Page 17 of Worth the Risk

“Yikes. I mean you could just come clean, tell her you like her.”

“Yeah. I thought about that but I told her I’d help her with something, a bucket list of sorts and she seemed so happy. I don’t want to ruin that. What if she doesn’t like me? I’d rather have her as my friend than not at all.”

“Hmm.” Ryan ponders as he scoops a spoonful of oatmeal into his mouth. “You’ve got yourself in a tricky situation then. Risk it or live with it.”

Chapter 11

Emilia

It’s the first Monday of the semester meaning it’s the first day of one of the classes I have to take this semester, Sports Psychology. This specific class isn’t required but I need a few more credits for my major and this one sounded interesting enough, plus it fit in well with my schedule. Since it’s a Monday only class it is about three hours long, going from noon until three, but hopefully we’ll get out early a lot. A girl can dream.

I finally make it to the athletic building from where my previous class was in the library. It's going to be a hike to get here on time every Monday but I think it’ll be fine.

“Emi!” A familiar voice calls my name right as I’m about to open the door to the building.

“Liam, hi.” He jogs over to me, reaching around me he opens the door, gesturing for me to enter.

“What are you doing here? Doesn’t look like you’re going to work out.” He eyes my outfit. The weather is amazing out today, being the end of summer the humidity is low but the warm sun still hangs in the sky so I opted for a light purple skirt today with a white short sleeve shirt.

“No, I have a class here.” I check my phone to see the room number. “On the second floor. I’ve never been in here though, can you show me where the heck to go?” I laugh, despite being here for three years I have yet to be in this building. I’ve been in the hockey arena that lays a few buildings away but I’ve never had a reason to go into the academic part of the athletic building.

“Of course, I have one on the second floor too.” He leads me down the hall and up a set of stairs that lead directly to my classroom.

“Which room number?”

“It’s this one right here actually.”

“Wait, really?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Looks like we have a class together.”

“You’ll be working on a project in a group of two this semester.” Professor Jones explains after going over his syllabus, class expectations and starting a brief lesson on how a healthy brain is essential for athletes. “Everyone will cover a different topic that I assign to you, presentations will follow along with the weekly learnings so we will have one presentation a week from midterms to the week before finals. Everyone please take a few minutes to pick your partners.”

“Hey,” Liam turns his body to face me, when we entered the class I picked a random seat on an end row and Liam put himself to the right of me. “Want to be partners?”

“Sure.” I smile at him. I spotted a few familiar faces in this class but no one I’ve worked with before.

“Great.” He smiles back at me, his dimples popping out.

“Okay, class. Everyone have their partners?” There’s a chorus of yes’s to confirm that everyone is paired off. “Alright I will call out names and you can come up with your partners to get your topics, then you will be dismissed for the day.” He calls off a list of names, starting alphabetically by last name.

“Liam Mills.” Liam rises from his seat, I follow closely behind him to the front of the room.

“Your name?” He flicks his eyes to me.

“Emilia Scott.” Professor Jones highlights our names in green, I notice he has a different color for every pair.

“Okay, your topic will be about motivation and the connection that has to do with performance.” He hands us each a paper outlining the topic and the project requirements. You will be week six of presentations so that will be the beginning of December. Please email me with any questions.”

“Thank you.” He calls up the next name, effectively dismissing us.

“So why are you taking this class?” Liam asks as we head out the door. When we arrived in class there wasn’t much time for discussion as we got there one minute before class started.

“I’m a psych major and needed another major elective, this one just happened to fit best with my schedule. You?

“Same. Well not the psych major part but the same concept just for athletic training.”

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