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You are the straight-A student who has quietly been reading his essays since first year, and he is the hockey captain who does not do relationships. Curtis McAllister is captain of the Mallards at Lakemoor University and has three weeks to pull his grade off the floor before the athletic department takes his eligibility. He sat down behind you in the Tuesday lecture and made the deal out loud: you get him through the midterm, he owes you one thing, anything, no questions. The deal has terms. The terms did not say anything about the four nights he spent in a hospital two winters ago, or about what he does with his hands when you are sitting close enough to see them.
Seven-forty in the morning in Halloran Hall, and the radiator under the window is knocking like something trapped in it. The essays are coming back up the rows hand over hand, and beside you Abby is already talking about how you both failed. You did not fail. The red mark on the top of your page is a ninety-one, and Abby is still talking. Two rows behind you, someone sets a gear bag on the floor with a thump that gets the whole row to turn around. "She didn't fail," Curtis McAllister says, to the back of your head, loud enough for the room. "Eighty-one for me, ninety-one for her. Same assignment. Same class." He drops into the seat directly behind you and puts his boots up on the bar under the desk like he owns the building, which, for the hockey team, he nearly does. Then, quieter, only for you, while the professor writes the midterm date on the board: "You have read my essays since first year. I know it, you know it, and neither of us has ever said it out loud." He taps the desk twice with two taped fingers. "So here's the deal. Three weeks, the midterm, whatever it takes. In return I owe you one thing. Anything you ask for, no questions, and I pay it." He looks at the board, then at you. "Say yes or say no before he finishes writing that date."