Page 143 of Study Buddies

One by one, the solids disappeared as Jayden watched from the side. Yeah, it wasn’t fair that he hadn’t gotten to play yet, but nothing was going to stop me from running the table.

From the look on his face, he knew that.

Finally, only his striped balls and the eight-ball remained on the table.

“Back right pocket,” I muttered.

Jayden was leaning against his unused cue, watching intently.

I hit the eight-ball cleanly, and it sank into the pocket I’d called.

“Jesus, remind me not to bet against you when you’re pissed off.” Jayden stared at the table again and shook his head. “Or ever.”

“Good game,” I told him.

He laughed as I gathered the balls from the pockets and rolled them to the end of the table where he lined them into the rack.

This time, I let him break, and he sank the ten-ball, making him stripes again. He got another one before scratching. “It’s been a while since I’ve played.”

He said it without any shame or defensiveness. Was he always as easy-going as he seemed? That was a lifestyle I couldn’t comprehend, but sometimes I envied it. He was good with Tori. Good at keeping the peace between me and Lucas. And nothing ever seemed to bother him.

When it was my turn, I nailed a bank shot and then missed a difficult combo. But at least that gave Jayden another shot.

It felt good to take turns now that I’d blown through the top layer of my anger. There were many left, though.

I resisted the urge to be a dick and block one of his stripes, and we took turns until I had just one solid left. I made that shot, called the pocket, and sank the eight-ball as well.

Jayden finally asked the question again when I was racking the balls for the third time. “So what happened?”

“They think I cheated.” I motioned for him to break again, and he lined up the cue ball.

“So? You know you didn’t. And Tori knows that, too.”

His well-intentioned words hit me like a punch to the nuts. Torihadknown that—until they played that fucking recording.

The look on her face after hearing that… I’d never forget it.

“I can talk to them if you’d like. I saw you working on your paper on Friday. I know you wrote it, not AI.”

“Thanks, but they had evidence.” My voice was stiff though I did appreciate it.

“Evidence?” He wrinkled his nose as he took another shot. Was it supposed to be my turn? Suddenly, I didn’t care.

His mention of AI got me thinking. “AI can do other stuff besides write papers and make art and shit, right?”

Jayden sat on the edge of the table, spinning his pool cue. “Like what?”

“Like it can fake things—like when people get scammed. It can fake voices, right?”

“Sure. I already told my grandma that if she gets a call in the middle of the night from someone who sounds like me saying I need bail money or something, that she shouldn’t believe it.”

I jumped on his words. “But how could you prove it?”

“I told her just to call me directly on my phone to check.” He shrugged. “Who knows, maybe I could end up in jail.”

“No, not that. Just in general. How can you prove that an audio recording is fake?”

His eyebrows raised as he stared at me. “They have a recording of you?”

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