Page 5 of Keep Me

“So how did you two meet?” Putting on a façade, I stretched my smile wide. I wouldn’t sit here and let them see me wallowing in self-pity. I was an athlete. Losing was part of life, and my brothers wouldn’t all be playing professionally if they hadn’t learned that a long time ago. It wasn’t always about winningbut how you played the game. I may have lost this time, but I couldn’t let that get to me. No matter how much I liked the guy.

Just because I couldn’t date Matty, didn’t mean I couldn’t be nice. We had so much in common, after all, and I didn’t want to start off my college career with this moment hanging over me.

Olana threw her head back and cackled. My grin was fixed as I watched her, even though I couldn’t help but feel like Matty’s gaze was on me. The stare so strong it was distracting.

“We’ve known each other since middle school,” Olana said, plopping down next to Matty on the log. I glanced at the woodland floor, noting my bright-white shoelace was lying on top of the debris—unlaced and unnoticed.

Much like my unrequited crush.

Middle school.

They’d known each other since middle school? I never had a chance.

“But Ben was such a hermit I couldn’t get him to look at me until we were sophomores in high school.”

Was she still talking? I didn’t care how she met the man of my dreams. I guessed it was my own fault since I’d asked the question, but I was hoping for a short, simple answer. Not one with the ability to rip my soul into shreds.

“I knew all about him, though. I thought he was such a loser because he’d sit in the computer lab over lunch breaks instead of getting a tan.” She slapped his golden skin. “It was only after he joined the football team that I really started to notice him.”

My cheeks were hurting so badly from forcing a smile.

I’d only been here two weeks, and I could already tell this would be the worst day of my college career. This was torture. Sitting here smiling while listening to a girl reminisce about how she got together with a guy I thought was perfect was breaking me from the inside out.

I was humiliated and embarrassed.

Matty hadn’t looked at Olana once, but he wasn’t looking at me anymore either.

“Do you know how I finally got him to talk to me?” She nudged him on the shoulder, and it took everything in me not to frown as I shook my head. “Well…” She was going to tell me every intricate detail, and I wasn’t sure I could handle it. “He was always looking at the ground, using his hair to cover his face. So I decided if he wasn’t going to look up, then I was going to have to get his attention from the floor.”

I absentmindedly nodded and thought about all the other things I could be doing. Talking to my dad or brothers, meeting other people, laundry… The list went on, but I was choosing to sit here and torture myself so I didn’t look like a sore loser.Pathetic.

“I untied my shoe.”

What. The. Fuck?

Did she just say that?

The universe was punishing me, wasn’t it?

I subtly pinched my thigh to see if I was dreaming.

“Ouch.”

“What’s wrong?” Matty cut his gaze to me, and I waved, playing it off.

“Nothing. I just leaned my butt on a log knob.”

Did I just say log knob?

The edges of Matty’s lips quirked, and for some reason, that gave me a little comfort.

Olana hadn’t noticed. She was too busy talking. “So, I walked in front of him and left my foot in his field of vision so he could see the tripping hazard that was my lace.”

She was still going, and I was still smiling like one of those tortured Barbie dolls whose face couldn’t move.

“Can you guess what his first words to me were?”

“Your shoes are untied,” I said, raising my brows.

---