Page 105 of Clichés & Curses

No way.

There was just no way.

The incident,I thought to myself.

There was no way he was referring tothe incident, right?

‘So, youdoknow what I’m talking about,’ Colton said in a proud mocking tone.

This is a joke, right?

‘You’re not talking about—’

He cut me off, or to put it more accurately, he finished it off for me. ‘The bathroom at the track field.’

Hewasreferring tothe incident.

I was mortified.

I don’t think I had ever been more mortified than I was at that moment.

I immediately brought my hands up to my face, placing my covered face back on his shoulder, shielding myself from him.

I could hear and feel Colton’s amused laughter rumbling through his body in this position. While I was mostly hiding from my own embarrassment, a part of me was using it as an excuse to stay this close to Colton for a little bit longer.

When I finally gathered enough courage to look at him again, I immediately laid playful slaps on his very hard chest.

‘How long have you known it was me?’ I exclaimed in between slaps.

‘The first day of ASL class.’ He shrugged.

My eyes widened in horrific embarrassment.He’s known it was me for that long?‘Why are you only telling me this now?’

‘You remember the day you asked me if I believed in fate?’ he asked instead.

I furrowed my eyebrows at him, slightly confused at his question but still giving him a nod. ‘Yeah. You said you didn’t believe in it but you were starting to think you were wrong.’

A small smile appeared on his lips, as if he was remembering the memory of that night as well. ‘After our encounter in the bathroom, I actually went back to the track field for the next few days, hoping I might bump into you again.’

‘You did not.’

‘Oh yes, I did,’ he countered back. ‘But I wasn’t so lucky. Then I tried going on Wednesdays instead. But again, my efforts were in vain. So, eventually, I gave up. I thought that was it for me, and for the pretty girl who seemed to like watching me put my shirt on.’

A blush rose to my cheeks.

‘Fast forward to a month later, the baseball team decided to throw a party at the team house,’ he continued. ‘I wasn’t actually planning on going since I’m not the biggest fan of parties, but myteammates were blowing up my phone, asking me to come. And someone had to drive them home.’

‘Always the responsible one,’ I pointed out.

He gave me a sheepish smile. ‘Well, someone had to take care of them. But anyway, I did end up going, and at one point in the night, I was talking to Miles in the kitchen, when I saw someone very familiar standing in the corner. Can you guess who it was?’

‘You’re joking.’

He shook his head. ‘It was you. And just as I wanted to approach you, another one of my teammates—one of the seniors we had last year—started talking to me, so I couldn’t really say no. But once we were done talking, I tried to see if you were still there, but you were gone. I thought you might have gone elsewhere around the house, but I couldn’t find you, so I’m guessing you went home.’

I knew exactly the moment he was talking about. It was just minutes before the girls and I had headed home, and Lily and Claudia were in the bathroom, while Nina went to say goodbye to her friends. My social energy had drained for the night, so I just waited for them in an empty corner.

I gave Colton a nod. ‘I did. The crowd was getting a bit too much, so we decided to leave.’ There was a chance that Colton might have mistaken me for someone else, but his timeline fit mine, and from what I remembered, the team only threw one party that month. ‘I didn’t know you were at the party; I didn’t catch a glimpse of you all night.’

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