Page 13

Puppy Dog

May

B y the time I arrive at campus, I’ve already had a long morning so, with a groan, I swing myself out of my truck, cursing the work boots still on my feet. I never wear them out here if possible. It’s like wearing your house shoes out to b uy groceries. That’s not accounting for the fact that – as much as Oklahoma is a major agriculture state – it’s still uncool to show up in boots unless it’s Thursday, Friday or Saturday night. I’d have remembered to take them off if it hadn’t been for Mumma and Papa.

The two of them have never really been social media users. So when Mumma held up the video of Colt and me at the bar the other night, stopping me in my tracks on my way out of the house, her eyebrows rising curiously, I honestly wasn’t sure what to say.

‘What should I make of this?’ She had smirked the sly sort of smirk that told me she’d already made something of this. ‘May, after all these years!’

Baffled, the words ‘It’s not like that’ had started to form in my throat before I remembered the game plan. My parents, naturally, would be the sort of weak link that could break the entire chain by telling the whole town what was going on before the last of the explanation had left my mouth. I, against my instinct, would have to uphold the lie.

Through gritted teeth, I had fabricated some sort of mangled response about us testing the waters, before I quickly headed away from the scene of the crime, realizing too late I still had my work boots on.

Now, by the time I start the walk to the Meteorology Hub, backpack in tow, and see a familiar blue Ram sidled up in street parking, its familiar owner leaning against the side, I’m ready to start swinging fists.

‘Morning.’ Colt adjusts today’s backwards cap, so his hair sticks out from behind. The weather is chillier than usual, so he wears an orange OKC hoodie and jeans. If I didn’t know any more about him, I’d think he actually went here.

‘Morning,’ I grumble in return. He shows no sign of noticing that I look like I’ve just rolled out of bed to be here, or that I have zero shits to give at the moment. He just beams brightly. What a goon.

‘The nice thing about doing my master’s online is that I get to make my own schedule, so I thought I’d walk you. If you’re okay with that.’

Walk me? I want to say. How can you act as if it’s so easy to walk with me when I watched you turn your back on me like it was light work years ago?

‘It’s …’ I check my watch. ‘Nine-twenty, and pretty much everything that has happened so far today has been a series of events I was in no way okay with. Might as well up the ante. Add a sprinkle of fake girlfriend duty to the mix.’

Colt’s face looks like it goes through about fifty different emotions in trying to decipher the blunt sarcasm I’ve thrown at him. Okay, so maybe the guy’s trying to be nice. Maybe I feel a smidge of remorse for being a menace. But after all the bad days his departure caused me, I figure he owes me enough that he can put up with one of those bad days, live and in person.

Silently, I turn towards the quad, he turns towards the quad, and I hike up my backpack. We walk side by side, matching our steps without a word. It’s the start of the ten-minute lull between classes when the campus fills up with students cramming sidewalks to the brim, and as we near the Diamond, our four-pointed quad named ever so originally, the exodus begins, college kids filing down the walkways with headphones on and coffees in hand. The stares are inevitable – some calculating, some gleeful. I glance at Colt, far enough away from me that you could put a May between us.

God, screw this.

Against my better nature, I close the space between us so our shoulders just barely brush. Colt’s gaze skims my arm before sneaking up to meet my eyes.

‘I know play number one is supposed to be distance,’ he whispers with a half-smile, ‘but it seems an awful lot like you’re using my nuggets tactic right now.’

‘Can’t use one play for every single match, can you?’ I retort. I push aside the way his little smile, right beside me, inches away, could make the coldest of hearts thrum with warmth, and I sure as hell shove down the urge to return the smile.

‘You got me there.’ Colt shrugs, all exaggerated, his muscular arm flexing against mine. ‘So what class are we going to?’

‘Synaptic Meteorology and Forecasting.’

‘Meteorology,’ he echoes, wide-eyed. ‘Damn. Well, pretty fitting for the girl who was Jo Harding for three Halloweens in a row.’

‘Oh, my god.’ The laugh that he finally manages to get out of me is primarily embarrassment. The Jo Harding costume isn’t something I like people to know about. ‘That was elementary school. You can’t hold it against me.’

‘May, what kind of first-grader is watching Twister once a month?’ He laughs with me, grinning so hard that his eyes narrow happily, the corners etched with crow’s feet from years of unbridled smiles. ‘Best part was that your parents enabled it. Your mom dressing up as Melissa …’

‘And Dad as Dusty.’ I snort, shaking my head. ‘Please, please never share this knowledge with anyone . I swear, if you open your mouth to a single human being—’

‘I won’t!’ Colt traces an imaginary ‘X’ over his heart. ‘I promise. But truly. Other than the extremely oversize jumpsuit—’

‘Seriously!’

‘—other than the jumpsuit … Meteorology’s a great major, right, but, and this isn’t to say you shouldn’t pursue it – you’re a powerhouse – but you’re fucking great at lacrosse,’ he points out, and the compliment really shouldn’t make me feel as light and airy as it does. ‘You’ll go all the way to the MLL. Hell, you’ll probably play sixes in the Olympics some day. You won’t be working a nine-to-five for a long time if that happens. So I guess my question is, why this nine-to-five?’

The light and airiness has faded by the time he gets to the end of his so-called encouraging spiel. The anger is back. Anger at all the stuff he missed, good and bad. At all the times we just picked up our sticks and played without a word. At all the long, late-night talks we slowly started to share. And at all the trust I placed in him.

I told Colt the sorts of things no one else knew about my family, about how even with all my parents’ hard work, we still had debt from the ranch, and how I felt responsible because the place would be mine some day. I told him I was scared I wouldn’t be able to make it out of Prosperity, and he listened. Then, he told me the sorts of things no one else knew about him. He told me stories about his grandfather, a former Ivy League athlete, and his grandmother, one of the first women to compete in the women’s College Lacrosse Championship, who’d inspired his love for lacrosse. He confessed to me he was scared that if lacrosse fell through for him, he didn’t know what else he’d really want to do with his life. No one had ever talked to me that way, been so raw. And certainly no one had ever listened so intently. Hell, he was still doing it, right now.

Well. All those times I thought something was different apparently didn’t mean all that much to him. And now, with his nine-to-five question, he had no business trying to change the narrative years after it’d been written.

Colt is fortunate. We reach the Meteorology building right as the word ‘five’ leaves his mouth, ‘I should probably head in. Class starts in, like, three.’

His mouth makes a quiet O, and he nods. ‘Gotcha.’ The silent acknowledgement of my deflection is clear as day.

‘Appreciate you walking me.’ I smile tightly. I do. I really do. I just don’t know if I can stand having this puppy dog of a man by my side for the rest of the semester. I can’t decide if I despise his ignorance, or if I envy it, but whatever it is, it’s eating me alive.