Page 34 of Practice Makes Perfect
The sincerity in his voice makes something twist in my chest. We stand in silence for a moment, the only sounds coming from passing cars and the buzzing 7-Eleven sign. In some ways, I’ve found the trouble my grandmother told me to go chasing after, in the form of spilling my deepest shame to a near stranger.
“So now you know my deep dark secret,” I finally say. “I’m near the end of freshman year and haven’t had sex. Go ahead, laugh.”
“Why would I laugh?” He looks genuinely confused. “That’s not something to laugh about.”
“Because most people our age have.”
“There’s no timeline for this stuff.” He pauses, seeming to consider something. “Can I ask why, though? Is it a religious thing, or…?”
“No, it’s… complicated.” I’m not ready to tell him about Derek and high school. “Let’s just say I’ve been waiting for the right time. And person. And situation.”
“That’s completely fair,” he says.
After a contemplative pause, Linc shifts his weight and takes another sip of his Slurpee. “Listen, about that night… I wasn’t exactly in the best headspace either.”
“What do you mean?” I ask, a little surprised, because Linc always seems like he’s happy and on top of the world.
He stares at his drink, his expression clouding. “Coach had just told me I was the new co-captain.”
“Co-captain?” I furrow my brow. “But isn’t Mike the captain?”
“Technically, now we both are. I’m supposed to be the on-ice leader, and he’s supposed to handle the off-ice leadership.” Linc laughs, but there’s no humor in it. “Except he’s been so down lately he barely talks to anyone—before, during, or after games.”
We start walking, almost instinctively, toward my dorm. The night is cold but clear, the stars visible even through the campus lights. Linc’s breath forms small clouds in the air as he talks. Somehow, the conversation feels more intimate than the touches we’d shared in his bedroom a few weeks back, before I’d fled.
“Coach pulled me into his office right after the game tonight,” he continues. “Basically told me to fix Mike or he’d strip him of his captain title completely.”
“That’s a lot of responsibility to put on you.”
“Yeah.” Linc kicks at a pebble on the sidewalk. “I get it, I do. Mike’s injury might have destroyed—or at least delayed—his future in hockey. But…”
“So, just to be clear,” I say, “you had all this pressure on you, and then some random girl freaked out and ran away from your apartment?”
That gets a genuine laugh out of him. “When you put it that way, it does sound like a pretty shit night.”
“For both of us.”
We walk in companionable silence for a minute. The campus is quiet at this hour, most students either out at parties or tucked away in their dorms. I’m hyperaware of Linc beside me, our arms occasionally brushing as we navigate the sidewalk.
“Can I say something about Mike?” I ask finally.
“Sure.”
“Just because someone’s going through a hard time, it doesn’t give them an excuse to disappear as a friend. It explains it, but it doesn’t excuse it.”
Linc looks at me with surprise. “That’s… insightful.”
“I have my moments.” I shrug.
We’ve been walking for more than fifteen minutes now, following the winding campus paths in what feels like an aimless meander. I’m not quite ready for the conversation to end, which is strange considering how desperately I wanted to avoid Linc just thirty minutes ago.
“This is me,” I say as we approach Hughes Hall. The old brick building looms against the night sky.
I hover at the bottom of the steps, my hand gripping the cold metal railing. Something shifts in the air between us, a current of possibility. His eyes meet mine, and he seems to want to say something until he thinks better of it, and then I decide before my brain can talk me out of it.
Find some trouble.
Well, here goes nothing.
