Page 19 of Sneaking Around with the Player
Me: You’ve mentioned that once or twice before.
He’s said it about a hundred times today alone.
Beau: Three of the five people in our group totally flaked.
Me: So not cool.
I snap a picture of me in a pair of old sunglasses I find in the bottom of my closet and send it to him. He sends back a photo of him, staring blankly at the camera, scratching the side of his face with his middle finger. Even not trying, he’s ridiculously handsome.
I stare at the picture longer than a friend should. He’s in the library. I know because he told me that’s where they were meeting, and because I can see the shelves of books in the background. I can just make out the arm and leg of the person sitting next to him. A girl. And irrational jealousy flares inside me.
Me: Is the girl next to you one of the flakes?
Beau: Nah, Paige is cool. We sent everyone else away and we’re just going to stay here all night until we bang it out.
Me: Fuuuun.
Bang it out?My face is on fire. I know he probably doesn’t mean they’re literally going to bang it out, but he could be hooking up with other girls. No, it can’t beothergirls because I’mnothis girl. We’re friends. He could be hooking up with girls. Because that’s what hot college guys do.
I bring the sleeve of a sweatshirt hanging in my closet to my face and scream into it.
“Everything okay?” Holly’s voice makes me jump.
“Yep.” I step back. “Just trying to organize this disaster of a closet. Are you done?”
“No, I just came back for a book.” She grabs a paperback from a stack next to her desk. “I’m lending it to Alexis over break.”
“Did you write your name in it?” I tease. Holly is very protective of her books.
“No,” she says defensively and then lowers her voice, “I didn’t love this one.”
With a smile, she disappears back into the hallway.
I resist the overwhelming urge to text Beau and instead pull every single item out of my closet. I refold and carefully hang items all facing the same direction. I even line up my shoes at the bottom. In other words, I’m going out of my mind thinking about Beau hooking up with his hot study partner.
When my phone finally pings again, two hours later, I scramble up off the floor and snatch it from under a pile of clean towels.
Beau: DONE!
Me: All banged out?
Beau: Yeah, freaking exhausted.
Me: I’ll bet. Banging is tiring.
The three little dots start and stop, there’s a pause, and then they start again. My heart races.
Beau: Especially when it’s several hours long.
He’s being cute and flirty, but I can’t concentrate until I know if he banged Paige or not. Maybe I’ve been imagining this thing between us as something more than it is. I decide to go with direct.
Me: She must have been amazing.
Okay, so not exactly direct. My phone rings a minute later with a FaceTime request. I run my hand over my ponytail and then smile. “Hey.”
“Hey.” His voice is low and gravelly. He sounds tired. It’s dark outside as he walks through campus toward his dorm. I’ve never been to the Colorado campus, but I feel like I have the path to his dorm memorized from the buildings and trees in the background.
“Heading back to your dorm?”
