Oh, God. I open the link. Someone in the stands at the home game the past weekend took a video … of the whole thing. The run onto the field, everything. Oklahoma lacrosse power couple, reads the caption, closed out with orange and white heart emojis. Tens of thousands of likes, inching towards hundreds of thousands. All the comments. It’s instantly overwhelming. I knew what starting for the Woodchucks, the most notorious lacrosse team in the country, would mean for me, and I knew what captaincy would mean, too – my personal life would no longer be my personal life, my private matters becoming public business. But this is different. This time, I’m bringing May with me, as my girlfriend; a blatant lie, and it makes my chest clench.

I want that lie to be true, man. And the fact that the whole world gets to believe it is a truth, while I have to live my life knowing it isn’t, is a cruel thing.

‘What is it?’ May asks.

‘Look.’ I turn the screen her way, and she immediately winces.

‘I get it. I took a hit …’ Her eyes travel to the caption, the likes. ‘Oh.’

‘Yeah.’ With an overly aggressive shove of my phone back onto the desk, behind my laptop, I shrug. ‘People will forget about it in a couple days, though. It’s how the internet works. Go ahead and finish your chapter.’

The time she takes to finish is the longest moment of my life. I force myself to fixate on the screen of my laptop, but my gaze has a mind of its own. It wanders to May’s strong arms, to her fingers turning the pages with special care, to the wrinkle in her brow that forms as her eyes dart from word to word. I literally have to kick myself. The second this charade is over, we’re back to arm’s length, plus or minus a day’s drive, away from one another.

‘Didn’t know you had glasses’ comes out of my dumb mouth the moment I see May put her book on the bedside table.

May just raises an eyebrow. ‘Chalk that one up to all the shit you didn’t notice when it was right in front of you in high school. I used to wear them all the time.’

Well, damn you, Colt. I curse the fact that Jordan’s trivia session couldn’t have covered this very critical detail.

With a silent nod, I rise from my chair with a little stretch. ‘I think I’m gonna head to bed.’

‘Me, too,’ says May. She swallows hard enough that I notice, the first indication of some kind of nerves on her part, gesturing vaguely to the other side of the bed. ‘Wall’s sturdy. I’ll stay on my side if you stay on yours.’