Page 45 of Make the Play
“Here I thought Alec had the market cornered on being conceited.” Theo turns his gaze on Emerson. “One thing you’ll quickly learn is there is no one who loves a King man more than, well—a King man.”
Jason barks out a laugh, swinging his arm around Theo’s shoulder. “Yeah, yeah. Says the man who loves two King men.”
“Look what it’s got me,” Theo says with a grin.
“I’m gonna eat all the pizza if you guys don’t hurry up,” Alec yells from the other room, interrupting whatever it is that’s happening between Theo and Jason. “Well maybe not all of it, this one has pineapple. Disgusting.”
“Pineapple on pizza is the best,” Jason yells back. He turns to Emerson and Theo with expectant eyes. “Right?”
“No,” Theo and Emerson answer at the same time.
“I see how it is, my two favorite people teaming up against me,” Jason says with a shake of his head. He keeps talking, but Emerson has stopped listening, his brain honing in on Jason’s words.
My two favorite people.
My two favorite people.
10JASON
“Good job class, hit the lockers,”Jason yells, lips sealing around the end of his whistle as he gives a quick blow to catch the attention of the stragglers out at the edge of the field. He waits until every student is back and accounted for, well past the class dismissal bell, before departing the field. A quick glance at his watch shows he’s got ten minutes until his next class. Not enough time to bother heading back to his office, or enough time to sneak over to Emerson’s class and see how he’s doing.
He saw him this morning when they drove to work together, and he’s going to see him later, but Jason misses him already. It’s weird because Jason’s pretty sure he’s never even wanted to talk to any of his girlfriends as much as he wants to talk to Emerson. Hell, even with Theo he can go a full work day without talking to him when he has to.
Something about Emerson is different, and Jason isn’t too fussed about why. At first he thought it was wanting him to settle in but they’re nearing the end of October now and he can’t really use that excuse. The truth is he just likes Emerson.
Pulling his phone out of his pocket, he swipes open the screen, ignoring the thirty-seven new messages in the family group chat in favor of opening his last text stream with Emerson. Smile already pulling across his face, he types out a message.
Jason
are you busy?
i have a question
The response comes within seconds, almost as if Emerson had his phone in hand. Almost as if he was waiting for Jason. There’s no way he was, but it makes Jason’s smile widen all the same.
Emerson
What kind of question?
Jason
if someone wanted to start reading Tolkien where should they start
Emerson
That depends on the person and the time commitment. Are they looking for the full experience? The most accepted answer is to follow the publication order which would put The Hobbit first. Obviously The Lord of the Rings follows. Tell them to not read those out of order. Ever. There’s a lot of lesser known published books too like The Similiarian or the Children of Hurin that come after.
By the time he’s gotten to the end of the message, Jason’s smiling wider than he has since, well, since he saw Emerson this morning on the drive to work. Emerson texts the way he talks, albeit a little bolder sometimes, and it’s damn endearing. Not wanting to waste a minute of his time he’s quick to reply.
Jason
that was a lot of titles
lets just say this person is not a reader and has no idea what they’re doing
He could tell Emerson this is about him. There’s no reason not to. Except that Jason kind of wants to surprise him. For the last week, he’s been putting up with Jason rambling about football at lunch, listening in earnest while Jason spews player stats and works through plays. And even though he doesn’t understand or care about football, he never asks Jason to stop talking. It makes Jason want to do the same in turn. He’s never been a big reader, but ever since he overheard Emerson telling his students that audiobooks are reading, he’s been thinking about picking one up for his runs. If he just so happens to want to learn more about Emerson’s special interest so he gets to infodump, well, that’s just him being a good friend.
His phone dings alerting him to a new message from Emerson.
