“Wow,” she said. “Check out Bridger. He sure works fast.”
I looked up. And sure enough, Bridger was already making time in the corner of the room, lip-locked to one of Dana’s singing group friends. I rubbed my aching leg and grinned. “The dude does work fast, and not just with the ladies. Bridge gets more done in a day than most people do in a week. Did you know he’s in that program where you get a masters degree at the same time as your bachelor’s?”
“Really?” Corey cocked an eyebrow toward the corner, where Bridger seemed to be eating the girls’ face. “Where does he find the time?”
“Unlike us normal people, Bridger never sleeps. After hockey season ends, he drives a forklift three nights a week in a warehouse.”
“Seriously? You’ve known each other a long time, haven’t you?” She propped an elbow on the back of the sofa and turned her face so she could see me. Corey always gave me her full attention, like there was nobody else in the room.
“Yeah. Bridge and I played on the same league in high school. And we’re both members of another club.”
“Which one?”
My smile was probably more like a grimace. “The Poor Club. Hartley grew up about ten miles from here, on the wrong side of the industrial wasteland.” While Harkness College had a beautiful campus, the city around it was actually kind of a shithole. “And my town isn’t much better. When I first came to Harkness, all the money here was a shock.”
Corey took a thoughtful sip of her sangria. “But at Harkness, everybody lives in the dorms and eats in the dining hall. I love that about this place. It doesn’t matter who’s rich.”
I shook my head. “Wait until spring, when people start arguing about which Caribbean island to spend break on.”
“I’ll be spending it in sunny Wisconsin.”
“Your girl Dana will probably head down to St. Croix or St. John. I’d put money on it.”
Corey’s eyes darted to her roommate on the other end of the room. “Well, her family has a house in Hawaii.”
“See what I mean? My frosh year, the first time someone told me they had a second home at Lake Tahoe, I thought, ‘That’s weird. Who needs two houses?’ I had no fucking clue. This place gives you a great education in more ways than one.”
“Dude.” Bridger appeared beside me, leaning down to ask a question into my ear. “Where do you keep your goalies? I’m all out.”
I chuckled, giving him a shove on the shoulder. “They’re in the logical drawer. Help yourself.”
“I’ll pay you back.” Bridger straightened up.
Whatever. I didn’t have any near-term need for condoms, anyway. “But, dude? Take the party elsewhere, okay?” I didn’t need to find Bridger fucking some girl on my bed. When we were roommates that had happened more than once.
“You got it.” Bridger walked out of Corey’s common room, reappearing less than a minute later. Then he collected his girlfriend for the evening. They swapped spit for a moment in the middle of the room. And then the two of them left together.
Corey watched them go. “Wait…goalies?” I watched the understanding break on her face, and then she snorted with laughter. Embarrassed, she clamped a hand over her mouth. But her eyes danced with glee. “Okay,” she said when she could breathe again “I thought my brother had taught me every hockey slang term. But apparently not.”
“Yeah?” I tipped my head back onto the sofa. “He left out a good one.”
Corey grinned. “If you had a little sister, you’d understand. Or so I’m told.”
Right. I felt a familiar little kick to the gut at the very idea. If life had worked out differently, I would have a little sister. And two brothers besides. But I pushed that thought away. “I get it. Your big brother thinks his baby sister shouldn’t think about those things.”
Her smile got sly. “Hang on…tell me the truth. How much of a dog was my brother?”
“Well, if the scale is from priest to Bridger…” I held my hands far apart, and Corey giggled. “I’d say he was right in the middle.”
“Here’s to mediocrity,” she said, holding up her glass.
“Cheers.”
Corey drained her drink and then pointed at the darkened TV screen. “Do you think anyone would disapprove if we checked the hockey score? I don’t think I can make it through the evening without knowing whether my Puffins are smacking your Bruins.”
She turned her blue eyes onto mine, and for some reason I felt an unwelcome pang in my chest. “Go for it, birthday girl. That said, I wouldn’t want you to get depressed on your big day. Because there’s no way you’re winning this thing.”
“Says you.” With a big smile, she began to look around for the remote.
— Corey
The Puffins flattened the Bruins, 4 to 1. For a while there, I thought Hartley might start crying into his drink.