Page 68 of The Play

Demi appears at the window, shoving her sisters out of the way. “I owe you?” she thunders. “I OWE YOU?”

Nico instantly recognizes his mistake. “No, I didn’t mean it in that way—”

She cuts him off. “You cheated on me with one of my friends! And then you cheated on meagainwith some random chick at a party!”

Oh, Nico, you stupid bastard.

Any sympathy I had for him is long gone. I’m solidly on Team Demi. I mean, I always was, but now I don’t care how gutted the guy appears to be. He deserves it.

“We’re done,” Demi screams out the window. “Do you hear me, Nicolás? We’redone.”

“Baby, don’t say that.”

“You’re right—we’ve known each other forever. I’ve been loyal to you forever. But you’re incapable of reciprocating that loyalty. So please, just go.”

“We can work through this,” he pleads. “Please, give me another chance. Let me earn your trust back.”

“Dude!” a random voice shouts from one of the neighboring houses. “You’re pathetic! Bitch wants you to leave!”

Demi ignores the interruption. “There’s no earning my trust back,” she calls to Nico. “We’re done. I don’t want to be with you anymore. I don’t want to be with a liar and a cheater. I’m worth more than what you’ve given me.”

She’s right about that. And call me a perv, but I’m disgustingly aroused by the sight of her right now. Her cheeks are flushed and her dark eyes are blazing like hot coals. She’s got a hand on her hip as she glares down at Nico. Fierce and confident. Scorned but not defeated.

“We’re not done,” Nico says.

“We’re done,” she repeats.

“You’re done, bro,” someone else hollers, and then other voices from Greek Row chime in.

“Go home, asshole!”

“You’re killing my buzz!”

Nico only has eyes and ears for Demi. “You don’t mean it,” he informs her.

Idiot. Men really need to stop telling women what they mean or don’t mean. The one lesson I’ve learned over the years is that a woman doesn’t appreciate it when you put words in her mouth—or your dick in someone else’s mouth.

“Oh, trust me, I mean it.” Demi abruptly disappears from the window.

For a moment I think it’s over. But then she reappears, her arms full of clothes.

“Let me help you clean out your drawer before you go,” she says angrily.

I choke on a laugh as items of clothing come sailing out the second-floor window onto the lawn. A Celtics hoodie. Some T-shirts. A pair of boxers float down.

“You don’t deserve a drawer in my house! You don’t deserveanything anymore. I’m done with this. Take all your stuff and get out of my life.”

Once again I think it’s all over.

But then Nico, stupidstupidNico, utters the dumbest shit he could’ve ever uttered. “Don’t you dare throw my PlayStation out the window, Demi!”

If that ain’t a challenge.

She whirls around again, and this time she doesn’t come back.

Huh. Okay. Maybe she decided to spare the PlayStation. Nico seems to think so, because his entire body relaxes. He glumly walks forward and begins picking up the clothes on the lawn.

He still hasn’t noticed me, and I’m not about to make my presence known. It’d be like approaching a lion with a thorn in its paw.

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