Playbook Between Us

"As y'all saw on the syllabus, this assignment calls for partners. I already paired everybody up, so when I say your name, stand up so you and your partner can see who you're working with. You'll have to link up outside this class because after today, I won't be giving any class time for it." Dr. Monroe said as she picked up a sheet I figured had the partner list. I breathed out a deep sigh, only the people nearest to me probably caught it. The guy on my left looked over and dipped his head like he felt the same, because we both would've rather picked our own partner. "Micah Dorsey and Arielle Sutton." Going off the last names, I could tell she was just reading them alphabetically. "No fucking way," I muttered under my breath before getting up long enough to lock eyes with Arielle, give her a small nod, and drop back into my seat while Dr. Monroe kept calling names. It already felt like I'd been stuck with the worst person in the room, because she was the party girl of all party girls and there were only two things I never played about, football and my grades. There was no chance she stayed locked in on school with how often she was out nearly every single day. "Fuck," I muttered again just from thinking about it. Once Dr. Monroe got through the rest of the names, she gave us the last stretch of class to meet up with our partners and reminded us again it would be the only time she let it happen in class. I stuffed my things away while glancing over at Arielle, and of course her face was buried in her phone. With a shake of my head, I got up and walked her way. I pulled out my phone and shot a quick text to Imani, a friend trying hard to finally leave that friends-with-benefits spot behind. By then I got close to her, I had locked my phone and put all my attention on her, but she still hadn't looked up from hers. I cleared my throat once. She laughed at whatever was on the screen before finally lifting her eyes to me. Then she locked her phone and finally looked right at me. "Mr. star football player." She said it with a smile, and I answered with none of one, "party girl," since we were going with what everybody knew us for. I really couldn't stand when people called me that shit. Her smile stayed right where it did when she gave a quick eye roll. "What can I say, I enjoy a good time," she said. "Maybe you should try it once in a while, there's more to life than books and football." I wasn't interested in dragging this conversation out. "This project," I said, staying on my feet instead of taking the empty seat beside her, "is a research paper, eight to ten pages, and a PowerPoint with the main points." I was going off memory from the assignment sheet. She sighed. "Yeah, she's giving us topics to pick from, so we can just pick one now. We don't even need to meet unless we want to. We can work this shit out over email and texts." I nodded, but I still wasn't about to trust her with shit. I barely knew her, and what people said already followed her. We were definitely meeting. "I think we can pick the topic now, but I still say we need to meet. She's giving us a month on this, so I'd say later this week or early next week we outline the paper, then two weeks after that we handle the PowerPoint. You think you can get your part of the paper done in that timeframe?" I asked. She stared at me like I'd asked the dumbest shit possible. "Yeah, I think I can finish a paper in two weeks. Can you?" Then she came back with, "I don't know how you work." "But yeah, I can," I told her. I left it there. She was trying to be slick, but I wasn't feeding into that shit. Then she started packing up her things. "I'm not dumb, and I'm not lazy either, contrary to whatever you think." She said it with her face tilted up at me. "I never said that." I watched her put her stuff together, and her deep brown skin had an easy glow to it. Her hair hung straight and long, reaching the middle of her stomach. I figured some of it had to be added in, but there wasn't that popular screen door middle part in her head, so I knew at least some of it was hers. She had on a simple white fitted crop top with short sleeves, loose jeans ripped from top to bottom, plus Christian Dior slides that matched the bag she was stuffing her things into. Material girl, I thought, giving a slight shake of my head. "Well, I'm just letting you know I'm not." She looked at me again and pulled me out of my thoughts. Then she took her phone back out. "Drop your number. I'll send my name, and after that we can figure out when and where to meet." I pulled out my phone and saw it was exactly two o'clock, which meant class was officially done. I called my number out while she punched it into her phone. "Texting you," she said as she slung her bag over her shoulder and walked off. My phone buzzed in my hand and her number popped up, then another text from her came through that made me open the messages. I let out a chuckle and shook my head while heading out of the classroom, then backed out of the thread so I could check the unread message from Imani. I just hoped this project went smooth, because I didn't have time for the bullshit.