Darkroom: A Moo U Hockey Romance

I’ll accept, but—”
He scoffed. “I knew it. I knew it that night your dad took us all out to dinner to butter us up. Talk about obvious.”
“I didn’t ask him to do that. I didn’t even know he was coming that night.”
“Sure you didn’t.” He let out a harsh breath. “Look, never mind. I have to finish getting dressed.”
Back at the apartment, AJ baked a chicken and prepared some brown rice and frozen vegetables he cooked in the microwave. As we dug in, I said, “Guess who I had lunch with today?”
He put on a thoughtful look. “Sultan Kösen, the current tallest man in the world.”
“I can’t believe you know that.”
He grinned. “I know many things, young Forte.”
“Obviously, I did not have lunch with the current tallest man in the world. Guess again.”
“The Jonas Brothers.”
“Wrong again. One more chance.”
“That cute girl from photography class, the one who wants to save the world from ugly kids, one surgery at a time.”
I stopped in the middle of cutting my chicken and stared at him in shock. “How did you…?”
“I saw you guys at the Marketplace,” he said with a chuckle. “But being the excellent friend I am, I left you alone and sat a few tables away. When I left, you two were still talking. I hope you can introduce me to her friend. She’s a babe.”
“Well, I would, except I fucked up royally and I’m not sure Indi will ever speak to me again.”
“What the hell did you do?”
I sighed. “I…I kind of accidentally implied that she wished she was white.”
AJ looked at me, horrified. “How in the living fuck did you do that?”
I explained what happened and how it was just a misunderstanding.
“I didn’t mean it the way it sounded.”
“Of course you didn’t,” he said reassuringly.
“I was just trying to confirm that she just wanted to look like her parents and it came out all wrong.”
“Well, my friend, seems like your only course of action is to apologize and explain, otherwise, she’ll go on thinking you’re the BROC.”
I gave him a questioning look.
“Big Racist on Campus.”
“Fuck you.” I said, unable to hold back a laugh. “Yeah, I’ll definitely approach her, but I probably won’t see her again until class, next Monday. Damn it.”
“You could always haunt the Marketplace and hope to run into her again.”
“And have her think I’m a stalker as well as a racist? No thanks.”
AJ shrugged and ripped a big bite off his drumstick.
“I’ll just wait until class and implement my dad’s relationship reboot.”
AJ blinked at me. “I’m sorry…what?”
“The relationship reboot. It’s this thing my dad does when he fucks up with my mom. I swear, it’s practically foolproof. Works, I’d say, eighty percent of the time.”
“Your dad’s a relationship expert as well as an ace hockey player?”
I shrugged. “He played the field when he was younger but once he married my mom, all that stopped. He’s devoted to her and they’re pretty happy.”
AJ laid his chicken bone to the side of his plate and wiped his hands on his napkin. “Okay, tell me how this reboot works.”
“There are three important aspects. First is the apology. It can’t just be, ‘I’m sorry.’ You have to be specific. ‘I’m sorry for—’ then you fill in the blank. That’s really important. The details make it more sincere.”
“This is fascinating,” AJ said.
I narrowed my eyes and he held his hands up in a gesture of innocence.
“No, really. I’m not being sarcastic.”
Because he did seem sincere, I went on. “The second thing is related to the first one. You have to look her in the eye. That’s how she knows you mean it.”
“Do you have to mean it?” AJ asked. “I mean, can you just go through the motions?”
“My dad insists you don’t, but like I said, it doesn’t work every time and maybe that’s because he doesn’t always mean it.”
“Makes sense. What’s the last part?”
Grinning, I picked a piece of food out from between my teeth and sat back.
“Aw, come on. Don’t be a dick. What’s the last part of the formula?”
“What’s it worth to you?”
“I’ll do the dishes.”
“Done.”
Our normal deal was AJ cooked, I cleaned up, so just by sharing my dad’s pearls of relationship wisdom, I was going to have a dishes-free night.
“So the last thing you have to do is ask her, ‘What can I do to make this better?’ Then, you have to do it, of course.”
“Yeah, but what if she asks for something you don’t want to do?”
“I’ll tell you what my dad said when I asked that same question—that’s the price of fucking up.”
I’d told AJ the reboot worked about eighty percent of the time, but I was still worried. I really liked Indi. Beyond her rocking body, she made me laugh and I wanted to find out more about her. I admired the way she’d handled herself when my teammate made that rude comment about the kid in her presentation and how she seemed as passionate about medicine as I was about hockey.

8
Indi
Nodding at Hudson, I said to Ruby, “There’s the creep.”
He’d just entered the photography classroom and was standing near the door scanning the room. When his eyes lighted on me, he took a deep breath and started toward us. I’d hoped we could politely ignore each other for the rest of the semester, but he wasn’t cooperating.
“Oh my God,” Ruby said. “Want me to run defense? Tell him off for you?”
Before I could answer, Professor Larkmont blew into the room and started talking before she even got to the lectern. While Hudson went to sit in the back with his teammates, I faced front and tried to pay attention to her presentation about the history of photography.
I wasn’t too successful. Just seeing Hudson again stirred up all the nasty feelings I’d bathed in for the past two days.
Even though he and I had spent less than an hour in each other’s presence, I’d felt as if I’d been betrayed. He’d been so easy to talk to and he