Page 74 of The Alternate Captain
Since we’ve both got proposals approved, we’re now cycling through a shit ton of textbooks while we gather enough reading material to write literature reviews.
“How many words do we need to write?” he asks, highlighting a load of text on his screen two hours into our studying.
“Dr Wells told me to aim for three thousand words to allow for editing,” I say.
“Well, fuck. I’ve got, like, three hundred. Words are deceptive.” Ffordey frowns.
“Wanna grab something to eat? We can come back here after if we go to the coffee shop.”
“I’ll eat. But I’m done for the day, that’s for sure.”
We pack up our stuff and head over to the coffee shop to find that it’s closed, so we walk towards the parking lot to get my car so we can head somewhere else.
As we round the corner, Bettsy’s car comes into view, and my heart stops when I spot Kelly climbing out of the passenger’s seat.
I think she hasn’t spotted us, but Bettsy sticks his head out and yells, causing everyone in a five-mile radius to turn and stare.
“Hey, swots. How’s it going? Wanna grab something to eat?” he says, flashing us a full set of pearly whites.
Kelly meets my eyes for the briefest of moments, then reaches for her cello as the campus warden moves in from behind us.
“You can’t park there, mate,” he says, gesturing to Bettsy to move.
“I’ll park up and come find you,” Bettsy shouts, pulling away.
“Oh hey, Parker,” Kelly says.
She looks at me with so much hurt in her eyes, I feel damn right ashamed of myself. There’s so much I want to say, but Ffordey’s standing right next to me.
“How’s little Bettsy?” he says.
“Stressed. I’m having to perform a duet with my ex,” she says. “And speaking of him—”
Darren’s saxophone case bangs me in the shins on his way past, and I stumble into Ffordey.
“Oh, I didn’t realise you were bringing your boyfriend. Nice to see you again, Johnny.”
He’s a dick. Honestly, this guy is something else. And after the second it takes for me to process what he said, I look at Ffordey, who’s staring at me as if he’s trying to calculate how many rolls of tape he’d need in a season.
He opens his mouth to speak, but I talk over him.
“We’re going, aren’t we Ffordey?” I say, completely mortified.
“We’re waiting on—”
“We’ll leave you to it,” Kelly says, more to Ffordey than to me, nudging Darren towards the entrance of the music building.
Once they disappear, Ffordey rounds on me, and I pray for the ground to open up.
“What the hell was that?” he asks.
“Well...” He stares at me, his stony-grey eyes penetrating mine as if I’ve got less than a second to talk. “Remember when we went to visit Bettsy, and I picked Kelly up—”
“That was the guy?”
“Not exactly.” Well, shit. That would have been a decent lie to tell. “That’s her actual ex, who was also giving her shit, so I filled in again. Honestly—it’s nothing. But I don’t want anyone thinking it’s more than it is.”
I swallow hard, careful to maintain eye contact with him because there’s no way I can tell Ffordey the truth.
