Total pages in book: 177
Estimated words: 163209 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 816(@200wpm)___ 653(@250wpm)___ 544(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 163209 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 816(@200wpm)___ 653(@250wpm)___ 544(@300wpm)
Lisinski frowned down at the guillotine drawing. “Fantastic.”
“Laila’s uncle will set up cameras at the house, but...”
“I assume you’ll be driving to campus going forward?”
“If they persist, I might have to,” Jeremy said, with a quiet sigh. “It’ll be harder to track when they lose interest and move on to bigger topics, but better safe than sorry.”
“If any of you stop feeling safe, you let us know immediately.”
“Yes, Coach.”
She clipped the artwork to her file, supposedly so she could show it to the rest of the coaching staff while the Trojans were at class, and turned a searching look on him. “Anything else? All right, let us worry about this for a bit,” she tapped the paper, “and you focus on getting through today.”
Jeremy accepted her dismissal at face value and went to join his designated group. Summer practices had put them here for two hours, so shaving off half an hour for class made the time fly. Those that had eight o’clock classes hustled through the showers afterward, gamely ignoring their teammates’ jokes about finding a nice place to nap instead, and Jeremy passed Jean off to Shane out front afterward.
“I’ll see you after,” he promised, and went his own way.
He’d had this professor before, so he had a good idea how his first class would go. He was pleased to be right: she distributed syllabi, updated her roster with preferred nicknames, and did the world’s quickest Q&A as to what she expected from them this term. Although she personally didn’t care about attendance so long as her students did the work requested of them, Jeremy was required by the university to be in class unless he was at a game or on death’s doorstep. Today was a happy exception, because she didn’t want to see any of them again until Wednesday.
“You are between me and my lox bagel,” she said, pointing toward the door. “Goodbye.”
Jeremy had half an hour before he had to collect Jean from Shane. He was briefly tempted to go in search of coffee, but he got comfortable on the steps near the fountain and sent Jean a quick heads-up text as to where to find him. The bag holding his gym clothes wasn’t quite thick enough to be a proper pillow, but he was happy to put his head back and doze anyway. A light kick to his shoe roused him sometime later, and he smiled up at Shane.
“Thanks,” he said. “How’d it go?”
“Exhilarating,” was Shane’s dry response. “I really should’ve changed my major.”
He technically still could, except after his fifth year he’d be off the team and out of a scholarship. Any additional years to compensate for wasted credits would be on his own dime.
Jeremy got to his feet, slapped some dust off his jeans, and looked to Jean. “Ready?”
Shane went one way while they went the other, winding through a campus that was still slowly waking up. It was an easy walk, but most of their pottery classmates were already present. Jeremy had expected long tables and standing room, but the reality was a circle of twelve chairs with a single table in the middle. Each spot had an electric wheel in front of it, and Jeremy scanned the room for two chairs together. There weren’t any, but he paused on a familiar face.
“Oh, Eli,” he said, lifting his hand in greeting.
Elias Chisolm looked up from where he was trying to shove his backpack under his chair and smiled. “Jeremy! Didn’t know you were taking pottery. Then this is uhh, the Raven,” he said, fighting an uncooperative memory as he gave Jean a discreet onceover. “John? Sorry, sports aren’t really my thing. Here, here.” He snagged his bag and shifted down one spot, and just like that there were two seats side-by-side for them.
Jeremy smiled gratitude as he took the one between them and tucked his bags behind the chair. Since Jean didn’t see fit to answer, he said, “Jean, yeah. Jean, this is Elias. He’s studying fine arts; I met him when I took a photography class last fall.” He arched an eyebrow at Jean and waited, silently willing him to remember his manners.
Jean held Jeremy’s stare for ten seconds before offering up an unenthusiastic, “Morning.”
Elias let it slide with an easy nod and returned his full attention to Jeremy. The slow head-to-toe he treated Jeremy to was less subtle than the quick scan he’d given Jean. Jeremy kept his eyes on Elias’s face, content to wait him out. Elias only grinned at being caught and said, “You almost look rested. How long will that last?”
“Oh, I’d give it a week,” Jeremy said, and went quiet as their professor moved to the center of the room.
“Good morning, good morning, good morning. And to you,” he added as the last girl came rushing in. “Can you get the door? Thank you, thank you. Good morning! I am Adrian Gracie. You can call me Adrian. Let’s make sure we’ve got everyone.” He turned in a slow circle, counting heads with his finger, and gave a satisfied nod. “Okay! This semester we’re going to be studying basic wheelwork using electric wheels.