leave or anything.”

A dimple forms on his right cheek. “I hope not.”

“Just that moving schools had to have been a big deal, and you’re still majoring in biology, right? Couldn’t you have played hockey at Harvard? Don’t they have a team?”

“They do.” He nods. “And I could have.”

“But?”

“I needed to be somewhere new. In Harvard, I was pre-med, Javier Duarte, and…”

“And?” I prompt.

“I was a little too close to my parents, not ideal when I was turning my back on everything they wanted for me.”

“Reid was telling me about his brother and the draft.”

He flashes me a smile. “And it didn’t put you to sleep?”

“Surprisingly, no,” I admit, which makes him laugh. “Why didn’t you go in the draft if it’s what you wanted to do?”

“I guess I could have or played in a minor league,” he admits.

“But?”

He takes a sip of his coffee. “I needed to know if hockey was what I wanted before I went pro.”

“And is it?”

He nods. “It is.”

“And here you get to be whoyouwant to be instead of pre-med Javier Duarte,” I say, reading between the lines.

“Exactly.” He gives me a long look. “Not many people get that.”

I shrug, looking away as I lift my cup to take a sip. “I’m from a small town in Nebraska, and I love the people in Lawrenceburg, but I will never be anything other than the Tobie everyone knows.”

“Marc was from there?”

My fingers curl around my warm cup. I hadn’t believed that Caleb, Reid, or Javier would want to talk about anything that wasn’t to do with hockey, least of all about my ex-boyfriend.

“Sorry, you don’t want to talk about him,” he apologizes.

I aim a small smile his way. “I was being judgmental, and I didn’t even realize until now.”

“About?”

“You. Jocks, in general, I guess. We were high school sweethearts and everyone expected us to move back home, get married, have kids, you know?”

He listens with his entire body. Someone yells something across the quad, and he doesn’t even turn to see what the screaming is about. “What did you expect?”

I shrug. “I guess I wanted the same. You should tell your parents how you feel about hockey.”

“It wouldn’t change anything.”

“It might if they knew you loved it.”

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