The next day I was minding my own business, eating my salmon wrap in the athletic dining hall between classes. My scholarship offered me full access to the regular dining hall as well, but that one was riddled with sugary drinks and fast food, neither of which I liked to put in my body. They made me feel sluggish and slow. Also, in addition to having healthier and higher protein options, the athletic dining hall was secluded, and people rarely ever bothered me.

That is, until today.

“Carter?” a hesitant female voice called out to me from behind.

I paused with my wrap halfway to my face and craned my neck. There, like a ghost that refused to stop haunting me was none other than Shannon Olsen. She was wearing a pink crop top and navy board shorts with her hair up in a messy bun. She was biting her lip nervously and there were bags under her eyes. In her arms was a tray piled high with Greek salad.

I narrowed my eyes at her.

“This building is supposed to be for student-athletes only.”

The words came out more unkind than I intended. She only shrugged it off and said, “I know. I’m on the volleyball team.” She glanced at the empty seat across from me. “Can I sit with you?”

I sighed and set down my wrap.

“If you must,” I said. At least she was wearing clothes this time.

She plopped her food down first and then her body. She sat with her head propped up on one hand and her fork in the other. She was forlornly rolling tomatoes across the top of her salad with no apparent interest in eating them. I finished my lunch, wiped my hands off on a napkin and then finally took pity on her.

“So, I met your brother last night.”

Shannon’s eyes momentarily softened and then narrowed.

“Yeah, I heard. I’m sorry about that.”

I fought to keep the grin off my face.

“It’s cool. So, your brother really doesn’t like Steve, does he?”

Shannon’s posture slumped even further, almost as if she was folding in on herself.

“It’s just not fair!” she wailed. “Why does he get to decide who I can and cannot date? I’m the more responsible one. If anything, it should be me looking after him and you don’t see me going around prying into his personal life or anything. It’s so dumb, you know?”

I shrugged. This conversation had taken an uncomfortably personal turn rather quickly. Part of me wanted to tell her that just because I’d seen her naked that didn’t make us friends. And it certainly didn’t make her seem like the “responsible one” to me.

“Have you tried talking to him?” I asked.

She laughed and then shook her head. “No. He’s like a brick wall. I can throw words and curses at him all day and he still wouldn’t budge an inch.”

“Okay,” I said slowly. “Why not just ignore him then? You already said you don’t care what he thinks, so just go about your business.” Your nasty, nasty business, I thought to myself. 

She frowned. “I do care what he thinks though. At least a little bit. Besides, even if I did want to go behind his back, now Steve’s scared shitless.”

This time I did smile. I couldn’t help it.

“Sorry,” I said quickly, biting my lip. “But are you really surprised?”

“No,” she sighed. “I know what Steve is, but I love him anyway.”

Well somebody’s got to.

“It’ll work out,” I said, though I didn’t quite know how.

“Thanks for saying that,” she said with a small smile. Then she finally took the first bite of her salad.

I took this moment of distractedness to really study her face and compare it with Mark’s. Having only seen him once, the only drastic difference I could see was in their jawline. Shannon’s was sharp and angular, while Mark’s was rounded and angelic, completely at odds with his general bad boy persona. I wondered briefly how it might feel to kiss him there. I wanted to see if his clean-shaven face was as soft as it looked. But that was a weird thing to be thinking while staring creepily at someone’s younger sister, so I tore my gaze away and coughed.

“I love my brother,” Shannon continued with her mouth full. “Don’t get me wrong, but sometimes I wish I could just send over someone big and strong to intimidate him for once. See how he likes it.”

I nodded absently and took a swig of my water. Shannon glanced up from her food and met my eyes. There was a spark of an idea in them that hadn’t been there before, and it made me incredibly nervous.

I swallowed slowly, the liquid stretching my throat on the way down.

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

“You’re a hockey player,” she said excitedly. I couldn’t remember the last time anyone had said those words to me without a question mark on the end.

“Yeah,” I said, raising a brow. “And?”

“So, you know how to fight and stuff, right?”

I narrowed my eyes. “That’s not really how it works…”

She shook her head. “Doesn’t matter. You’re huge! You could just like, show up at his class in your jersey or something and give him the stink eye and Mark would probably shit his pants on the way back to his room.”

I looked at her incredulously.

“And why on Earth would I do that?”

Her eyes went wide and pleading in a way that probably worked wonders on all of the straight boys in her life, but certainly not on me.

“Please, Carter,” she begged. “For me.”

I shook my head. It was both demeaning and a terrible idea. I was an athlete, not a personal thug. I had never started a fight in my whole life, only finished them, and even if I was going to start one, it wouldn’t be for Shannon. I didn’t even like this girl. I was glad she and Steve were having difficulties. If I had it my way, they’d break up for good.

Then I thought about Mark’s handsome face. If Steve and Shannon really did break up over this, I’d probably never get to see him again. I might never get to see him again regardless.

I let out a heavy sigh.

“Give me his class schedule,” I said. “I’ll see what I can do.”

That is how my tragic ass ended up waiting on a bench outside of the criminology labs with my face hidden behind a book and my eyes peeking out over the top like a cartoon character.

I felt so dumb. I was so dumb. It’s not like I had any real intention of talking to Mark like Shannon wanted. If I had any sense at all I would’ve scrapped this silly charade and worked out my lingering frustrations back at the gym, where I belonged.

Suddenly, my phone chirped, alerting me that it was now three p.m. I silenced it and then glanced at the door to the lab. Students started flowing out of it a few moments later. I quickly drew my gaze back down to the book and stared at the word viscosity for a count of ten. Then I looked up and caught the students’ retreating forms.

Mark wasn’t hard to spot among them. He was wearing jeans and a faded brown T-shirt. He didn’t have a backpack over his shoulders, but he carried a thick yellow binder under one arm. I could just make out the side of his face as he walked diagonally away from his classmates, his eyes squinting against the sun. I snapped my book closed and followed behind at a distance. I knew I was being creepy, but I was curious, and to be fair, I wouldn’t have been here at all without Shannon’s intervention. If anyone was to blame it was her; or so I kept telling myself.

We ended up at the library, the same one with the unfortunate coffee shop attached to the side. I immediately ducked behind the white metal shelves stacked with sixteenth century poetry, picked out a random tome, and peered at Mark through the gap.

Mark had settled down at one of the thick wooden tables in the center of the room. As I watched, he set down his binder and fished out his phone and charger from his pockets. He plugged the device into the attached USB port on the table and got to work. For around fifteen minutes, he did nothing but read through the information in his binder, occasionally pausing to highlight the text. The longer this went on, the more my tense shoulders started to relax. I was starting to wonder why he’d bothered coming to the library for this.

Finally, he got up and disappeared into the stacks on the opposite side of the room. I held the poetry book up in front of my face and shot across the open space to follow him; thus, emphasizing why I am a hockey player and not a private investigator.

Mark was crouched down in the mystery section, scanning titles and absently trailing his fingers over worn spines. He looked comfortable here, like he did this all the time. Maybe he was secretly a mild-mannered bookworm, or maybe he was just brushing up on his detective skills for the next time Shannon and Steve got together. I was guessing the latter since the first seemed at odds with his rock star look and fist fighting gravitas. Either way, he looked damn good doing it.

I let the hand carrying the book fall to my side. Mark was too engrossed in his novel selection process to notice me anyway. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case for the guy closing in behind me. He didn’t even say excuse me or ask me to move out of his way. He just shouldered right past me, which was not easy to do given my size. I was so startled that the book I was holding dropped to the floor and fell open to a random page. The noise immediately caught Mark’s attention and he hurried over to retrieve it for me.

“Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?” he read aloud, grinning. “Did you know the running theory is that this sonnet was written about a man?”

I felt the horrible nervous laughter bubble up inside of me before I could stop it. I probably sounded like some asshole who thought the very idea of homosexuality in historical figures was preposterous. Mark didn’t seem bothered by it though. He just closed the book up and handed it back to me. Our fingers touched for just a second, making the mundane gesture seem strikingly intimate. Mark met my eyes and his face lit up with recognition.

“Hey, it’s Carter, right?”

“Guilty as charged.” I shrugged. I sounded like a lame old man, but at least I was speaking in coherent sentences. My face felt hot and my palms were sweating. Mark was even more attractive up close and personal like this.

His face brightened and then fell.

“I, uh, I’m sorry about last night. I mean, I’m not sorry I did it, but I am sorry you had to see.”

I laughed and this time it was genuine.

“Don’t be. You saved me the effort.”

An adorable dimple appeared on his left cheek and he reached up a hand to scratch the back of his neck.

“Glad to hear it.”

He looked like he wanted to say more, but then someone came up behind him and tapped him on the shoulder. Mark smiled apologetically and excused himself to talk with the newcomer. I slipped away unnoticed.

My heart was pounding out of my chest as I exited the library. I wasn’t sure if the gay Shakespeare comment was supposed to be some kind of admission, or just Mark being friendly, but it made my stomach flutter either way. Despite my insufferable awkwardness, I wanted to talk to him again. I continued watching him from afar throughout the following weeks, hoping against all hopes that such an opportunity would present itself.

I tried not to be too desperate or obvious about it, just little things, like showing up at the library during times I thought he might be there and taking a different route to and from beginning Spanish in hopes that I’d catch a glimpse of him leaving his anthropology lecture. Either he didn’t see me or was pretending not to. I never got the conversation I was looking for, but I did end up with a pretty good idea of the kind of person Mark Olsen was.

Mark was kind to everyone he met despite his edgy persona, but he seemed to have more acquaintances than friends. He studied a lot, read constantly, and shared his notes and opinions freely. He had a laugh that enveloped his whole body, starting with his shoulders and making him shake all the way down. He appeared relaxed and casual in every situation, but he had a tendency to chew on the skin around his left thumbnail when he was lost in his own thoughts. He also seemed completely uninterested in drinking or partying. I’d overheard him turn down invitations a handful of times, but never in a judgmental or scornful way, which only made me like him more.

Overall, he just seemed like a cute, normal, well-adjusted college boy. The kind of boy who was probably looking for a cute, well-adjusted college girl and not some socially inept hockey robot like me.

I knew this fixation wasn’t healthy. Despite Shannon’s near constant begging and nagging, I had to let the whole Mark situation go.