Nerds Don't Date Athletes

Chapter 2

SLOANE

Chelsea is exactly the kind of friend who doesn't make you talk about it.

She just hands you a glass of wine, puts pasta in front of you, and sits across the table like she's ready to wait you out for however long it takes.

It takes about four minutes.

"He's been cheating," I say.

She doesn't gasp. Doesn't do the whole oh my God thing. She just exhales slowly through her nose, the way people do when they've suspected something for a long time and are finally getting confirmation.

"How long?" she asks.

"Don't know. He wouldn't say."

"Did you ask?"

"He looked away, Chelsea. That was my answer."

She refills my glass without being asked. "I never liked him."

"You came to his games every weekend."

"For you. I came for you. There's a difference." She stabs a piece of pasta. "He always looked at other girls when you weren't watching. I didn't say anything because I thought maybe I was being paranoid."

I put my fork down. "You should've told me."

"Would you have listened?"

I open my mouth. Close it.

No. I wouldn't have. That's the most humiliating part of this whole thing. I would have made excuses for him, explained it away, told her she was reading too much into it. Because that's what I did. For two years, that's exactly what I did.

"He called me exhausting," I say.

Chelsea's eyes go flat. "Excuse me?"

"Said I'm too in my head. That being with me is exhausting sometimes."

"Chase Bennett." She sets her wine glass down with a very deliberate click. "Called you exhausting. The man who needed you to proofread his communications essay three times because he kept writing your instead of you're."

A laugh bursts out of me before I can stop it. Not a happy laugh. But a real one.

"I drove him to 5am ice practice for a month," I say.

"I know."

"I learned the offside rule."

"I know."

"I sat rinkside in the freezing cold every home game for two years."

"I know, Sloane."

"And he was cheating the whole time."

Chelsea reaches across the table and grabs my hand. "He's an i***t. And you're going to be fine."

I stare at my pasta. "I know I'm going to be fine. I'm just so angry."

"Good." She squeezes my hand. "Stay angry. It's better than sad."

---

I don't sleep well.

I lie there running the same loop in my head - the earring, the look on Chase's face, the way he said exhausting like it was a fact he'd been sitting on for months. I keep landing on the same question I can't answer.

Was there a version of this where I wasn't so predictable?

Because that's what it comes down to, isn't it? I was predictable. Safe. The girlfriend who showed up and stayed quiet and never made things difficult. And he took that and walked all over it.

I fall asleep somewhere around 3am and wake up feeling like garbage.

---

My 9am lecture on network security infrastructure does not care about my garbage feeling.

Professor Daniels does not care. The forty-minute module on cryptographic hash functions does not care. The guy in front of me who keeps bouncing his knee does not care.

I take notes anyway. Because that's what I do. That's what I've always done. Show up, take notes, hold it together.

By lunchtime I'm running on bad sleep and worse coffee, and all I want is to sit somewhere quiet and eat without anyone talking to me.

I do not get that.

I'm cutting across the east quad when I hear it - a burst of laughter from the direction of the athletics complex. Hockey guys. I can tell by the gear bags and the way they move in a pack, like they've never once in their lives considered that other people might be trying to walk somewhere.

I angle left to go around them.

"Sloane."

I stop.

I know that voice.

I turn around slowly, and there he is - Noah Sinclair, in a Ridgemont hoodie and sweats, gear bag slung over his shoulder, looking at me like running into me on my own campus is the most normal thing in the world.

"What the hell are you doing here?" I say.

"Nice to see you too." He falls into step beside me like I invited him to. I did not invite him to.

"I'm serious. This is Crestwood. You can't just-"

"Relax. Joint training session." He nods toward the athletics complex. "Ridgemont and Crestwood share the ice on Tuesdays this semester. Some new inter-campus sports initiative."

I stare at him. "Since when?"

"Since this semester." He glances sideways at me. "You didn't know?"

"Why would I know the hockey schedule?"

"Your boyfriend plays for Crestwood. Played." He says it carefully, watching my face. "Word travels."

I stop walking. "Word travels."

"Hockey teams talk. It came up."

"What exactly came up?"

He stops too, turning to face me properly. He's got this way of looking at you that doesn't flinch, doesn't dart around. Just straight at you, like he's already decided you're worth the full attention.

It's deeply annoying.

"That Chase Bennett is an i***t," he says simply.

I don't know what I expected him to say. It wasn't that.

"You don't know anything about it," I say.

"I know enough."

"You don't know me."

"I know your name." His mouth pulls at the corner. "I know you throw coins at fountains and curse rival campuses when you're having a bad night. I know you push your glasses up when you're nervous." He pauses. "You're doing it right now."

I drop my hand from my face.

Damn it.

"Stop analyzing me," I say.

"I'm not analyzing you. I'm just paying attention." He shifts the bag on his shoulder. "There's a difference."

We're standing in the middle of the quad and people are moving around us and I am suddenly very aware that I have not slept enough and my hair is in the world's most depressing ponytail and Noah Sinclair is looking at me like I'm something worth looking at and I genuinely do not know what to do with that.

"I have class," I say.

"You just came from class."

"I have another class."

"At noon on a Tuesday?"

"Goodbye, Noah."

I turn and walk. Fast. The kind of fast that isn't quite running but is definitely trying to be.

"Hey." His voice follows me. Not loud. Just steady. "Bennett didn't deserve you."

I don't stop walking.

But my chest does something stupid and traitorous that I absolutely refuse to acknowledge.

I don't look back.

Which means I miss the way he's still standing there watching me go.

I find out later from Chelsea, who saw the whole thing from the second floor window.

He stood there until I was completely out of sight.

---

Chelsea is waiting outside my afternoon seminar, which means she has information and could not wait until I got home to deliver it.

"Okay so." She falls into step beside me before I've even fully come through the door. "You know how I follow the hockey team's i********:?"

"Why do you follow the hockey team's i********:?"

"Because they're all hot and I have eyes, Sloane, keep up." She shoves her phone in my face. "Look."

It's the Ridgemont hockey team's account. A post from this morning. Training session recap. A few action shots on the ice.

And in the background of one photo - barely visible, slightly blurred - two people standing in what looks like the east quad.

Me. And Noah.

"That went up an hour ago," Chelsea says. "It already has four hundred likes."

I stare at the photo. "You can't even see our faces."

"No. But Crestwood people can see his hoodie. And now everyone is asking why there's a Ridgemont player talking to someone on our campus." She grabs her phone back. "So. Who is he?"

I keep walking. "Nobody."

"Sloane."

"He's nobody. He's just-" I stop. Exhale. "His name is Noah Sinclair. He plays for Ridgemont. I ran into him last night at the fountain and again today apparently because they share our ice on Tuesdays now."

Chelsea is quiet for exactly two seconds.

"He's cute," she says.

"Chelsea-"

"I'm just saying. The hoodie. The build. Even blurred he looks-"

"Do not finish that sentence."

She finishes it anyway. "Hot."

I close my eyes briefly. "He plays for Ridgemont."

"So?"

"So he's the enemy."

"He's a hockey player from a rival school, not a war criminal."

"In this campus? Same thing."

Chelsea takes her phone back and looks at the photo one more time. "You know Chase is going to see this, right?"

I hadn't thought about that.

I think about it now.

And somewhere underneath the part of me that is still angry and exhausted and running on three hours of sleep - a small, petty, deeply satisfying part of me thinks-

Good.

---

My phone buzzes at 11:47pm.

Unknown number.

I almost don't answer. But something makes me press the green button.

"You're up late for someone with a 9am," says the voice on the other end.

I sit up straight in bed. "How do you have my number?"

"Chelsea gave it to me."

"Chelsea-"

"Don't be mad at her. I asked nicely."

"Noah." I say his name like a warning. "Why are you calling me at midnight?"

A pause. Then: "Chase showed up to our locker room tonight."

The air goes out of the room.

"What?"

"After the joint session. He waited in the corridor. Wanted to know who I was and why I was talking to you." Another pause. "I thought you should know."

My hand tightens around the phone. "What did you say to him?"

"I said we were friends."

"We're not friends."

"I know that. But it seemed like the thing most likely to piss him off." There's something almost careful in his voice now. "You okay?"

I don't answer right away.

Because the honest answer is no, not entirely. The honest answer is that I'm sitting in the dark in my dorm room at midnight with a glass of water and a half-eaten granola bar and my ex-boyfriend is apparently going around asking questions about me and the only person who thought to warn me is someone I met forty-eight hours ago.

"I'm fine," I say.

"Right." He doesn't believe me. I can hear it. "Sloane-"

"Thank you for telling me. Goodnight, Noah."

I hang up before he can say anything else.

I sit in the dark for a long time after that.

Chase showed up to their locker room.

I pull my knees to my chest and stare at the wall.

He cheated. He got caught. And now he's the one showing up to locker rooms asking questions.

My phone lights up one more time.

A text from the unknown number. I save it as Noah before I even realize I'm doing it.

Noah: Lock your door tonight.

I stare at that message for a long time.

Then I get up, walk to my door, and lock it.

I get back into bed.

Pick the phone up again.

Stare at his name in my contacts.

I saved it so fast I didn't even think about it.

I put the phone face down.

Close my eyes.

And lie there for another two hours, completely unable to explain why the sound of his voice made the dark feel smaller.