Page 72 of Overtime
Mark pumps a fist. “Aw, yeah.”
Naive fool.
But Archie narrows his eyes. Fortunately, since he came to the locker before me, he’s done undressing and heads over to the showers. I breathe a little easier when he’s gone.
No, I didn’t get laid.
After making out with Strawberry, I had to go take a walk around the building and stop at the restroom to wash my face before facing her again. In that time, our study session officially came to an end, and when I returned to the table, she had already begun to pack up.
The glassy eyes and flushed face were gone. Instead, she was back to normal as she said, “So, uh, since we didn’t work for more than half of the session, you should put in the system as if the session was canceled, and I’ll do the same.”
“But then you won’t get paid,” I said with a frown.
She wrinkled her nose. “Oh my word, Aran. I’m not going to get paid for making out with you. We’ll just have to actually work tomorrow, okay?”
She said it so blatantly, without any hint of her previous awkwardness, it was as if she was ready to dismiss the whole thing.
And so was I. Since the moment I let her go, I started racking my brain for what to say to reset things. We both got what we wanted. She got her book inspo. I got my itch kind of scratched. There were no commitments. It was just a reverse-tutoring session.
“See you tomorrow,” she said, hanging her full bag on her shoulder.
Grunting, I sat down to continue working. And I did. I finished the whole damn essay while she was gone. And I’ve stayed buzzing with energy all day.
*
I hit O’Malley’s with the guys, and the second I walk in, I pick her out among the crowd.
Strawberry’s sitting at a table surrounded by Strikes. She tips her head back to laugh with all her might, revealing a hell of a lot of throat. Because her clothes show a hell of a lot of cleavage. My tongue feels like a useless lump in my mouth as I stare.
I should’ve licked her throat. I should’ve committed the taste of her skin to my mind forever. I should’ve gone south instead of to her ear.
I wonder if I left a hickey on her neck. Her long hair cascades around it. There’s no way to find out unless I get real close and personal.
“Rodriguez, move,” one of the guys says behind me. “You’re blocking the door.”
I move away. I’m even able to walk behind the guys as we make our way through the packed place. But I’m not able to tear my eyes away from her. I now realize, like a damn fool, that one little kiss was nowhere near enough. And that the reason I wasable to do my coursework, hyper focus in class, and kill it at practice, is because I flared back to life after kissing her.
“Ah, shit,” I mutter.
“Don’t worry. We got your back,” Archie says to me, and I do a double take. Did he read my mind?
“What are you talking about?”
He jerks his head toward the left, away from the table full of Strikes and one Strawberry. I turn in the general direction he pointed and?—
“Ah, shit,” I repeat to myself. There’s Kelsey. Sitting with Strawberry’s former roommates. Because of freaking course.
“It’s a shame,” Archie whines. “Why are the hot ones always problematic?”
That’s not true. Strawberry’s not problematic.
I glance over my shoulder, and she’s watching me. Not because she spotted me among the crowd like I did, but because Ryan is waving her arms frantically at us. I pat Archie’s chest and point at the Strikes’ table. And like the best assistant captain, he rallies the troops without me making any effort.
“Well, well, well. If it isn’t the losers and their loser captain,” Ryan says in greeting, squeezing against Strawberry to make room for the four of us.
Archie, being at the front of the group, takes the empty spot beside Strawberry. If I kill him here, people will start talking. Instead, I take the spot right across from her. The smile still lingers on her face, but it dims a little upon spotting me.
Is that good or bad?
