Page 27 of The Fake Date Agreement

“I was busy,” I finish lamely.

He says nothing as he props himself against the wall.

I close the door and turn around to take in the three men occupying my room.

Reid has made himself comfortable on my bed, slipping off his sneakers before he sat on it, so I appreciate that.

Javier is back to sitting at my desk, flipping through the same book he picked up before.

A romance.

I try not to blush, and I don’t tell him to put it down because if I did, I have a strong suspicion that would only make him more interested in why.

And I specifically do not want or need him to get anywhere near page fifty-two.

Or 179.

Or…

I look away.

And my gaze clashes with a penetrating stare.

Caleb is leaning on the wall beside my closet, arms crossed, watching me. They’ve all studied me intently at various points over the last twenty-four hours, but none of them observed me with the focus that Caleb does.

As a freshman, my dorm room was so tiny I could barely bring anything with me from my small-town home in Lawrenceburg, a tiny dot on the map in Nebraska. I shared back then. There was no way I could afford a single room.

As a senior, the upperclassmen dorms are a little bigger and more expensive, but I’ve always worked over the summer. My dad works from home as a regional sales manager for a food processing company. Occasionally, the company takes on temp admin staff, so I’ll pick up a few hours doing that or serve food and drinks at the Lawrenceburg diner or bar, anything that puts a few extra bucks in my pocket. I’m not proud.

Outside of splurging on overpriced hockey game-day tickets, I’m frugal, so I could afford a private dorm room going into my junior year. With three men over six feet tall in it, they eat up all the space, and so I hover, not sure where I want to sit.

Reid pats the bed next to him. “There’s plenty of room over here.”

“Uh, I’m good,” I say, again making me think that Caleb is right, and Ishouldget myself checked out for head injuries. That’s twice now I’ve refused to get closer to a hot guy.

“So, what happened?” Javier finally puts down the book he was flipping through, and I make a mental note to put it and others away if they ever come back here. “You didn’t seem like you were interested in taking us up on our offer.”

I carefully do not look any of them in the eye. “I’ve had enough humiliation to last a lifetime over the last twenty-four hours. Let’s just say it’s something unforgivable.”

Nothing like whispering to a nurse in a free clinic that your ex was sleeping with another woman and you don’t know if you have an STD. Her loudly repeating my request back to me in a packed waiting room was a humiliation unlike any other, and I thought the arena was bad.

And I still haven’t told my dad.

I sent him a text earlier, just a‘run-of-the-mill, everything is good in Lamont, hope everything is good with you’message. That won’t be enough. He will call and notice that everything is not good with me.

Dad and I are close. We’ve become closer after Mom died of pancreatic cancer, and we speak or text most days. He’s going to call and ask about Marc, and I’ll have to tell him we broke up and why.

Naturally, he’ll be upset and hurt for me, then angry. While I wouldn’t mind if he got a flight into town to punch Marc in the face for hurting me, I’d like to handle this on my own. I’ll tell him when I’m more composed because right now, all it’ll take is, “Everything okay, Junebug?” And I’ll dissolve into tears.

“We all have busy schedules,” Caleb says, watching me closely. “I have team captain responsibilities outside of studying and practice, and Javier is majoring in biology, so he has more classes than any of us. You’ll probably see more of Reid, but between us, we can make sure one of us is always with you. What’s your schedule?”

I’m a little taken aback by Javier studying biology, not that hockey players don’t study the sciences, but I was expecting something a little less cerebral from a jock. “Pretty light. It’s uh…” I point at my class schedule pinned to the corkboard above my desk.

Javier looks at me. “Mind if I take a pic?”

I shake my head, watching as he fishes his cell phone from his pocket and takes a picture of my schedule. “I’ll share it with Caleb and Reid if you don’t mind?”

Again, he looks at me for permission. “Go for it.”

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