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“You guys should be proud of me! You told me I had to stop asking out girls at Mario’s.”

Mario’s is the campus sports bar, and it’s always been Iz’s go-to place for finding new objects of affection—meaning they’ve pretty much exclusively dated athletes and ended up with a pile of exes they run into around the department all the time. Iz can barely make it down the hall in the athletics centre without seeing some girl they’ve taken out for a three course pasta dinner or a homemade picnic in the park.

“You’re right. I’m proud of you. Branching out is good.”

They give me one last shoulder squeeze and then drop into one of the armchairs across from the couch, sitting sideways so their legs are slung over the side.

“I’m gonna end up like Becca if I’m not careful.” They cross their arms and put on a fake scowl that’s pretty close to one of Becca’s unimpressed glares before adding a husky edge to their voice. “Do not try dating your teammates. Do not think about dating your teammates. Don’t even say the word dating in front of your teammates. In fact, follow my example and take this rule to such an extreme that you will never date anybody who has stepped onto a sports field of any kind even once in their life.”

Blood starts rushing in my ears. I do my best to make sure my laugh isn’t too shrill, but I still sound a little demonic. Jane’s suspicious looks and questions after ‘The Jim Incident’ have me on high alert.

It’s not that I don’t trust my friends enough to tell them I have a thing for Becca. I just know how things will go if I do, and I don’t want to deal with it. I’d either have to tell them it’s only physical attraction and then go along with all the jokes about being ‘hot for captain,’ or I’d need to tell them it’s a full-on crush and endure the sympathy they’d give me about having it bad for someone things are never going to work out with.

Even I don’t know which of those is more true. Sometimes I can reason with myself and believe I’d need to know Becca much better than I do to have more than a ‘fuck, she’s hot’ infatuation with her, but the past few days have made that a lot harder than usual. Something is different between us, like we were circling each other in distant orbits and now we’re moving on the same path.

It’s not exactly a feeling I’m ready for. Not after Ethan, and especially not with the somebody who, as Iz has just pointed out, will do everything to fight feeling the same.

If she even feels the same.

There are too many ifs to say any of this out loud.

“Yo, earth to Hastings.”

“Huh?”

I snap my gaze up from where I’ve been staring down at the coffee table and find Iz grinning at me.

“You need a nap or something?” They yawn like they could use one too. “Mierda. Practice was killer this morning. Becca worked us hard with those drills. I thought my legs were gonna give out.”

I press my lips together and hold back a groan at the thought.

Becca standing on the field in tight leggings and a tank top.

Becca demonstrating a burpees and mountain climbers combo that put every muscle in her lower body on display.

Becca stalking around with her arms crossed, barking at us all in her growly, husky, ‘I am the captain and you need to do this drill whether you want to or not’ voice.

Becca stopping with the tips of her cleats just a few inches from my face to shout, “Is that all you’ve got, Hastings?”

Becca’s eyes on mine when I jumped up into a burpee, neither of us glancing away for a second as she watched me pant and strain for her.

My legs almost gave out too, and it wasn’t because of the burpees.

“Uh, yeah. I’m pretty wiped.” I reach up to rub my temples. Even the Becca-induced panic hasn’t been enough to make me forget I have a raging headache. “Maybe I should take a nap. Reading this shit is knocking me out.”

They nod at my laptop. “What is it? You didn’t tell me what you’re working on.”

“Oh.” I glance at the screen. Even from here the letters look all wobbly. “One of my course textbooks only comes as an e-book, so I’m getting a head start working through it now, but I think I’m maxed out on reading.”

Reading on paper has always been easier for me than reading on a screen. Just one of my many dyslexia quirks. I usually can’t even resell my textbooks because I mark them up too much with ridiculous amounts of highlighter, underlines, and little hand drawn diagrams that clue me in to what the paragraph is about.

I always try to work through my textbooks and get a grasp on what the different units and key concepts will be before the term starts. It’s much easier not to zone out and miss the entire class if I’ve done that beforehand, but this stupid e-book is already making me feel completely lost after just the first few pages.

“Let me know if you need someone to record any of it,” Iz offers. “You could take a study break and make us lunch in return.”

A warmth covers my whole body, like somebody’s just slipped a fluffy blanket over my shoulders and told me everything is going to be okay. Iz probably thinks they’re only making a simple offer, but to me, it means the world.

All my housemates know about my dyslexia, and they’re amazing about it. Whether it’s offering to record themselves reading a textbook paragraph I just can’t seem to absorb off the page, dealing with my very delayed replies in our group chat, or pulling an all-nighter with me so I can wrap up an assignment I still haven’t finished after two deadline extensions, they always make me feel supported and valid, like I don’t have to constantly prove dyslexia is an actual thing.