Darkroom: A Moo U Hockey Romance

down. “I should actually just never come in here. I always end up getting that almond croissant. It’s irresistible.”
“No kidding,” Hudson agreed.
I scoffed. “With all that muscle on you, I’m sure you burn more calories just breathing than I would during an hour-long spin class.”
“Probably,” he said, glancing down at the arm holding his drink and flexing.
Yowsa. The sleeve of his T-shirt stretched to accommodate his bicep which did all sorts of crazy things to my insides. I’ll say one thing about jocks, they’re nice to look at. Hudson was wearing some well-worn jeans and a dark gray T-shirt that emphasized his impressive physique. His blond hair shone even under the fluorescent lights and the stubble on his face was dangerously sexy.
I took a sip of my Peanut Butter Mocha Tempest in an attempt to cool down.
“So, let’s get to it. I have to be at hockey practice soon.”
We pulled out our laptops and somehow positioned them onto the small circular table without knocking over our shakes.
The first part of the project required us to interview each other using a provided list of questions and write a two-paragraph essay about our partner and what traits we hoped to convey in the portrait. For part two, we were to take the photographs and title them.
“Did you read the list of questions?” he asked. “For some reason, I expected them to be a lot more generic.”
“Me too,” I said. “We’re supposed to choose any five questions, but to be honest, there are a lot more than five that I found to be interesting.”
“I’m pretty easy, so you pick.”
“Okay.”
I perused the list and read the first one that jumped out at me. “What is something you were afraid of as a kid and are still afraid of now? I’ll go first on this one. Did anyone ever tell you when you were a kid that if you stood in the bathroom, turned the lights off and said Bloody Mary three times, she would appear in the mirror behind you?”
He laughed. “Sure. I heard that story.”
“Well, because of that I will never look directly in the mirror in a dark bathroom. Not now. Not ever. Yeah, go ahead and laugh. I know it’s dumb, but there it is. What about you?” I asked.
“Me?” He looked a little sheepish. “I’m actually really afraid of doctors. When I was a toddler, I had to have my blood drawn for some reason and the lady trying to do it was horrible. She couldn’t find the vein and they ended up having to hold me down to get the needle in. Ever since then, I’ve been really afraid to go to the doctor.”
“I don’t blame you. That sounds really traumatic.”
“All right,” he said, “one question down and four to go. What’s next?” He sipped his shake then scooped out a finger full of whipped cream and ate it with gusto.
Trying not to imagine him licking whipped cream off my finger, I flipped the page. I kept finding questions I wanted to know the answer to from him but that I didn’t want to answer myself, like “What is something you’re self-conscious about?” “What’s your greatest fear?” “What were some of the turning points in your life?”
In the end, I said, “I can’t decide, so pick a number between one and two hundred.”
“Eleven. That’s my lucky number,” he said with a grin.
I consulted the question list. “Number eleven. ‘What’s worth paying more for to get the best?’ Oh, my answer is makeup,” I said without thinking.
He cocked his head at me, his eyes widening in interest.
Good job, Indi. Now I’d called attention to my makeup. The urge to check my face was so strong, I had to sit on my hand so I wouldn’t pick up my phone. I prayed nothing had smudged.
“You know, I’ve never bought makeup myself,” he said. “But is there really that much difference between expensive makeup and stuff you can get at the drug store?”
This guy had no idea what he was asking. There’s a lot of trial and error involved in finding makeup that will cover up a purple blotch on your face and not make you feel like you’re wearing a layer of flesh-colored plaster. When I finally found products that I liked, they were all pretty pricey, but the cost didn’t matter to me.
“There’s some stuff I buy at the drug store—mascara, nail polish, lipstick,” I said. “For those things, the difference in quality doesn’t matter to me. Other stuff, like foundation, concealer and powder, I pay a lot more for.”
“Huh.”
The puzzled expression on his face was kind of adorable. It was as if I’d just talked to him in Swahili.
“If you want to see what I mean,” I said, “I’d be happy to demonstrate on your face.”
His bewildered expression turned instantly to one of horror. “Ah, no thanks. Makeup’s not my thing. Like, in a big way. This is my face and I’m happy with it.”
That’s because you got dealt the royal flush of faces.
“Not that I’m against dudes who want to wear it,” he went on still clearly flustered. “Whatever floats your boat, you know? It’s a free country. I just don’t play for that team.”
Like I needed reminding. Every cell in my body, especially the ones in my erogenous zones, were on high alert. Maybe virgins were genetically programmed to respond to virile males. I’d learned in one of my classes that it had never been proven that humans produced sexual pheromones, but I was pretty sure this particular human was emitting pheromones like an essential oil diffuser set on turbo.
But then I reminded myself he was a friend and classmate. That was all. Because to assume anything more was to doom myself to disappointment.
“So what, to you, is worth paying more for?” I asked. “A nice pair of heels?”
“Ha! You’re funny,” he said, laughing. “I don’t know that I actually believe in that whole idea. I’m not the kind of person who always demands the best. I’m