Selena Kitt - Baumgartner Generations - Henry

“You’re cold.” Henry started taking off his jacket for her, but she stopped him, shaking her head and sliding her body closer, as close as she could with the armrest in the way.

“Just put your arm around me,” she urged, teeth chattering. The wind was wicked and Henry happily did as she asked.

“Better?” He smiled when she tucked her head under his chin. He could feel her body already beginning to relax.

“Much.” Her voice was muffled in his jacket. Down below, the band looked like little toy soldiers marching across the field. It was all a big show, the first game of the season.

“So if you hate football…” Henry’s arm tightened around her as they both tried to make themselves as small as possible while a man and his son squeezed by.”Why did you come?”

Libby didn’t say anything for a minute and he wondered if she was going to answer at all when she finally changed the subject and asked, “So, you play hockey?”

“Uh-huh.” In his pocket, Henry’s phone went off for the third time. He’d put it on vibrate, but it still startled them. He ignored it anyway.

She lifted her head and he liked how close she was, how her breath smelled like the cinnamon Trident gum she had been chewing on their walk to the stadium. “Think I could come watch a practice?”

“You like hockey?” She hated football and liked hockey. It had to be a sign.

“Oh I love hockey,” she agreed, snuggling closer again. “I just wish I could afford season tickets.”

“I get two free tickets for every home game. You can have them if you want. Unless my parents are coming or something. Mostly they can’t make the games. It’s too far.”

“I’d like that.” He thought he heard a smile in her voice. The stadium was on its feet now, ready to welcome the home team, but they both stayed put. “So what’s your major, Henry?”

He snorted. “Hockey.”

“Are you good enough to play pro?”

“I don’t know.” He shrugged, trying to sound nonchalant. The dream of becoming a professional hockey player was so enormous for him, it was unspeakable. “Maybe.” Now he was desperate to change the subject. “So you didn’t always want to be a librarian?”

“No, I wanted to be an investigative journalist.” Libby clapped her mittened hands as the team burst out onto the field, but Henry didn’t take his arm from around her to do the same.

“What happened to that plan?” He was far more interested in their conversation than the upcoming game. Damn, there went his phone again. He jammed his hand into his pocket to silence the vibration.

She shrugged, leaning forward in her seat now to see, and he didn’t like it when she moved too far away. “Well, for one thing, newspapers are disappearing.”

“There’s always TV.”

She mock-shuddered. “I couldn’t do TV news.”

“Why not? You’re gorgeous. You’d make a great news anchor.” It was true. Of course, she could have made a great anything in that regard-model, actress, whatever. Although Henry thought it would be a waste of her real talents, he also believed someone should bask in her beauty. He selfishly thought it should be him.

“Well thanks for the compliment, but I get tongue tied.” Libby pulled out her cell phone and clicked the camera on, taking a picture of the field. “There, now we can show Dean proof we were here.”

“I bet you could overcome it,” Henry encouraged.

She made a goofy face at him, sticking out her tongue and crossing her eyes. It made him laugh. “You haven’t seen me. I freeze up. I stutter. It isn’t pretty.”

“Well, librarians are cool.” He thought whatever she did would be cool.

“So are hockey players.” She turned her attention fully to him, pressing close, her thigh brushing against his. He insanely wished, even though it was only forty-something degrees outside, that they were wearing shorts so he could feel her skin. His phone buzzed again and he swore, taking it out of his pocket.

“Who keeps calling you? Is it your girlfriend?”

“I don’t have a girlfriend.” Henry made sure to say that first. “It’s my mother.”

“Shouldn’t you answer it?”

He clicked silence all with one hand and slipped it back into his jacket pocket. “She just wants to yell at me about my grades.”

“Oh, you have those kinds of parents too.” She had a sad sort of knowing expression in her eyes.

“Actually no.” Henry couldn’t help being fair to his mom. She hardly ever yelled at him about anything, except maybe the time when he was seven and he’d taken his dad’s spray paint from the garage so he could paint the entire lawn blue. He just wanted to play “shark,” he’d told her-and it didn’t look enough like an ocean. Mostly, she was kind and sympathetic and understanding. It drove him crazy. “She’s just worried. She wants to help.”

“Are you going to let her help?” Libby gave him a sly glance.

He shrugged. “She wants to get me a tutor.”

“Hey, that was my suggestion.”

“I know.”

“So what do you have against tutors?” She nudged him in the ribs and he grunted. “Is it a pride thing?”

“I guess.” He pretended to be interested in what was going on down on the field.

“Everybody needs help sometimes.” Libby leaned in to say this, almost whispering. “It doesn’t mean you’re stupid or anything.”

“Gee thanks.” The wind had picked up and he hoped it explained away the redness in his cheeks.

“I’m freezing.” She was shivering again and he pulled her closer, wishing the armrest between them would disappear. The band had started again, the fight song this time, and people were on their feet. At least it blocked the wind.

“Hey, do you think Dean would know if we went back to your room?”

Her words made him stiffen. In more ways than one.

“Probably not.” He tried to sound casual. “He wanted me to take you back there afterwards anyway. He’s got some frat stuff to do first.”

Libby rolled her eyes. “Ugh. Alpha Pi Alpha?”

“That’s the one.”

She made a face. “The worst of them all.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” He didn’t mean to sound so defensive, but Dean had convinced him it was a great group of guys, that if he pledged, he would have friends for life. “Brothers, “Dean said. That was what convinced Henry. He had an older sister, but he’d always wanted brothers.

“You’re not pledging, are you?” Libby gave him a funny look, frowning.

He loved the way her brow crinkled. Those lines would probably develop into something permanent when she was older. She’d probably hate them and curse them and want to get Botox injections or something. And he thought, if he were lucky enough to still be alive and around when Libby hated those lines, he would love them just as much then as he did right now.

Henry deflected the question. “Why?”

“I did a story for The Michigan Daily about hazing last year,” she told him. “They do some awful stuff to their pledges.”

“Ah hah!” Henry exclaimed, still deflecting. “So you were a reporter!”

“ Were is the optimum word there.” Libby stood and Henry lamented this, scanning her pretty, round face. She held a gold and blue mittened hand out to him and he couldn’t resist. He would have said yes to anything she asked. “Come on, let’s go get warm.”

Libby kept close the whole walk back to the dorm, her arm linked through Henry’s-and he was pretty sure it wasn’t just because she was cold. Bel’s door was open as they went by and he waved from his bed, the TV loud. The game was on, and the cheers of the crowd sounded both on the television and far in the distance, an echo.

“This is better than shivering in the stands!” Libby pulled off her mittens, hat and scarf, shaking her hair out as she left her coat on his bed, already wandering around the room. He threw his coat next to hers, shoving them both over to sit cross-legged on the bed, watching her touch things, pick them up, put them down again.