Chapter Eight
THE FLYMAN
I’d gotten in trouble. I was eight years old and it was Christmas morning. Dad had just started at Anderson & Partners PLC, though I didn’t know its name at the time. We weren’t wealthy by any means, but I was a kid and I didn’t care. All I knew was that I was loved. Mom and Dad got along great those days. We were happy. We were a family.
I opened Mom’s present first. It was a baby blue dress with sequins on it and it was the most beautiful dress I had ever seen. She had to help me put it on and afterwards I gave her a big hug and danced around the living room pretending that I was Cinderella. Then I opened Dad’s gift.
If I thought Mom’s present was amazing, Dad’s was better. It was a giant box of art supplies. Maybe it was too much, but I didn’t think it at the time. There were over a hundred crayons, a set of colored pencils, a packet of pastels, acrylic paints in small containers, and even watercolors. I was so excited that I forgot to even thank Dad for the present.
“Lorrie, you have to be careful not to get any of those paints on your dress or the carpet okay?” Mom said.
I nodded, only half listening to her. Dad handed me a sheet of paper and I set to work right away with the crayons. I drew us as a family. Mom, Dad, and me in my little blue dress.
The next morning, I thought it would be a good idea to redecorate the walls. I mean, they were so bland and white, I figured that my art would only improve them.
Mom was furious and Dad supervised me as I scrubbed the pastels and paint off the wall. For some reason though, they never took that art set away from me. But I was a good daughter, I learned my lesson and never painted on the walls again.
It’d been a few days since the hockey game, and Hunter and I had maintained regular contact via frequent text messages. It was basically a continuation of the back and forth teasing and joking we did in person. I was glad for the banter, but it was sometimes distracting while trying to concentrate during class.
It was the third Thursday since the semester started, and I sat at a table in the back corner of the Wheatley Library cafe aptly called Husk Cafe. There were a handful of people sitting around, reading the campus paper, or fooling around on their laptops. It was still too early for people to be studying for midterms and if they really wanted to study, they’d be up in the stacks anyway. The cafe was for socializing and having coffee.
The girl I was sketching kept playing with her hair and I had to redo my sketch a few times. My pad was smudged with charcoal and eraser shavings. After she changed her position for the hundredth time, I decided to move on to a more cooperative subject.
Just as I was looking around the cafe, I spotted a familiar face waiting in line. Gary turned and waved at me. I gave him a small wave back. He looked younger in the afternoon light of the cafe but still looked just as ripped in a maroon v-neck sweater and jeans. After getting his drink, he headed over to my spot. I put my sketchpad and materials back into my bag.
“Hey Lorrie, good to see you!”
“Hi Gary.”
“Whatcha up to?”
I shrugged and pointed to the coffee in front of me. “Not much, just hanging out.”
“Mind if I join you? I gotta run to a class in a few minutes, but I still got some time.”
“Sure, of course.”
“How’s life?”
I shrugged. “It’s okay. Studying, drawing—the usual. Not too much else going on.”
“Hey I never asked you the other night, what year are you?”
“Sophomore.”
“Ah, right before the shit really starts to hit the fan. Let me tell you. Sophomore year is all rainbows and unicorns, but once junior year hits, all of a sudden you need to decide what you want to do with the rest of your life. And don’t even get me started on senior year.”
I laughed, “Wow, you’re really making me look forward to the year.”
“Hey, no problem, that’s what I’m good for, that extra boost of motivation.” He took a sip of his drink before continuing, “I heard you and Hunter went to the hockey game a few nights ago.”
I narrowed my eyes. What had Hunter told him?
“Oh,” I said, trying to keep my voice as neutral as possible, “he told you?”
“Yeah, I had to bail on him last minute because something came up at my frat house. Glad you were able to make it though. Hunter really loves those hockey games. If he hadn’t found somebody else to go with him he would’ve really been pissed at me.” Gary laughed. I could tell why Hunter was friends with him.
“What happened at your frat? Is everything okay?”
“Yeah, yeah, everything’s fine. I’m the social chair of the house which sounds pretty cool, but really it means I have to take care of whatever bullshit that comes up.”
“Isn’t that the president’s job?”
“Yeah, but our president was outta town, and a lot of the other guys on the board were already out partying. I swear, sometimes I think I’m the only responsible person there. Anyway, a toilet was clogged up and the idiot sophomores didn’t know how to fix a toilet or call a plumber, that was the emergency that ruined my night.” He looked at me. “I mean, no offense to sophomores. You’re much smarter than those clowns anyway.”
I smiled. “None taken.”
“Don’t get me wrong, I love Phi Kappa Delta and the brothers are all good guys, even the younger ones, but some of them just need more life experience.”
I chuckled shaking my head in disbelief. “Nobody there had any idea how to fix a toilet?”
Gary shrugged, “Who knows, hopefully the older brothers can set a good example for them. Anyway, enough about my shitty night. How was your date with Hunter?”
I froze, did Hunter tell him that it was a date? “It wasn’t a date,” I said icily.
He held his hands up in surrender. “I didn’t mean it that way, sorry. I just meant to ask if you had fun at the game.”
Unclenching my fists, I relaxed a bit. I guess I was getting a little too sensitive about that topic.
“It was fun, I guess. It was my first hockey game so there was a lot to take in. I think I’ll have to watch a few more to really get the rules.” I didn’t want to keep talking about my time with Hunter, so I changed the subject. “How do you know Hunter?”
“We met freshman year, but we only became friends during our sophomore year. Hunter started coming around the gym more often and we’d train and spar together. I don’t know anybody that works as hard as he does in the gym.”
“Do you guys ever have to fight each other?”
“Naw, the league wouldn’t make us do that, and we wouldn’t take those fights anyway. Not to brag, but I’m a pretty good fighter myself. If they put the two of us into a ring together, one of us is bound to get hurt. Besides, if there’s one person I don’t want to ever face in the ring it’d be Hunter.”
Gary nodded and started getting up. “Hey, I gotta head to my class soon. I guess it was a good thing I had a crappy night then, if that meant you had a good one. Sorry about earlier. I didn’t mean to call it a date. I know you and Hunter are just friends.”
“It’s okay. I guess I’m just a little sensitive about that. It must’ve looked like a date to a lot of people huh?”