Page 9 of Unrecognizable Player

He hangs up and for a few seconds, it’s hard to catch my breath.

I sitthrough a boring class on derivative securities and when I’m coming out of the science building, my phone pings with a notification from my bank, telling me I’m in my overdraft again. Why can’t this finance degree hurry up and start working for me already?

One thing I’ve learned in all these years of classes on what to do with your money, is that if you don’t have any money to start with, then you’re fresh outta luck.

Some of the guys I sit next to in class wear vintage Rolex’s and drive Bentley’s and Beemers. They’re members of exclusive country clubs and fraternities. I used to be jealous of them, but then I realized that I’m sitting there right next to them. Passing the same classes. Getting the same degree. So they probably know I’m here on a hockey scholarship, so what? And they see my name doesn’t have old-England origins. I’m not from old money. I’m a second-gen Russian immigrant from Brooklyn,and my dad speaks English always in the present tense. But I’ll be fucked if I let that stop me.

No, sitting next to those rich assholes who got here with Daddy’s money only stokes the fire. The only thing stopping me from getting the same degree they’re getting now is me. We might have had different starts, but we’re at the same place now, and I’m a hell of a lot hungrier for it than they’ll ever be.

I send a message out to the team, asking if there’s any news on a replacement roommate for Wilde, but I’m met with a blanket of silence. A couple ofsorry man nothing’s.

Fucking great.

If I can’t find anyone I know, I’ll have to post an ad on the student boards and sift through a multitude of assholes and weirdoes before I find someone I can tolerate living with.

It’sdark by the time I get back home. I heat up a pot of my babushka’s chicken soup she gave me last time I went home, turn on the computer and check to see if horror boy’s sent me a message. I know his name’s actually RedRum237 after the Stephen King ‘character’ inThe Shining, but horror boy’s cuter. Suits his personally more.

No new messages.

Pushing the disappointment down, I draft something to him. I’ll keep it casual, platonic, like we promised.

When I can’t sleep at night, I regret deleting the pictures horror boy sent me before he got a boyfriend. Before I stood him up. I would have deleted the chats too, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it, even though I can’t bring myself to read them either.

They were just your average sexting conversations. Starting with books we were reading in the MM romance forum where we met, and describing scenes to each other, before describing whatwe’d like to do in real life. I’ve never seen his face, but I honestly couldn’t care less what it looks like. I know I’m a big fan of his body. He’s got that natural, slim thing going on. Sometimes tan, sometimes pale, with fairish hair in his armpits and that little path leading into his pants. We never sent dick pics, so I don’t know what that looks like either. Just the shape of it in sweatpants or underwear. But like his face, it doesn’t matter. I likehim.Not just his appearance.

I might have deleted those pictures, but I have them burned onto my retinas forever. I remember the little gold crucifix sitting in the center of his pronounced collarbone, and how this little detail made me feel like he might understand where I’m coming from. I remember the little freckle just under his left nipple, and how I’d imagined licking it about a million times. How I wanted to fuckingbethose grey sweats, hugging his ass and cock. Getting all up close and personal in his smell and getting to know how soft his skin is.

But I fucked it up. He asked to meet, I panicked, said yes, and then bailed. And he still talks to me. Because he’s that good of a person. He still has a bullshit friendship with me, even though it probably means ten million times more to me than it does to him. He has a real life boyfriend, and I’m over here, pining after someone I’ve never even met.

I settle on,

Kelsier38: Hey. You read anything good lately?

And log off.

3

STEFANOS

I’ve been awake for what feels like hours by the time Alice opens her eyes. She makes a few promising noises, wriggles around a little, and then closes her eyes again.

“Alice.” I shake her and she smacks my hand away.

“What time is it?”

“I don’t know, you made me turn my phone off and leave it on the other side of the room so I didn’t text Dorian last night.”

“Oh, shit yeah.”

She flops onto her back and opens her eyes, looking up at me with sympathy.

“How are you feeling?” She asks, tucking my hair behind my ear.

“I don’t know. Fine I guess? It was just a stupid argument, we have them all the time.”

I can see her restraining herself. Wanting to tell me that having arguments all the time should really be a sign that things aren’t going well, but I don’t want to hear it.

“You wanna cut class today and slob around in our PJs? I could make that beef and radish soup you like?”

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