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I was about to ask Sly why he hadn’t mentioned his plan to stay all summer when his phone rang, and he glanced at it, then frowned and answered, his eyes meeting mine in a silent apology.
“Hey,” he said.
I stared down at the menu, trying not to eavesdrop.
“You’re kidding.” He sounded disappointed about something and I risked a look up at him. “Oh. You mean the calculations? Oh. Because I didn’t do the projections right.”
“You did. I know.” He paused, rubbing his forehead for a brief second and taking a deep breath.
“Yeah, I just feel responsible. That was my part.”
Now I heard defeat in his voice, and watched as his eyes slid shut and he dropped his head into his other hand as he held the phone to his ear.
Calculations and projections? This wasn’t about hockey, I didn’t think. It had to be the MBA.
He ended the call and put his phone away, took a breath and then said, “I’m thinking it’s a milkshake day.”
“Hey,” I said. “What was that? Everything okay?”
Katie was absorbed in coloring, and it gave us a bit of privacy. I hoped he’d open up about whatever was clearly bothering him.
He sighed. “Not really. We just turned in a group project in my Data Visualization course, and the group didn’t do very well. Because I screwed it up.”
“Oh no.” I understood what that felt like, the pressure of letting the team down.
“They probably expected it.”
“Why would they expect to do poorly?”
“Because they got me. I suck at school, Clara. That’s not a secret.”
“It’s also not a fact.” I replayed his side of the conversation in my head. “They checked your work though, right?”
“Yeah.”
“So this was a group error. It’s not on you.”
He blew out a frustrated breath, and dropped my gaze to stare down at his hand on the table for a moment.
“Hey,” I said softly, hoping to draw his eyes back to mine. “Do you get another shot at it?”
“Yeah. We have a few days to redo the parts that were wrong. My parts.”
“Can I help?”
He didn’t answer me, and was clearly happy to see the waitress appear at the end of the table to take our orders. Had I overstepped? Or was this thing between us just a fleeting dalliance, was it just the one kiss but not meant to be part of the rest of our lives? The important parts? It was way too early to think about anything like that, but I knew Sly needed help. And he didn’t want it from me.
We didn’t talk about his classes again. Instead, Sly busied himself helping Katie draw on her menu, playing tic tac toe and studiously dodging any conversation that might veer back to his studies. But I could see the hurt in the way he held himself, just slightly less sure than the man who’d kissed me on the ice.
I didn’t want to see him looking defeated, but it was clear he wasn’t looking for help. At least not from me.
CHAPTER11
SLY
BACK IN A SLY-SHAPED BOX
Just when I thought maybe I had a shot with Clara, just as I’d shown her some of who I really was, had maybe even impressed her a little, I’d been slammed right back into the Sly-shaped box I’d lived in my whole life. The one that kept me in my place, that made me remember I was just a dumb jock.
