Page 28 of Weak Side

I threw my hands up.Shit, that’s brilliant. “Yes! That’s perfect. Maybe they’ll stop showing up here unannounced.”

“I have a boyfriend!” Claire’s tiny foot stomped against the floor, and that was when I ran my gaze down her body.How does she look so cute when she looks like a mess?Her brown hair was in a wild bun on the top of her head with a bunch of loose strands framing her face. She had on glasses that made her look a little nerdy, and she wore baggy, light-pink sweats with a BU Dance logo on the upper thigh and a loose shirt that was sporting her braless chest. “Stop looking at me like that.”

I snapped back to reality and met her eye. “Like what?” Surely she had no idea what I was just thinking, because I couldn’t even believe what I was thinking.

“Like you can’t believe that someone like me has a boyfriend.” I caught a few words that she mumbled after her utterance, and they closely resembled what I’d told her last Friday about her boyfriend.

I shook my head and walked farther into the room, trying to put some space between us. My head was swimming, and her response irritated me. “That wasn’t what I was thinking, Bryant.”

“Yeah,okay,” she scoffed. “Don’t do that again.”

“Don’t do what? Look at you?” I asked innocently, trying to ease up the tension that was currently collecting on my shoulders.

“Touch me and act like I’m your girlfriend or fuck buddy in front of these girls.”

I couldn’t help but smile. She was so riled up even her chest was rising, and it was confirmed—she did not have a bra on. “Okay. I won’t do it in front of those girls. But does that mean I can do it behind closed doors?”

Her nose scrunched up before she grabbed one of her millions of scrunchies from atop her desk and threw it at me. It hit me right over my heart, and I stared down at the purple hair tie before clutching my chest. “Ow.” I suppressed a laugh as her mouth twitched. She spun around, putting her back to me, and I bent down and put the purple scrunchie on my wrist just to irritate her even more.

Claire left a moment later with her shower stuff, and I smiled to myself as the door slammed behind her. There was something about irritating her that entertained me. It was invigorating, and I couldn’t help but laugh to myself as I lay in bed, waiting for her to come back to the room. Sure, there was still an air of friction between us, but it was innocently placed and a little bit comical.

At least now she was angry because I had used her to make a puck bunny go away and not angry because I pointed out the obvious with her loser boyfriend who left her alone on yet another Friday night.He couldn’t make it any clearer than that, right?

When Claire came back into the room with her damp hair and body wash that made my blood warm, I forced myself not to smile at her, even though the mischievous boy that still lived inside of me was clawing to come back out to play with her.What am I, twelve?

The lights were out a moment later, and we both lay in silence, and for the first time after a game, I actually felt tired. My breathing was beginning to slow, and my muscles were exhausted. The sound of her smooth breathing was kind of…comforting? Before I fully fell asleep, I turned toward her and tried to make amends.

“Hey, Bryant?”

Her voice was raspy, but I still heard an edge to it as she snapped out,“What?”

“Thanks.”

A breathy sigh was all I got, but for some reason, the next morning, when I woke up to run and caught a glimpse of her relaxed face and closed eyes, I turned off my alarm before it could go off, and I went back to sleep, not wanting to wake her up.

14

Claire

“He said what?”I asked, holding my books in a tight grip with my phone pressed up to my ear. The second floor was thankfully less chaotic than the first as I walked to my room, listening to my mother.

Her voice was nearing hysterics, but I brushed it off, knowing she was as dramatic as a thirteen-year-old girl who just hit puberty. “Claire! Aren’t you listening? He said I had to pay at least 50% of what the contractor wants by tomorrow morning!”

I leaned against the wall beside my door, unsure if Theo was in our room or not. If he was, I didn’t want him to overhear the conversation, and knowing Theo, he’d listen to every single word. He’d already admitted once to listening to my phone calls, and I was sure he’d do it again.

My cheeks burned at the thought of last weekend where I was forced to act like his girlfriend. I walked around campus for the next several days, bouncing in and out of classes like a pariah, wondering if his worshipping puck bunnies were going to shun me for stealing their number-one guy. But to my surprise, the girl who was a witness to Theo’s show either hadn’t remembered or was too embarrassed to tell anyone. No one looked at me with distaste, and better yet, nothing had gotten back to Chad, so I put the whole thing behind me, hoping Theo wouldn’t do it again. He wondered why girls were constantly showing up to his room unannounced, but maybe it was because every day this week, he’d brought one back to our room.

Technically, he didn’t break any of the roommate rules because he did put a “nonverbal warning” on the doorknob to indicate that he was in there with someone, but instead of hanging a sock like a normal guy, he used my freaking scrunchie.Mypurple scrunchie. When I told him that I didn't want my hair accessories associated with his slutty activities, he smirked and began collecting them all. Yesterday, I came home to seven scrunchies tied together, hanging from the doorknob.

“Claire! Are you listening to me?” I jumped as my mother’s sharp voice pelted through the phone.

“Ye-yeah.” I cleared my throat. “Did you ask Linda if they had any more clients that you could add to your clientele? Maybe make a little more cash in the next couple of weeks?”

Sweat began to hit my hairline as I mentally began counting my shifts and estimating how much in tips I’d make in the coming days.How am I going to afford my books next semester at this rate?

“I don’t want to ask Linda for more clients. I’d rather them not know that I’m struggling with money again. They don’t need another reason to look down on me. Did you tell Chad? Please tell me you didn’t tell him.”

I swallowed my stress. “No. I didn’t tell him.” The last thing I needed was for his parents to give my mother more handouts and put us in an even deeper hole of debt with them. Those handouts were like bullets for Chad.“It’s fine, Mom. I’ll put some money in your account in just a few. But please, please,pleasemake sure you give it to Ralph.”

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