Page 26 of Trick Play

I brought my iced caramel latte to my lips and used those few seconds to come up with a version of the story that would satisfy them and get them to move on without stirring more questions.

“You didn’t want to work on the hockey team’s banners. That’s pretty random,” Dustin added.

I shrugged, downplaying the whole thing. “There’s some bad blood, but it’s all in the past.”

At least, it was at the time. Now it was back to being up front and center.

“Yeah, we figured out that much, but we want the whole story,” Mya begged.

I didn’t owe either of them anything, but I didn’t want this to become a bigger deal and drag it out. “I dated one of the players, and it didn’t end well. I wanted to make sure I wouldn’t have to work directly with the team to finish the banner assignment.”

Dustin nodded, seemingly satisfied.

“Which one?” Mya pressed. Her eyes widened, and just like that, she was fully invested.

I quickly glanced around, making sure I didn’t recognize anyone from the team or his group of friends. “Ethan Clarkson.”

Her mouth popped open. “Oh, wow.”

Dustin handed her a napkin. “You’re drooling, Mya.”

She glared at him before turning to me. “I need to hear everything.”

No, she didn’t. We weren’t friends. This was the first time we’d ever spoken outside of a classroom, but I gave her the ultra-condensed version. “We dated throughout high school then decided to come here together. We broke up freshman year.”

There. Done. That was all she was going to get.

“Why?” she asked, but Dustin cut her off.

“It doesn’t matter. It happened three years ago and obviously wasn’t very amicable if there’s still bad blood. Let’s move on.” He shot her a stern look before addressing me. “What have you come up with?”

I wanted to thank him but went along with this topic change. I pulled out my tablet and sat it in the center of the table so the screen faced them. “I combined a few aspects from each of our original designs.” I scrolled through the options I drew quickly last night. “They were pretty different, but the common thread from all three was the clean, modern style.”

I paused and looked to see if they had anything to say, but they were both staring at the screen. “Mya, I really like the font you used. I think it will work across the board.”

Dustin was nodding but didn’t say anything.

“And I like your use of negative space, Dustin.” He created our bobcat logo in a really unique way, and I could easily see it being picked up to use on school merchandise and around campus.

“Really? Thanks. I wasn’t too sure about it, but I’m glad you liked it.”

“It’s really ingenious and very on-trend,” Mya said.

“The only thing I’m unsure about is how plug and play we want these to be. Do we want the design to be used almost identically across all sports or tweak it for each?” I asked.

Dustin lifted his mug to his lips with his brows furrowed. He didn’t look up from the screen like he was envisioning options.

Mya shrugged with narrowed eyes. “For our sake, I like the plug and play option. It would be easier for printing and future use as well, but I’m not sure how the department would feel about that.”

“Yeah, basketball and hockey definitely bring in more revenue for the school than wresting or diving,” Dustin mused.

“So that could go two ways, either people like that all of the sports are being treated equally, or they’ll be angry that more attention isn’t given to the money makers,” I said before leaning back in my chair.

“Then we give them the two options. I think we should come up with concepts for both then ask Mackey to get feedback about what direction they want to take. Then we don’t waste too much time nailing down a design that they might reject.” I appreciated Dustin taking charge.

“Sounds good to me.”

Mya agreed. “I really like this one.” She pointed to the middle option on the screen. “I can work on refining it and coming up with the template design with all the sports.”