Ice Cold

24

Landon Reilly

When I entered my room on Friday night after my hockey game, the last thing I expected to see was Wren sitting on my bed, shoes off, reading through one of my text books, but that was the sight that greeted me.

"How the fuck did you even get in here?" I asked, closing the door behind me and dropping my bag beside my closet.

I had gotten pushed around a lot on the ice tonight. My body ached and all I wanted to do was get in bed and finish up a paper I had due at midnight. But of course he always had to throw a wrench in my plans.

"Kyle let me in on his way out," Wren replied, not even bothering to look up at me. He was reading through my philosophy text book, clearly engrossed with whatever page he was on.

"And you're here because...?"

"Well, I'm supposed to get you to come out tonight, Stella's orders," he explained. "But I wouldn't mind staying in. It's not like Stella and Jess would notice if we were there anyway."

Jess would absolutely notice I was there considering the fact the last time I spoke to her I snapped at her and told her we weren't friends. But it wasn't like Wren knew that.

"I'm not going out tonight," I told him, sitting on the edge of my desk. "And you can't be here either. I have to do homework."

"You actually do your homework?"

I rolled my eyes. "Yeah, considering a stipulation of my sports scholarship is that I maintain decent grades."

"What constitutes as decent? C?" He shot me a look of disbelief.

I shrugged. "It's passing."

"It's mediocre."

Wren closed the book and got off the bed, opening my laptop that lay on the desk.

"What are you doing?" I asked, pushing off the desk and turning to face him.

"If you're aiming for a C, then you clearly need someone else to look at your work."

"You're not looking at my work."

I felt stupid enough around Wren, I didn't need to subject myself to seeing how much smarter than me he actually was without even trying. It was like a natural gift to him and his academics were important. For me, hockey was what was important while academics came second. I didn't need to put in full effort as long as my grades were good enough to keep my scholarship and keep me on the team. We had different priorities.

"Seriously, you have to go," I told him with a sigh. "I need to get this done. I have to leave early tomorrow for an away game."

"Just let me look at it," he pestered.

I groaned and leaned over to unlock my laptop. Wren shot me a satisfied grin.

"You're the most irritating person I've ever met, you know that?" I said as he took a seat on my desk chair.

"You can act like you're bothered by me all you want, but I know it's not true."

He hovered over one of the assignments open on my computer and glanced at me as if asking if it was the right one. I nodded and he opened it, taking time to read through the whole thing. When he was done, he immediately started typing.

"Wait," I said, putting my hand over his to stop him. "What are you doing?"

"I'm fixing it," he said, not looking away from the screen.

"I don't need you to fix it."

"You do actually," he said. "You're not citing things correctly and your sentences are too long."