Page 94 of Playing Games

“You’re surprised by that?”

“Um, yeah.” She nods several times. “You’re Lexi Winslow. You’re, like, the strongest, most brilliant, powerful girl I know.”

My head jerks back at her words. “Well, thanks, I guess?”

“It’s definitely an accomplishment,” she adds and reaches out to touch my forearm. “I wish I had your poker face.”

My poker face.As in, my face that almost never shows emotion, even though, on the inside, I have plenty of emotions rolling through me. I know she also means that as a compliment, but it makes me feel this strange sense of vulnerability. Like I’m in the middle of one of those dreams where I forgot to put on clothes and I’m stuck in a public place.

Finn appears through the crowd, a bottle of water in one hand and a red Solo cup in another. He hands the bottle to Scottie. “People are fucking insane,” he mutters, and Scottie just laughs.

“Holy shit!” a boisterous voice exclaims, and I know without even turning around the culprit is the guy who dragged us here. Ace barrels into our little group, wraps his arm around Finn’s shoulders, and tugs him to his side. “Is Finnley Hayes enjoying an alcoholic beverage tonight?” he asks, looking down at Finn’s red Solo cup.

Finn rolls his eyes. “It’s Mountain Dew.”

“Fuck me.” Ace groans. “And I thought you weren’t going to be lame for once.”

“Stop being a dick, Acer.” Julia shoves Ace in the chest on a laugh. “You’re like one of those bullies on an afterschool special, trying to get everyone to drink his parents’ booze.”

Ace cracks up. “Damn, Jules. Don’t hold back.”

She just offers him a sweet smile, and he proceeds to let go of Finn’s shoulders and take hold of Julia’s, his arm comfortably wrapped around her. She rolls her eyes like she’s annoyed, buther body easily falls into place against his side. And I don’t miss the way Ace’s mouth morphs into this soft, gentle smile as he gazes down at her.

Ace is in love with Julia. It’s quite literally written all over his face. But Julia still appears oblivious to the way he’s looking at her or the way he always seems to find a way to touch her, hug her, hold her.

Ace starts to regale us with a story about how he and Julia got drunk off her dad’s favorite scotch when they were sophomores in high school, and since I’ve already heard this story, I let myself look around the room, taking in all the partygoers who are celebrating the start of another college year.

Some of the faces, I recognize as people who are in Double C, but most, I don’t know at all. I can imagine some of the kids here are a new generation of freshmen, just starting their college journey at Dickson.

But my gaze comes to a screeching halt when I spot the familiar strawberry-blond hair of a guy I’ve thought about way too often since I made the decision that we needed to move on from each other. Blake stands in the middle of a small group, his face etched into a smile as he chats with another guy I know is a running back on the football team. He has a bottle of water in his hand, and he’s dressed in jeans and a black T-shirt.

I can’t stop myself from wondering how everything is going for him. Wondering what football training has been like and if he thinks the team is ready for their first big game against Georgia next Saturday.

But all of my wondering stops abruptly when a girl with red hair and a flirty smile sidles up beside him and wraps her arm aroundhis waist. He smiles down at her, and a shock of excruciating pain rolls through my chest so intensely that I look down to make sure a knife isn’t actually lodged in it.

The girl is laughing at something he says, and not once does he try to remove her arm from his waist. Is he with her?

Of course he’s with her. You told him to move on. So that’s what he’s doing…moving on.

Obviously, Blake is a popular guy on campus, and there’s a whole slew of girls who are desperate to have his attention. Moving on to someone new wouldn’t be a hard thing for him to achieve.

A rock of something I don’t understand forms at the base of my throat, and I swallow several times to try to clear it. But when my bottom lip starts to tremble and a sheen of tears coats my eyes, my vision goes hazy.

And I realize that all I want to do right now is cry.

Blake

“It’s so good to see you, Blake,” Carla says, her red-painted lips morphing into a flirtatious smile as she looks up at me. Her arm is wrapped around my waist, and I can literally feel her breast against my side.

Since she’s a SoCal native like me, I’ve known Carla since I was a fourteen-year-old boy. We went to high school together, even dated a little during our sophomore year, and despite the fact that we’ve both been at Dickson since we left California over two years ago, I rarely see her on campus.

But that’s most likely because we run in different social circles. I know she’s in a sorority, but I can’t for the life of me remember which one. I also know that she’s spent a lot of time fixated on most of the guys on the water polo team.

Word on the street is that she’s dated—bagged—nearly half of them.

“Good to see you too, Carla,” I say, my voice as kind as possible as I purposefully remove her arm from my waist. “How have things been for you at Dickson?”

“Oh my God,” she says, a purr to her words as her hand finds my bicep. “Life in New York is so different from back home, right?”

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