Page 37 of Secret Puck
He heaves a dramatic sigh. “My notes might be shit.”
He hands over a notebook filled with three pages of his small penmanship.
“Did you write down everything the professor said?” I ask, baffled as I scan over them. The amount of detail he’s captured is crazy.
“Uh, yeah. I wasn’t sure what was important and what wasn’t, so I wrote down damn near everything.”
“I’m not sure either. Wow okay. The test is an essay?”
“Yeah. Payne, phone’s going off in your room,” Maverick calls to him.
Heath stands with the controller, backing out of the room. “Ah, ah, fuck. I’m cornered. Pause, one second.” He rushes into his room and out of view, but I hear him answer the phone.
His voice lowers and softens, that tells me immediately he’s talking to a girl. A surge of white-hot jealousy heats my face. He comes back out, phone to his ear, and tosses the controller on the couch.
“Sorry, man, gotta take this,” he says to Rhett and then disappears back into his room, shutting the door behind him.
“So, what do you think?” Maverick asks, bringing me back to the present.
“These notes are great.” We spend the next fifteen minutes picking out things we think he can use. Maverick is detailed and thorough in his studying. It surprises me he’s failing actually. At least until I start asking him questions about it and his attention is about as focused as Charli’s.
“What was the question again?” he asks.
I laugh and he gives me a sheepish grin. “I really fucking hate this class.”
“Why are you taking it?”
“I thought it would be an easy A. I breezed through American Literature.”
“Okay, well, how did you study for that class?”
“I don’t know.” He leans over and pets his dog and a smile pulls at his lips. “Heath and I read the books out loud to each other in funny accents.”
“Heath helped you study? Did you have the class together?”
“Not together, but we were both taking it, different professors. Most of the reading was the same though.”
“Were you roommates?”
“Yeah, we lived in the dorms together last year.”
I’m suddenly less interested in studying than I am hearing about Heath helping Maverick study. What I would give for a peek into the past of those two reading Hemingway.
“Okay, well, we can try that.” I grab the book off the table between us. “The first five sonnets?”
“I’ve already read them.”
“But now that you know the form and themes, I think you’ll be able to pick them out easier. Maybe they’ll make more sense.”
“Yeah, all right.”
I clear my throat and open it to the first page and start reading.
As I’m finishing it and handing the book over to Maverick for a turn, Heath’s door opens and he steps out.
“Payne! Sit your sexy ass down and read me some Shakespeare.”
Heath takes a seat and to my surprise takes the book. “You’re reading it out loud?”
