Page 45 of Campus Heat

I thought that was meant to be an insult. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You live in percentages and risk assessment, but those things rarely take real-world situations into account.”

“It’s strategy.”

“No, that’s fear dressed up as strategy,” she said, refusing to budge.

I opened my mouth to protest, but couldn’t find anything to say, so I just closed it again.

She took a breath and spoke slower this time. “You care, so you try to brace for the worst.”

Heat pressed down around us as a truck sped past. Still, I didn’t respond, so she looked down the road and then back at me.

“Sitting here isn’t helping,” she said.

“What do you want to do? Teleport?”

She slipped her arm through mine before I could protest.

“We walk,” she said casually.

“That’s not a plan.”

“It takes us forward, and each step we take brings us a little closer to our destination.”

I hesitated, but she tugged, and I ended up giving in. The shoulder of the road was narrow, and the gravel shifted under our shoes. Cars were passing way too close to us, and the wind whipped her hair into her face. After a minute, she nudged me.

“So…” she said to get my attention. “Where does this rank?”

“In what?”

“Your top ten personal disasters.”

Despite everything we’d gone through, my mouth twitched. She just had a way of turning situations in her favor.

“You’re assuming this isn’t number one?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” she said with a smile. “I’ve seen some of your catastrophes and they were absolutely legendary.”

I let out a quiet laugh. “In sophomore year, I had four interceptions in one half of a game.”

She winced. “Ouch.”

She was trying her best not to laugh at my pain, but I couldn’t really blame her. For a long time, it was the most embarrassing part of my life, but after a while I even laughed about it.

“The student section eventually started chanting the backup’s name,” I added.

“That’s brutal,” she snickered. “What did you do? Trip over your own lineman?”

I blinked at her. “How did you know?”

Her eyes lit up. “You didn’t.”

The sight was enough to make my legs go weak. It was nice to see that side of her, and I liked the idea that she was reserving it especially for me.

“It happened when I was in middle school,” I said, acting all defensive. “He stepped back, and I stepped forward. It was just good, old-fashioned physics.”

“You face-planted?”