Page 35 of Surviving Lies

We laughed.

“Guys!” I yelled into the phone. “Say hi to Lanie before she has to leave.”

“Hi, Lanie,” they said in unison.

Lanie waved to the screen, then waved to me before heading out the door to meet Xander.

And I caught up with two of my brothers, wondering where our parents were during their little stunt.

“I can’t believe we’re cutting these brand-new shirts that we spent like thirty dollars on into strips!” Ava complained.

“Oh, come on. This is the time in our lives to flaunt what we’ve got, right?” I countered. Ava had big boobs like I did, though. Maybe that was why she was complaining. I wasn’t sure, either, if these strips of cloth we were making into bandeaus would hold in our girls. “Ava, maybe you should make yours into a halter. Ya know, for more support? I’ve seen some really cute pics online of them done like that.” I grabbed my phone to pull them up.

The four of us, Lanie, Macie, Ava, and I, were busy making shirts to wear to the first home football game tomorrow. It was a tradition to dress covering as little of your body as possible. Well, for the girls, anyway. The tailgate was a huge party on Mid Street, an area where all the frats had houses that backed up to one another. It was a spot where thousands of college kids were within walking distance of the stadium, so the cops were pretty good about it.

“Ooh, Becca, that looks perfect! And it’s still cute. Thank you,” Ava said. I looked at the design and thought it might be best for my body as well.

“It is pretty cute. I’m going to make mine like that, too,” I told her. Ava and I commenced following the YouTube directions for ours. Meanwhile, Lanie and Macie made theirs on the other table.

“Lanie, are you excited to be going to your first football game?” I asked her.

She turned to look at me, as did Ava and Macie. Now concerned I had opened up a conversation she may not want to have in mixed company, my wide eyes hopefully conveying my apology to her. But her smile that followed calmed my fast beating heart as she walked over and wrapped her arms around me.

“Yes, Becca, I am excited.” She then faced the girls, knowing they were curious. “I resisted going out a lot last year, much to Becca’s dismay. She tried. Oh, did she try. But I was stubborn.”

“Yeah, but she had good reasons, it turned out,” I told them. “And then we took her to the BRU Blackout and she had a blast, so it all worked out.”

“Oh my God, that was so much fun!” Macie chimed in.

We all settled back into making our shirts, a comfortable silence taking over the room.

Right in the middle of an important cut, my phone buzzed. It was across the room, next to where Ava was working.

“Ava, could you see who that is?”

She looked down at the screen with scissors still in her hands.

“Who’s Gage?” Ava asked. “I thought you were talking to Ty?”

My eyes flew to Lanie in confusion.

“Who told you that? Ty and I actually broke up over the summer. I mean, we stilltalk, like, we’re notnot talking,but we’re not together at the moment.”

Shit, if people didn’t know Ty and I weren’t together, they must have thought I was sleeping around. But I couldn’t bother myself with those thoughts.

Gage texted me. And that made me smile. At first. But things were very complicated now. I finished the cut and took the phone from Ava.

Gage:

I’m outside, want to do something

Shit, it was the first time he’d reached out since our time at the pond. But we decided this was a girls’ night. Not only that, but it was the first time all four of us girls, us roommates, were really doing something together.

Me:

Ugh girls’ night we’re making shirts for tomorrow’s game and drinking sorry

He didn’t respond, and I didn’t know what that meant. I stared at my phone for a few more seconds, my throat a bit clogged, then tossed it on the table, getting back to my shirt. I couldn’t let this bother me; Gage and I were not serious. We weren’t anything. We were “fuck buddies” in my mind.

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