I clench the towel tighter around my waist. “That gotten old yet?”
He shrugs. “It’s fitting. Zero wants to call you Terzo, but you gotta earn it first. It’s Italian for third, apparently.”
Right. I was Jamesy on my last team. At least Zero’s a little more creative, turning that pretentious little III at the end of my name into something decent sounding. Still, I roll my eyes. “He google translate that?”
“His grandma’s from Italy. You’d know that if you ever joined us for team bonding. He never shuts up about it.”
I glance at him. His words are light and carefree, but the pinched look on his face says he’d rather shave with a power sander than keep talking to me.
“Wait, didn’t your mom skate for Italy?” Dorian asks. “Do you know Italian?”
I nod slowly and they both look at me like they’re expecting me to go into some Italian soliloquy or something. I keep my mouth shut and duck behind my dresser for some privacy as I get dressed. I’ll be changing in front of these guys daily once practices start, but something about being in my room instead of the locker room makes it feel, I don’t know, weird. Yeah, this is Dorian’s room, too, but I’ve had it to myself while he’s been spending his nights at the hockey house, so it almost feels like he’s intruding.
“Okay,” Dorian says, drawing it out for a few seconds. The bed creaks, and I hear the snap of his laptop closing. It takes a moment for the music to die, and he’s quick to fill the quiet. “Terzo’s a pretty sick nickname, though. Better than Hildy. Like, I don’t get it. There’s not even an L there! Please, if you like me even a little, just call me Dorian.”
“For the record,” Jaysen says, “I suggested Doll Face.”
Dorian snorts. “That one’s actually not bad. I gotta head out, though, man. First ever college class is physics. Reza por mí.”
“That’s what you get for majoring in astronomy.”
Dorian clenches his hands in front of himself and pulls a face that makes the tendons in his neck pop out. “I just … love space … so much!” he says through his teeth. He heads for the door with his backpack slung over one shoulder. “Why can’t I skip the math and just look at the stars?”
There’s a panorama of the Milky Way breaking up all the metal bands and hockey posters above Dorian’s bed. I’ve seen it every day for the past week and never realized it was anything more than aesthetic.
I spent two years with the same players in Michigan but don’t have a single one of them saved in my phone or added on social media. Honestly, that doesn’t bother me as much as the thought of not knowing a single personal thing about my own roommate. Of wasting my one year of college.
It’s not until Dorian gets all the way to the door that I realize Jaysen’s not following him.
“What?” I ask when we’re alone.
Jaysen sighs, long and loud and tortured. “We got algebra together, apparently. Zero and Kovy are forcing me to walk with you.”
I blink at him. What is this, the buddy system? “Why?”
He gives me a look as blank as my own, and I can’t hold up against it. I turn to the mirror and comb my fingers through my hair in a vain attempt to tame my curls and stick a pen behind my ear. I head out the door without warning and let it close on Jaysen just to buy myself a few extra steps alone. He seems unaffected when he catches up, falling into step beside me.
Delilah and I are taking this algebra class together. We both suck at math, so it’s not like it’s gonna help either of us, but it’s better than suffering alone. Now it’s gonna be pure torture.
I’d gotten used to campus being pretty quiet with just the freshmen and fall athletes here for the most part. Now we have to squeeze past other people crowding the narrow, curving paths from the dorms. Hartland’s small for a D-I school, but there’s still enough people screaming at the sight of one another and laughing and hugging like they’ve been apart for years that it gives me a headache.
Seniors are gathered on the hill outside the Sommer Student Center in their black robes and ridiculous costume sunglasses, drinking alcohol out of their class mugs and heckling the freshmen. I keep my head down after spotting Zero and Kovy doubled over in laughter, already wasted at ten in the morning.
We’re past most of the noise and starting up the hill to the Stratton science and math hall when Jaysen finally speaks up.
“So, what’re you majoring in?”