EXFIL by Anthony Patton (best book reader txt) 📕

better person than me,” he said. “I’d rather someone, preferably me, broke his face than his heart.”

“Again, no.”

He lay back down, this time on his side, so I turned to face him.

“I’m glad you didn’t sleep with him,” he said, clearly still angry.

“Me too.”

“I want to sleep with you. You have no idea how much,” he said. “Do you want to sleep with me?”

“I do.”

I wanted that more than anything.

23

Hudson

After our emotionally fraught conversation, the rain was still coming down in sheets and since Indi had already been soaked once, neither of us thought it was a good idea to go out there again.

I scrounged up a spare toothbrush for her from the three-pack I had under my bathroom sink and after we’d both brushed our teeth, I’d put on a T-shirt and some shorts and we got into bed. I was on my back and she tucked herself up under my arm, laying her head on my chest and moments later, she was fast asleep.

I, on the other hand, wasn’t the least bit sleepy. My day had been a topsy-turvy emotional rollercoaster.

I’d gotten valuable advice from Mac and assurance that he was there for me whenever I needed him and that no one would hear from his lips what I was going through. I was hopeful that if I adopted his pregame routine, I would soon be done with my anxiety attacks. I’d be able to eat normally again, the dizziness on the ice would disappear and I’d be back to my old self, the man the Dragons drafted. It was a huge relief, but I had worried about Indi all day.

Then she’d shown up in the middle of the night, soaking wet and full of revelations.

She was the girl in the hoodie from the cafeteria.

She had a wine-colored birthmark on her face.

She was a virgin.

Fuck. I could have used a drink. We had a bottle of vodka in the freezer, but Indi was sleeping so peacefully, I didn’t want to move her. She’d been through more than I had.

I sincerely hoped I’d convinced her what a non-issue her birthmark was for me. Granted, it was unusual and striking, but not any serious impediment to my feelings about her. Indi was still Indi—the smartest, sexiest most fun, complex girl I’d ever dated, with or without makeup. It was like when my dad had lost that front tooth during a game. At first it was a shock, but eventually I didn’t even notice it. Pretty soon, the newness of her birthmark would wear off like just like it had with the hole in Dad’s smile.

Her secondary issue presented more of a problem, because the literal last thing I needed was additional pressure to perform. And yet, there were worse things in the world than a beautiful woman trusting you to show her all about the wondrous pleasures of sex. If I’d complained about this to my teammates, I’d have gotten laughed out of the locker room. And yet, I had legitimate concerns. She said she wasn’t expecting fanfare, but I did need a carefully considered plan of action. Winging it wasn’t an option.

And honestly, it was great. So many curveballs had been thrown at me, I needed the rest.

But it was a while before I felt asleep because every time I thought about what that guy had done to Indi, or more accurately, what he hadn’t done to her and how it had destroyed her self-esteem, I became incensed. I had meant it when I said I wanted to track that ass wipe down and teach him a lesson. Call me a Neanderthal, but nothing would have made me happier than to use my fists to pay that guy back for all the hurt he’d caused her.

But as cruel as he’d been, I realized I had the opportunity to teach her that not all men were shallow sons of bitches. And I wanted that more than anything. I wanted to be that man for her and to hopefully repair some of the emotional damage Hurricane Fuckhead had wrought. Luckily, one of the best ways I could think of to accomplish this was to make love to her. I was going to worship her body with everything I had and show her just how sexy and gorgeous she was.

I just needed to figure out exactly how I was going to do that.

When I asked Indi for some time to formulate a plan, she agreed, but not without some teasing.

“I had no idea what I was asking was so hard,” she said, gazing up at me with a wide-eyed innocent expression.

“Very funny,” I said. “It’s not that hard. I just want to make sure I do it right.”

“Oh, I see. You need to bone up on the basics.”

Smiling, I rolled my eyes.

“Because I’m pretty sure tab A goes into slot B.”

Compared to the chirps I got on the ice and in the locker room, her jibes did as much damage as a pillow. It was absolutely adorable.

“You know,” I reminded her, “we’re supposed to be looking for a ‘Human of Burlington.’”

We were walking in Waterfront Park for a photography project modeled after the work of Brandon Stanton’s Humans of New York project. Stanton had set about posting portraits of New Yorkers along with interviews with them for a blog that drew millions of followers. Along that vein, we were to photograph a citizen of our fair town and include a quote from them or a story about their lives.

“You want a good grade, don’t you?” I asked.

She immediately sobered, as I’d known she would. To Indi, school was serious with a capital S, even a throwaway class like photography.

Finding a subject for this kind of project wasn’t as easy as it seemed. Professor Larkmont instructed us to choose someone with a “visual story to tell,” whatever that meant. I’d asked her for clarification, but she said, “You’ll know it when you see it. Like porn.”

To be honest, I