Page 4 of Sneaking Around with the Player
“Cool.”
“Thanks. This was fun.” She waves with a hand around the strap of her backpack and then starts to takes off for her gate.
I grab the link and am about to send it to her, when she pauses in her tracks. “Text it to me. I don’t have AirDrop turned on for non-contacts.” She rattles off her phone number.
I walk with her, since she really needs to get on her plane before it leaves, repeating her number back to her as I tap it into my phone.
“Got it.”
She smiles a little more timidly than she has since she walked up and asked to sit beside me. “Thanks. I really better hurry. It was nice hanging with you.”
“Yeah,” I agree.
I keep following, walking away from my gate, as she puts space between us to get to her flight. She looks over her shoulder and finds me still looking at her, then hits me with another smile.
“I didn’t even get your name,” I yell. “I’m Beau.”
“Stella.” She jogs backward. “Stella Walters.”
Stella
Me: I made it back. Thanks for the link. It provided a nice distraction. Guess who sat across the aisle from me on the plane?
Beau: Harry Styles?
Me: No. Why would I want a distraction from Harry Styles??!!
Beau: Good point. Must have been the whistling ex then. Hope everyone on the flight had ear plugs. I’m glad I could help.
Istare down at our text exchange, re-reading it again and wondering if I should text back. He was nice. Cute, too. Dark hair, square jaw, athletic build with trendy gold, circle-rimmed glasses that gave him a whole hot, studious, muscled-nerd vibe.
Ithinkhe was into me. If I’m totally honest, it was hard to read him. But I assume the whole asking to send me the link thing was a ploy to get my number. Although his text doesn’t leave a lot of room for a reply.
I got back to campus over an hour ago and came straight to my dorm to shower and get ready for a night out. My brotherFelix is having a party at his place. He shares a house off-campus with two other football players.
I should already be there, but I’ve been wracking my brain for something clever to text Beau. Shoving my phone into my purse, I head out. Holly will know what to say. She’s better with the written word.
At Felix’s house, I knock on the front door, but go in without waiting for an answer. Even if they could hear me over the music playing inside, they’d just yell, “Door’s open,” or “Come in.” Getting up and answering the door for guests is entirely too formal for anything that happens inside.
“Hello?” I call as I walk into the living room. It’s empty, but above the fireplace on the mantle, a speaker sits between empty beer bottles, blasting music.
The house has bedrooms on both sides of the living room. Felix’s roommates, Teddy and Emmett, are on one side and Felix has the other with a small, private bathroom that he won in a drinking game.
I go straight back to the eat-in kitchen. It looks out onto a patio, where the guys have thrown many parties, like the one happening later tonight.
Sliding open the door, I step outside. The keg is tapped and sitting in a big, red plastic bin in the middle of the yard. Felix and several other guys are playing washers, but Holly is sitting at a table with some of the football guys’ girlfriends and looks up immediately. I can read the ‘thank god you’re finally here’ look on her face so well, a small laugh escapes my lips.
Holly and I are identical twins. We share the same strawberry blonde hair color and brown eyes. We even have the same number of freckles on our right arm—we counted once.
She gets up to greet me, wrapping an arm around my neck as she does. “I am so glad you’re here. What took so long?”
“Sorry. I got distracted.” I give her a playful smile, which she acknowledges immediately.
“Who is he?”
“Stella!” Felix calls from where he’s playing washers. His roommate and best friend Teddy stands next to him and lifts his cup in a silent greeting.
“I’ll tell you all about it later.” I link my arm through hers. “Have you talked to Teddy tonight?”
