Page 17 of The Love Dare
She tosses him a pointed glare.
“What?” He laughs softly. “You watch me play all the time. And this is your rink. I mean, look at you, with the pens and the notebooks, ready for the attack.”
Winnie eyes her setup—two different notebooks, a set of colorful gel pens all placed in a careful line, a highlighter just in case. Most classes allow computers, but this professor is infamous for being old school. No tech allowed. Which Tyler seems to have read as no notes allowed at all.
“Don’t you have a pencil, at least?” she asks. “Paper?”
He swallows. A shadow flickers in his eyes before he drops his gaze to his empty desktop. By the time he glances back up at her, it’s gone, replaced with a put-on humor she recognizes. He taps the side of his head. “I have everything I need right here.”
Stupid, Winnie chastises. She knows all about his dyslexia, but she completely spaced. “Sorry, Ty. I?—”
“It’s fine.” He politely shuts her down. “I absorb more by just listening, you know.”
It’s odd to see him uncomfortable like this. Annoyed? Yes. Exasperated? Often. Insecure? Never. On the ice, he’s an unstoppable force, but for the first time, Winnie realizes, he’s maybe also a little bit human.
Chin up.
The words he told her outside the school gym that day come rushing back, the sense that he’d heard them himself many times before. She just figured at the time that it was due to his chaotic home life. Tyler has always existed outside of school—a player on her dad’s team, an extra member of their household, a friend, an utterly secret and utterly impossible crush, but never a classmate. She knows he doesn’t get great grades. She assumed with hockey as his number-one priority, it never bothered him. But maybe it did. Maybe his learning disability affected him more than she understood. Kids can be cruel. She knows that better than most. When they find a weakness, they run with it. She can imagine the teasing, the names, the stereotype they might have pushed him into.Dumb jock.The horrible jokes practically write themselves. Suddenly, thatchin uprings differently. She can’t help but wonder if they have more in common than she ever realized.
Five minutes before the start of class isn’t the time to bring it up.
“I heard the new jerseys are sick,” she offers instead, a lifeline he takes with gusto.
They chat easily until the professor walks in, and then a switch in Winnie’s head flips. Tyler’s right. Thisisher rink. She takes notes like a champion, fingers flying across the page. The rest of the world falls away as she sinks into the lecture and intothe literature, escaping into the words in a way that feels like second nature. Art is her passion and her skill, but language is her muse. This is the best part about college. Not the friends. Not the parties. But the chance to dive into subjects that matter so deeply to her. Instead of doodling to make it through the humdrum of precalc, she’s more present than ever, completely invested. By the time class is over, Winnie’s on a high. Her skin sings. She takes a deep breath, just to soak it all in, when?—
“Fuck,” Tyler whispers by her side. “I am never going to pass this class.”
“Of course you will.” She looks at him, trying to be cheerful despite his glower. “I said I would help.”
“Winnie.” He turns fully toward her, revealing the absolute horror written in his eyes, and repeats, “I amnevergoing to pass this class.”
Dread sinks down her middle like a rock through a lake, taking all her elation with it. “You can’t?—”
“I need to drop it while I still can.”
“But—” She stops herself just in time.But you can’t, is what she wants to say.If you drop this class, I’ll never see you. I won’t have an excuse to see you.Instead, she lamely finishes, “It’s Shakespeare.”
“I know.” He laughs darkly. “That’s sort of the problem. A play every two weeks? I’ll never be able to keep up with that pace. I’m not even sure I can make it through one.”
“You can.”
“I appreciate your optimism, but?—”
“Listen, Ty.” She puts her hand on his arm before she can stop herself and leans closer, imploring. “I promise. I will not let you fail this class.”
He swallows tightly, gaze unflinching, trust shining within it. “You promise?”
“I promise.”
Winnie holds true to her word. For the rest of the semester, she makes it her mission to ensure he maintains a passing grade. Added bonus, it gives her a reason to constantly seek him out, to randomly check in, to meet up when no one else is around. They start on the top floor of the library—completely public. But it’s too loud, and Tyler has a harder time reading the plays than she realized he would. So they move to a private study room—still with windows into the library, but set apart and quiet. Most of the time, she reads the plays aloud and then they talk through the assignments together. Sometimes, she helps him write a little bit too, but he dictates almost everything. With the act of reading removed, Tyler’s a lot smarter than he gives himself credit for. He understands the material. He just has a hard time putting his thoughts into words or physically reading. But he’s intelligent. Truly. And most impressively, he’s driven. He works his ass off, on the ice where he displays god-given talents but also off it where life is a lot more challenging.
About a third of the way through the semester, Winnie complains about her butt aching in the stupid library chairs, so he tells her to come to his room for the next study session. Heat immediately flares up her neck, but she nods, then practically runs from the library as fast as she can so he won’t hear her squeal. A few days later, she shows up at the hockey house, her stomach a flurry and her pulse irrationally erratic. Tyler opens the door before she even knocks and shuttles her upstairs. His room is like a typical guy’s, dark comforter, messy desk, hockey stuff slung in the open closet, some stray socks along the floor. But the bed is made and the hasty pile of laundry in the corner hints that this is the “clean” version. She smiles, picturing him running around to prepare for her arrival. They sit on his bed and dive into work after a brief, awkward pause. Despite all her nerves, they keep it platonic. Still, they never meet up in the library again.
Slowly, as the weeks pass, they go from sitting straight and keeping a two-foot distance to blurred lines—watching the movie versions of the plays while lying on his bed, Winnie reading aloud while they sit side by side with her head on his shoulder. She starts kicking her shoes off to curl up in the pillows. He starts leaving out a sweatshirt since she’s always cold. The smell of him when she pulls it over her head is like a drug.
There are moments when she thinks maybe he’ll do something, brief hiccups that send the breath in her lungs swirling. A touch here. A brush there. A comment. A look. All these little what-ifs, toeing the line, never quite crossing it but probing, as if waiting for her to reach out and pull him over.
By the time the final exam rolls around, they’ve determined he needs a B minus to pass the class. Doable, but difficult because it’s a written exam. He doesn’t want to, but Winnie pushes him to request the extra time he’s due. She understands the urge to not want to be different from everyone else. But as she tells him a million times, there’s no shame in taking what he’s rightfully owed. So he does. When she finds him after, he looks slightly as if he’s been through war, but it’s done. They meet up with Alex to celebrate. A few days later, Winnie goes to the professor’s office to ask about his class next semester, and when she arrives, she happens to notice the grades glowing on-screen when his back is turned. Tyler got a B. She lets out a literal whoop, and tries to cover it with a cough. Then she runs to the hockey house to tell him.
