Page 41 of Personal Foul

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“Oh my god! Oh my god! Oh my god!” Isabelle squeals when I walk through the door. She catches it before I can close it, peeking around me to try to catch sight of Dylan.

I’m not sure if she actually sees him driving away from our second floor landing or not, but she closes the front door and turns to me, beaming. She grips my upper arms. “You. Are. The. Best.” She gives me a tiny shake to emphasize each word, then yanks me in for a hug, rocking us back and forth and making me laugh.

Patting her back, I pull away and busy myself with putting away my jacket and purse. I don’t feel like the best. I feel like shit for lying to my friend, but I still don’t feel like I have a choice. The memory of that first week on campus when my parents paid for our floor to have a catered ice cream party that was way over the top, and she and her roommate laughed about how pathetic it was that some rich kid’s parents were trying to buy them friends, filters up. If she knows that I’m that rich kid, she’ll never see me the same. “I’m glad you had fun last night. What’d you guys do after Dylan and I left?”

She settles on the armchair, pulling her legs up under her, her grin like the cat who got the canary. “Well. First, he took me out for a drink at this super cool bar. We talked and laughed for hours, in a way that we can’t with all of our friends around, you know?” I nod to show I’m listening and sit on the couch, trying not to snort at that comment. She’s the one who always insists on having me around when she’s tracking down Andrew. Though I suppose his friends are usually around too. Are they there as a buffer to be a convenient excuse to not ask her out?

Putting her hand out to me, she lowers her voice like she’s sharing confidential information even though it’s just us. “Not that the double date was bad, or anything. That was the bridge we needed to go from group hangs to one-on-one time. I can’t even tell you how grateful I am that you managed to pull it off.” She lets out a happy squeal and claps her hands. “I still can’t believe you and Dylan got together and none of us figured out it was happening! And you didn’t tell me!”

I force a lame laugh. “Oh, well, you know how it goes …”

She scoffs and shakes her head, still smiling. “Not really, because you don’t dish.”

Shrugging, I pull my arms in. “I’m not good at dishing.”

“Well, now’s as good a time as any to learn.” She leans her chin on her hand. “What did you guys do last night,allllllnight?”

“No, no. You have to finish telling me about your evening with Andrew first.” It’s a nearly transparent stalling tactic, but it does the trick.

“Oh, right. After drinks we came back here.” She squeals again. “Now, you know I don’t put out on the first date, and normally I don’t even bring a guy home on the first date at all, but we’ve been hanging out for so long, it hardly feels like afirstdate. Still, rules are rules.” I nod as though I have any real conception of such a standard. Despite my defense that I’m not a virgin to Dylan last night—and I’m not—I don’t exactly date all that much. Not enough to have developed a set of rules and guidelines anyway. I tend to just let things unfold as it feels right.

Except for where Dylan is concerned. Nothing there feels right.

Doesn’t it, though?pipes up an annoying voice in my head.Sometimes it does. Like when he sat with you and shared your popcorn. And when you banter with him and laugh. And when he gave you those celebratory hugs …

I viciously cut off that line of thought before I can reflect on our celebratory kiss. That is the last thing I need to think about right now.

Isabelle’s still talking, and I force myself to focus on what she’s saying, telling me about how they kissed and fooled around while watching movies. “Mostly over the clothes stuff, but there’s always next time.” She waggles her eyebrows in the most corny way, and we both laugh.

“Alright, alright, enough about me. Tell me about you and Dylan.”

I pick at some fuzz on my pants. “Oh, pretty much the same, really. We went to his apartment and watched a movie …”

“Netflix and chill, huh?”

“Mmhmm.” It’s not really lying if I don’t actuallysaythe word yes, right?

Another squeal of delight. “Look at us. Dating football players. Getting some. Spending the night with our boyfriends. Well, you are, anyway. I’m sure I’ll be doing the same soon enough.”

I force a grin. “I’m so happy for you, Iz.” I stand. “I’m gonna go shower, though.”

“Aww. Thanks. And I’m happy for you. You’ll have to start leaving some stuff over at Dylan’s so you can shower there next time.”

I let out an awkward laugh and head to my room. “Right. True. Definitely.”

She laughs too. “You’re such a dork sometimes, Char.”

“Yup. That’s me.” And with that, I make my escape.

* * *

After a shower, I’m lounging on my bed scrolling through my phone, ignoring the weird feelings my night with Dylan has inspired. Nothing between us is going the way I planned.

To be fair, I didn’t plan for anything to happen between us, so of course it’s not going the way I planned. My plan has always been to avoid him as much as possible. That was my plan in high school, given his social circle, and I saw no reason to change that in college.

But even being forced into his presence over and over by virtue of blackmail and fake relationships, nothing about that is going how I expected either.

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