Jesse

At Professor Williams’ next class, I sit near the front and take notes while she talks. Even if I’m not taking it all in, I write down as much of what she says as I can.

When she excuses us, I catch up to Clarke and ask him what he thought of the class. He frowns like I just spoke Spanish.

“I mean, uh, do you wanna study together?”

“Study what?”

“What we… never mind.”

“Wait, Engels.”

He laughs, “sure, we can study bro, wanna meet at Jones’ house later? We’re gonna fuck around in the pool and order pizza.”

How can I study while we’re fucking around in Jones’ pool? I don’t even want Jones to know I’m struggling. The last thing I need is someone else stressing out about how badly I’m doing in school.

I bring my books to Jones’ house just in case.

The house is insane. I guess it’s not technically a mansion, but it’s close. The driveway alone is like a mile long. There’s a three car garage and the house itself looks like a converted church. There’s even a little stained glass window in something I think is called a steeple and an elevator, though it’s one of those old rickety ones and Jones won’t let us play in it.

But the pool is definitely the coolest part. You get to it through this huge kitchen/dining room, with one of those waterfall island counters my mom always sighs about when she sees them in rich people’s houses on TV.

The pool is heated, so you never have to freeze your balls off when you jump in, like you do at the lake. And there’s gym equipment looking out on the view of the forest surrounding the house. Sometimes I try and imagine what it would be like to live there. Getting to look at that view while you work out. The only view I get while I work out is of the locker room at the ice rink.

As predicted, Clarke doesn’t even bring up studying for the first hour.

Jones orders pizza and we fuck around in the pool. He tells us to leave some pizza for his little brother, but I don’t see him coming downstairs like he sometimes does.

Jones looks nothing like his brother. They could be from different families. While Jones is broad and tall and usually tan. His little brother is small and skinny and pale with longer, brownish hair. I’ve never really looked properly at him, only seen him through the window of the pool room while he’s walking past. And he usually seems pissed that we’re there, so I don’t bother him. But the one time I saw the side of his face, I thought he was kind of cute, but quickly put that thought away, because he’s my captain’s little brother and you don’t go there with teammates’ siblings. That’s one bro rule you definitely don’t fuck with.

We’re sitting with our feet in the pool when Clarke brings up studying. In front of everyone. I go bright red.

“What’s this?”

Jones asks.

“Oh, nothing, I just wanted to see if Clarke felt like studying with me.”

“Are you falling behind?”

Jones asks.

“No.”

“So why do you need to study?”

“Don’t you like, need to study so you don’t fall behind?”

I don’t mean for it to come out snarky, but the expressions on the guys’ faces tell me it did.

I wait for Jones to give me shit, but he just laughs and slaps me on the back. “Not as dumb as you look ey Engels.”

The guys all laugh and I laugh along with them, though being called dumb feels like shit.

He waits until we’re alone to pull me to one side and ask what’s really going on.

“Nothing, prof just said I need someone to tutor me so I can bring my grade up.”

“What are you getting now?”

“A ‘D’.”

His eyebrows shoot up. “Why didn’t you tell me man? If you don’t get a C grade, Coach’ll have to cut you from the team.”

“I know.”

“Aren’t you on a scholarship?”

My face gets so hot I think it’s on fire, “yes.”

I can’t even look at Jones when he slaps me on the back. “Don’t sweat it, we’ll find someone to help. But not Clarke, he’s dumb as shit, what’s he getting anyway? Scraping a C?”

I shrug. “What about Petroski?”

“Petroski? He can barely speak English.”

I want to tell him that Petroski speaks English, Polish and Russian and while I don’t know how good his Polish and Russian are, there’s nothing wrong with his English as far as I can tell.

“Listen, leave it with me, I’ll figure something out.”

“Thanks.”

“I’m your captain, that’s what I’m here for.”

I try to leave and Jones calls me back, “and Engels, next time, just come to me first yeah?”