Page 52 of Power Play

“Oh, dude, so close,” a clearly intoxicated Thad says. “He’s like a father to me.”

“You know his younger daughter? I think her name is…Lola?” Levi asks.

My stomach flips.

I think about Thad, having me cross his mind again. And I think about Levi having to have this fucked-up fake conversation.

“Oh, hell yeah,” Thad says. “We graduated together.”

“Oh, nice,” Levi says. “I ran into her the other day. Damn. She grew up.”

Thad laughs.

“Bro, did she? I haven’t seen her in years, but she was a fucking smoke-show in high school.”

“Well, let me tell you, she’s fucking beautiful now,” Levi says.

I swallow. It makes my stomach turn hearing them talk about me like this. Levi looks down at me.

“You okay?” he asks, pressing pause. I nod.

“Keep going,” I say. He plays it again.

“Dude, let me tell you,” Thad says, “we hooked up one night, right before graduation.”

I hear Levi clear his throat.

“Whatttt?” he asks in a playful tone. “You hooked up with Lola Calway?”

“Bro, yes, I’m telling you.”

“When?”

“We were at this party at my friend’s house,” he says. “She was just this sweet little thing, but I knew she couldn’t resist the Thadinator.”

I want to puke. I know if this were any other situation, we’d be laughing at the fact that he referred to himself like that. But there’s nothing funny about this conversation.

“So what happened?” Levi asks.

“Well, we get there, right? And she’s making eyes at me all fucking night. And I know she wants it. So I ask her to go upstairs, and she says yes. So I take her up there.”

“Niceee,” Levi says. “Was she all over you?”

I see what Levi is doing. I see how he’s baiting him into giving up enough. He’s so fucking smart.

“Not at first,” Thad says. “She needed a little…convincing, if you know what I mean.”He laughs this maniacal laugh, and a chill runs down my spine.

“Convincing?” Levi asks.

That’s it, Levi. Make him say it.

“She was just this innocent little girl, basically,” Thad says. “Pretty sure she was a virgin. She wasn’t sure she wanted it, but I know once we got started, she was so fucking into it, bro.”

I can hear ice in a glass, and then I hear the glass hit a table or something in the background.

“So what…you saying you, like, had to force yourself on her?” Levi asks.There’s a little pause.

“I mean, I guess if you wanna gettechnicalor whatever,” Thad laughs. “Yeah, I guess I did. We were kids, ya know. Sometimes girls don’t know what they want till they actually have it.”

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