Page 51 of Ink & Ambition

“I saw the podcast,” she says with a slight smirk.

I roll my eyes. “Cutting right to the chase, huh.”

“Hey, I thought it was good!” She demands, her hands raised in surrender. “You and that girl really had some great chemistry.”

I ponder that thought for a moment. I hadn’t watched the episode at all, too embarrassed to look at myself on screen like that, but it didn’t really occur to me how others would perceive our friendship.

“You think so?” We enter the library and head downstairs toward the stacks and study rooms.

“Yeah, you guys had good banter. You seemed very comfortable together,” Gia replies. “She your girlfriend?”

“No,” my reply is immediate and a knot forms in my gut, almost as if I’m betraying Margot. No, she’s not my girlfriend. She’s made it abundantly clear she wants nothing to do with me in that way. Not that I want anything to do with her either. But still, I don’t want Gia to think she’s meaningless to me. “She’s just a friend.”

Gia nods thoughtfully. I can tell she didn’t ask out of jealousy or anything like that. Just a friend catching up with another friend.See, I can be friends with girls.

As we hit the bottom of the stairs, I spot the guys working at a table by the window.

“Well,” Gia starts. “If you’re not dating her, you wanna hang out tonight? It’s been a minute since we’ve…hung out.” She looks up at me with those doe eyes that have the power to make me melt.Okay, maybe not…

Now that I think about it, it has been a while since I’vehung outwith anyone really. I hadn’t hooked up with anyone since the semester started and definitely not since meeting Margot. I mean, when would I even have the time? When I’m not with Margot, I’m in class or at the gym. Not a lot of time for extracurriculars with a schedule like that.

Maybe I should just hook up with Gia. There’s clearly something pent up in me right now, especially with how I acted while Margot was on her date. Maybe I need to just let loose and forget about her for a night.

But I do have plans with Margot this afternoon and I’m sure she’ll be coming to the house party with her roommates. I wouldn’t want to ignore her while she’s at my house. That wouldbe rude. And it would also no doubt put her right back into Ryan’s waiting arms.

“Alex?”

I blink and am reminded that Gia is patiently waiting for a response from me. Luckily, being the cool girl that she is, she lets me off the hook.

“I’ll be at the KA party tonight, maybe we’ll catch up then.” She touches my arm with a slight smile before turning and walking toward the other side of the library. With a confusing sigh, I head over toward Keith and Devon.

“Yo, what’s Gia up to? That girl is seriously hot,” Devon says as a greeting as I sit at their table.

“Yeah,” I reply absentmindedly. I have no idea what I’m doing but I need to figure it out quick. I thought being friends with Margot would be easy, but this feeling in my gut is not going away.

By the time three rolls around, I’m sitting at the same booth that Margot and I met at the first time, a black coffee in front of me and an oatmilk whatever waiting on her side of the table. Margot walks in, does a double take between me and the counter before she comes to sit down.

“I didn’t expect you to be on time,” she says, taking the empty seat across from me.

“Why not?”

“Well, you’re always late to public speaking class.”

I laugh, taking a sip of my coffee. “To be honest, I don’t really care about that class.”

“But you care about this?” Margot starts taking her laptop out of her bag.

“I guess I do.”

She hesitates for just the slightest moment, but I catch it. Pulling her laptop out of the sleeve, she opens it up and pulls up the podcast website. She absentmindedly reaches for the coffee and takes a long sip. “Thanks for the coffee.”

I nod with a small smile. There’s a slight awkwardness to Margot. Almost as if she’s nervous about something. I push the thought aside, knowing she’d be open if she had something on her mind. Margot is nothing if not forthcoming about her feelings.

She jumps right into her show notes, pulling out the new questions that she believes will be better than the ones we had planned. We rework the script for about an hour, working tirelessly until Margot is satisfied with the changes.

“Thanks for meeting with me to fix this up. I think it’ll be much better now,” she says, putting her laptop away.

“Hold on, sunshine. Where are you running off to?”

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