the Hilton with hot and cold running room service, man. We’re going to Iowa.” I put the car in gear and pressed the accelerator.
After a couple minutes of awkward silence, Dobbs said, “Are you serious?”
“About what?” I glanced at Dobbs, and even in the dark, that sexy-professor-you-wanted-to-have-take-you-to-school thing radiated from him. Do not think about that. I stared viciously back at the road.
“Are we really going to Iowa? Guess I should have brought the pair of boots that I’ve been hoping to suffuse with a nice patina of cow shit.”
I gritted my teeth. He made it sound like a joke, but that’s what all passive-aggressive assholes did. I just took a breath and bit my tongue. Ignoring him was easier.
“I need to be back in time for class on Monday,” he added pointedly.
“Good for you. So do I.” I didn’t ask him to come along, so he could fuck right off.
I pulled onto US-115. There wasn’t a lot of traffic at that hour except for trucks, but they kept you on your toes. I sped up to seventy and settled in for a long, dark ride.
“So, you never said what the family emergency is. Just that it’s not a funeral, right?”
I shuddered. I didn’t like the word funeral used anywhere in proximity to my family. I answered stiffly, “My younger brother fell out of a tree. He’s in the hospital.”
“Oh, sorry, man. Is he going to be okay?”
That genuine sympathy in his voice about took my breath away since it was the first decent thing he’d ever said to me. “He’ll be fine. It’s just…complicated.”
He probably wanted more, but screw it, I wasn’t gonna spill my guts to Dobbs. I focused on the road. Leftover snow was still piled on either side of the highway from the last storm, creating white flashes in the reflection of the headlights.
After a few minutes of silence, Dobbs clapped his hands together. “Welp. I know it’s a hardship for you to actually speak to me, but I’m in this car for one purpose and one purpose only. To cram Quiz Bowl into your head. So let’s get busy.” He reached for his backpack.
I exhaled very softly. He obviously thought I was a dick, and he’d hardly be the first person to think that. But dick meet asshole. Whatever. We did need to get the study practice in while we had the chance because home was going to be manic.
As he messed with the cards, I felt a flutter of nerves. In the rush, I hadn’t quite thought about how embarrassing it’d be to have Dobbs, the Quiz Bowl guru, focused on just me. Hell, if we’d been at the frat house, I could have teamed with PJ, and we’d have made mistakes in private. Now I had to have the naughty professor looking down his nose at me because I haven’t memorized a bunch of useless trivia. I tried to give myself the same pep talk I’d given PJ. About saving the chapter. Right, I didn’t believe it either. “Okay, I guess.”
With a packet of cards in his hand, he reached up to turn on the task light above his seat. Nothing happened.
“Sorry, it’s burned out.” I flipped on the one in the middle, but it was weak. He frowned at me, and I shrugged. “The car’s old. Sorry.”
He turned off the light, and I heard more than saw him lean back in his seat. “Okay, how much do you know about Quiz Bowl?”
“Uh, some. I looked it up.”
“So, you know the questions have subjects and multiple clues going from hard to easy. Or easier, none of them are easy. And you get more points for answering faster. On the toss-up questions, only one player from either team can answer. No collaboration. If you get it right, you’re a hero and get the points for the team. Wrong, and the other team gets a chance. When you get it right, your team gets bonus questions. There are three related bonus questions, and the team can work together. Get them all and earn thirty points.”
“Okay, I think I get it.” He had a nice voice—soothing—when he wasn’t being all up in himself.
“The questions are on a lot of topics like history, literature, various types of science. There’s quite a bit of physics.” He barked a laugh. “Or maybe it just feels that way. Back in the day, they say a lot of the questions were pop culture, but not much anymore. Now, they’re mostly academic.”
I