Page 75 of Little Do You Know

Out here, it feels like I can’t mess up the way I royally fucked up with Thalia. She won’t even look at me now when I’m in the same room as her, not that I can blame her. For the life of me, I can’t figure out why I had to bring Louis into it.

I shed all my unnecessary clothes, enjoying how the cold kisses my skin as I lie back on the turf. I tip my water bottle into my mouth to help me recover from the suicides I just willingly ran after a full practice. The warmth from the sun ceases when Chris appears standing over me.

“Was practice not hard enough for you?” he asks, and I squint up at him.

“No, it was. I wanted to run a little longer.”

Chris sits on the ground beside me. “Practice ended an hour ago. A little bit longer would have been fifteen minutes.”

I sigh and sit up, looking over at him. “If practice ended an hour ago, what are you still doing here?”

“I went to see the trainer and take an ice bath. Lyndsey wanted to try dry needling on my hamstrings to get them to loosen up. Nobody warned me that shit hurts like a bitch.” Chris scoffs, and I know exactly what he’s talking about.

“It’s not fun. Always say no if Lyndsey tries to use this massage gun on your shoulders. It might look like fun and games, but trust me, it’s hell,” I warn. I am still haunted by the memory of how it punched into my muscles, leaving them feeling more sore than when I went in there.

“And what about the hell you’re putting yourself through?”

I look at him with a blank expression. “Don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m fine.”

He gives me a knowing smile. “You know, I felt bad moving out of the apartment. When Owen told me that Thalia was moving in, I wished him good luck. Turns out I should have been wishing you good luck.”

“Chris, what the hell are you getting at?”

“I’m talking about you and Thalia. Does Owen know?” He raises his eyebrows, almost daring me to try to deny it.

I sigh, turning away to look at the goalpost. “There’s nothing to know, not anymore.”

“What’d you do?” he asks, sounding genuinely interested. Chris and I have been friends since our first year at Duke, but we rarely have heart-to-hearts like this. It’s rare for me to do this with anyone. “Wait, I want to guess. Do you mind?”

“I feel like I don’t have a choice.”

“You always have a choice, Bash.” He leans back onto his elbows in the turf, basking in the sun. “See, I think you and Thalia were together. It had to be sometime after you met that girl at the club and the weekend Owen went home with Lia and that French chick. Everyone is talking about your argument with Vera, where you told her nothing would happen again. Something can’t happen again unless it happened in the first place. I’m guessing that game of spin the bottle didn’t do you any favors.”

“You have quite the imagination,” I reply tightly because he got it spot on.

“Give me more credit than that. I practically had to drag Thalia out of a coffee shop because she and Vera were getting into it. I also asked Allie what she knew, since she’s friends with Vera.”

I swallow my pride and lie back on the grass again. “You pulled Thalia out of a coffee shop?”

“Yeah, by the way, you owe me a coffee. I gave Thalia mine. She was pissed about something, and Vera was pushing it.” Chris whistles lowly. It sounds like I owe him more than a coffee if that’s the case.

“Why’d you have to move out?” I groan despite the fact Owen and I knew it was only a matter of time before he moved out to live with his girlfriend. It just sucks he did, making it that much easier for Hurricane Thalia to take over every aspect of my life.

“Your problems would not be solved if I had stayed. Plus, Allie would have killed me if I pushed off us living together for another year,” he says, smiling. It’s hard not to be jealous of his uncomplicated relationship. “So, want to tell me what part I got right?”

“Pretty much all of it. Vera and I hooked up in June. It happened once when I was having a horrible day, and I drank too much. I never told Thalia because it meant nothing to me. Vera said something during that stupid game, which Thalia heard. We were going to tell Owen after the party. Then she broke up with me. I shouldn’t have said what I did to Vera, but I don’t know why she couldn’t let what happened go. Everything’s gone to shit since the party.”

Chris looks at me like I’m stupid—which, yes, I am. “Goddamn, you have gotten yourself into afucking mess. That explains the coffee shop and the party. Have you…I don’t know…tried talking to Thalia?”

I can’t help laughing because all I’ve been trying to do is talk to her. “Have you met Thalia? She is the most stubborn and frustrating person I’ve ever met. I’ve tried, but Lia doesn’t want to talk; she wants to torture me.”

“Pretty sure she’s also torturing herself. Have you looked at her? Thalia looks like she hasn’t slept in days.”

He’s not wrong. She has looked worse for wear, and I know I’m to blame. “I know,” I agree softly before addressing the elephant in the room. “I don’t know how to talk to Owen about it. He knows something, but I’m not sure what he knows. He’s like my brother, but she is his sister.” I don’t know what I thought would happen when I started pursuing Thalia. I guess I let myself get sucked into a delusion that she’s the one I buy flowers for.

“How long has it been going on?”

I drag my hand over my face. It’s weird talking to someone other than Mimi about this. “Since before she left for France. We weren’t together when she left, but it started back up when Lia came back.”

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