Keeping Casey (Keeping Him #1) - Amy Aislin Page 0,18
was also, apparently, the place to be at ten thirty on a Saturday night.
“I think I’ll name him Frank,” Theo was saying when Ethan tuned back into the conversation.
“He doesn’t look like a Frank.” Harkrader was looking at something on Theo’s phone.
“What would you name him then?”
“What are we talking about?” Ethan interjected.
Theo stole his phone back and showed Ethan the little octopus on the screen. “My new friend.”
“You should ask Ethan to make you a hootie.” Pausing with his fork halfway to his mouth, pasta salad falling onto his plate, Casey added, “No, I take that back. Hooties are only for me.”
Theo stared at him. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Anybody need a refill?” A server appeared between Theo and Harkrader, sweating pitcher of water in one hand.
“Hey!” Theo shoved the phone in her face. “What would you name this little guy?”
“Aw, cute.” She squinted at it, tilting her head this way and that. “He kind of looks like Charlie Chaplin.”
“Charlie! It’s perfect. Thank you.”
“It’s better than Frank,” Harkrader muttered, pulling a slice of tomato out of his sandwich.
The server held up the pitcher again. “Water?”
Once she’d left, Ethan downed half his glass, nearly choking when Harkrader said, “Can I have a mini octopus too?”
“Um.” Ethan blinked at Theo, then at Casey. “Sure.”
Harkrader was actually . . . not a bad guy. He hadn’t said much on the walk to the Student Union, but then, neither had Ethan, too stuck in his own head and trying to figure out logistics behind being Casey’s fake boyfriend. However, he had had enough mental capacity to wonder if Cole Britton’s presence was what had caused Harkrader to be so surly and aloof. From what Harkrader had implied, there wasn’t any love lost between them.
As Theo and Casey were browsing Google Images for felt animals, Ethan turned to Harkrader. “You and Britton don’t get along?”
A humorless laugh. “Understatement.”
Sorry, Ethan almost said. But if he didn’t want Harkrader’s apology for Britton’s shitty words, then Harkrader certainly didn’t want his. “Why join him at GH then?”
“I didn’t . . .” Shaking his head, Harkrader licked aioli off his thumb. “Complicated family dynamics. The short of it is that if I wanted to attend college, I didn’t have much choice between the ones that recruited me from the juniors.”
So was it a coincidence that he was at the same college as his stepbrother? Ethan didn’t want to ask and bring up bad memories. Spearing a butternut squash cube and a few sprigs of baby arugula, he said, “That sucks. Where would you have gone if you’d had the choice?”
“Somewhere closer to home.”
“Which is where?”
“Nelson, British Columbia.”
“Never heard of it.”
Harkrader snorted a small laugh. “Well, I’ve never heard of Lighthouse Bay, Maine, so there you go.”
Ethan threw a teasing grin Harkrader’s way. “They have hockey at Canadian universities?” he joked.
Harkrader rolled his eyes and punched Ethan gently in the upper arm. “Yes. The NCAA isn’t everything.”
Theo’s head popped up from where it was bent over his phone. “Take that back right this second, you heathen!”
“I will not,” Harkrader said, sitting back in his chair, arms crossed. “I’ll even go so far as to say that hockey isn’t the best sport in the world.”
Theo’s jaw dropped.
Ethan’s was quick to follow. “Why bother playing a sport you don’t like at the college level?”
“Did I say I didn’t like it? I just prefer baseball.”
Sighing in mock sadness, Theo patted his arm. “Well. We can’t all be perfect.”
Casey, having watched the interchange with glee, held his hand out to Harkrader for a fist bump. “I like you, Harkrader.”
“Brant is fine.”
“What are your thoughts on garage sales, Brant?”
“In theory or in reality?”
Smiling wide, Casey rubbed his hands together. “We’re going to be such great friends.”
Chapter Five
There was nothing Casey hated more than group projects.
Nothing.
Even that twerp from high school who called everybody a peacock and who couched criticism in an overly conciliatory tone.
Casey hated group projects more than he hated that guy. He was convinced they were a way to torture students into making friends.
In his experience, they tended to be more divisive than anything.
And his assigned group for Introduction to Archeology didn’t inspire confidence.
According to the TA who’d presented the assignment, the groups had been randomly chosen. Which was fine with Casey. It prevented the whole awkward shuffling, looking around, making eye contact, “hey, want to be on my team?” weirdness of trying to form his own.
It meant that he didn’t get to choose people he knew would pull