The Puck and The President

Chapter 7

CHAPTER 7

The next week was a blur of perfection. My spreadsheet for the Student Gala was a work of art, a meticulous masterpiece with every task, every detail, every potential catastrophe accounted for and mitigated. I finalized the catering menu for the campus's most celebrated restaurant, secured a state-of-the-art lighting and sound system from a top-tier vendor, and even found a professional photographer who specialized in high-end, journalistic-style events, rather than the cheesy posed photos everyone else used. My life was a well-oiled machine, an unstoppable force of planning and execution, gliding along a track I had laid out for myself years ago. The only glitch in my perfect system, the only piece of grit in the flawless gears, was a single, infuriating text message that had been left unanswered for days, burning a hole in my pocket and my conscience.

The message was from Liam. It was short and to the point. “I know I was a git. Sound check? Tomorrow. Let me make it up to you.” There was no winky-face emoji, no playful nickname like “Prez.” It was just an apology, a quiet, almost vulnerable plea that was completely out of character for the confident, loud boy I knew. And I didn't know what to do with it. My brain, a fortress of logic and reason, was screaming at me to delete it. To ignore it. To pretend that the dark, empty main hall, the unexpected beauty of his music, and the raw, vulnerable boy from London had never happened. My heart, a small, rebellious thing I had spent my entire life trying to silence and control, was aching to reply. To say yes. To walk back into the eye of the storm he represented.

I was hunched over my desk in the library's quietest corner, a cup of lukewarm coffee clutched in my hand, staring at the message as if it held the secrets of the universe. I had a hundred other things to do. The gala was just two weeks away, and there were a million moving parts to coordinate. I had a final exam for my Microeconomics class to study for and a twenty-page history paper on the Gilded Age to write. I had no time for distractions. And Liam Hayes, a hurricane in human form, was the biggest, most dangerous distraction of all. He was the personification of everything I was not, and the thought of engaging with him, of even acknowledging him, was a terrifying proposition.

A gentle tap on my shoulder made me jump. My roommate, Jessica, stood there, a thick textbook on constitutional law in her hand and a worried look on her face. Jessica was the only person who knew about the sound check. She was my confidante, the only person who had seen the cracks in my perfect façade and still stuck around.

“You’re still staring at it, aren't you?” she said, her voice a gentle scolding that carried an undertone of concern.

“No, I'm not,” I lied, quickly locking my phone and placing it face down on my desk as if it were a f*******n object.

She walked over to my desk, her eyes narrowed. Without a word, she picked up my phone and unlocked it with a password she knew by heart. The message was still there, a glaring reminder of my moral failing.

“Nadine, what is wrong with you? Just text him back. Or don't. But for the love of all things holy, stop looking at it like it’s a ticking time bomb. What did he even do that was so bad anyway? He called you a spreadsheet? It's not like it's a lie. Your life is a spreadsheet, with a thousand cells and formulas for everything."

"It's not that," I said, a wave of exasperation washing over me. “It's the look on his face. He looked so… disappointed. Like I had failed some kind of test he had set for me. And then he just… left. No fight. No argument. Just… gone. He's never done that before. It's like he saw a part of me he didn't like, a part that was so much like a perfectly-kept spreadsheet, and he was disgusted by it."

Jessica sighed, her eyes full of sympathy. “Maybe he’s just… different. He’s not a spreadsheet like us, Nadine. He’s an artist. He’s a guy who plays with fire and lives for the chaos and the unpredictability of it all. He sees the world in shades of color, while you see it in neat, organized rows and columns. Maybe that’s not a bad thing.”

"And I'm not," I said, my voice firm and uncompromising. "I'm a planner. A strategist. A… a spreadsheet. It's not a criticism, Jessica. It's who I am. I'm okay with that. I'm good at it. I can't be like him. I don’t want to be like him. He’s reckless, and I’m… careful."

“Maybe you don’t have to be like him. Maybe you can just… be with him. You two are so interesting together. It’s like watching two completely different planets collide, and somehow… they don't destroy each other. They just create a beautiful, chaotic orbit."

"We're not planets, Jessica. We're a car crash waiting to happen," I said, and the words were a painful truth. "And I don't know if I'm ready to be that kind of mess."

She sighed again, a sound of defeat. “Fine. Don’t text him back. But don’t pretend like you don’t want to. I see the way you look at him, Nadine. And I see the way he looks at you. It’s not a game anymore, not to him.”

She left my room, and I was once again alone with my thoughts and the silent, burning presence of my phone. I picked it up again, the screen still displaying Liam's message. I didn't want to reply. I didn't want to give him the satisfaction. I wanted to be the perfect, predictable Nadine Leyva. The one who had no time for boys with accents and messes. But a small, rebellious part of me was aching to see him again. To hear his voice. To be in that dark, empty room where nothing else mattered but the two of us.

The thought alone was enough to make my heart do a painful little jig in my chest. I typed out a reply, my fingers trembling. I was about to hit send when a new message popped up on my screen. It was from Liam. My heart dropped.

"Fine. No sound check. No gala. No worries. I've got this. You've got this. Good luck with all your spreadsheets."

My heart, which had been beating so frantically a moment ago, now felt like a lead weight in my chest. He had given up. He had moved on. He was a master of his craft, and it wasn’t just hockey or music. It was this. The game of push and pull. He had found the c****s in my armor, and he had used them to his advantage. He had won. And I had lost.

But a small part of me—the part of me that he had been so insistent on finding—wanted to say yes. A sound check. Just him and me. In the empty main hall. It was a tempting proposition. It was an escape from my perfectly ordered world.

I sighed, a long, drawn-out sound of defeat. “Fine. I'll go.” I typed the words with a shaking hand and hit send. I was not going to be a coward. I was going to face the music.

The reply was instantaneous. “I'll be there. And this time, Prez, don’t be late.”

I put my phone down, the screen dark and empty. My heart was pounding, a chaotic drumbeat in the quiet of my room. I had a feeling that this sound check wasn't just about music. It was about something more. And I had a feeling I was walking straight into a trap, but a part of me, the part that was finally tired of living in a spreadsheet, was thrilled by the prospect.