Page 14 of Choosing Her
“I’ve been to a lot of parties like this. Well…” She paused and thought about, absent-mindedly scooping all her hair over one shoulder. “I guess not quite like this. More high-class parties—all the rich folks in their nicest dresses and diamond jewelry, and asking you which eligible bachelor you’re hoping to marry. The answer, of course, has to be one of the boys already in university with plans to become a lawyer or a doctor or an investment banker.” She sighed and rest her head against the wall behind her. “I know how to smile and nod and say what people want to hear, but I don’t like it and I don’t want to do it here. Especially not with you.”
I wasn’t quite sure what that last sentence meant.Not with me. Was that her saying that she enjoyed talking to me? Or just that I wasn’t worth making that small talk and being fake with? I decided not to comment on it, focusing on what she said about parties.
“You from a country club family?” I asked. I knew a thing of what she was talking about. Both my parents had grown up in that world too and while my mom wasn’t largely in it anymore—mostly because she knew she was the topic of so much gossip, after having three children out of wedlock—but my dad and Stacey were still in it. The only reason my parents had met in college was because of those very same country club parties, sneaking off to be together. It was only when life slapped them in the face by my mom getting pregnant with me that they realized they weren’t compatible in anything they wanted. My mom liked the artist’s life, living carefree, while my dad was a lawyer, who liked routine and consistency. I wondered, sometimes, if the only thing they’d had in common back in the day was wanting to get as far away from the parties as possible.
“How’d you know?” Saylor asked. She was assessing me now, I could tell. Looking me up and down, trying to place the hockeyplayer sitting in front of her with the stuffy people she knew at the club.
“Takes one to know one,” I said, just confirming her suspicions. “You should see me in a suit.”
Her lips quirked. “I guess I’ll have to see that sometime.”
She was testing me, wanting to see how I would react to the idea of seeing her again. Even though I knew there was next to no chance of it happening, I refused to fail the test. I held her gaze as I said, “I guess you will.”
CHAPTER 10
crossy
“How do you feel about freshmen?”Mako asked as we stood in line for coffee.
“No,” I said flatly.
“But—“
“No,” I repeated, more forcefully. “There is no way in hell that my true love is a freshman. Try again.”
Even going out with Hanna, who was a sophomore, was a stretch for me. I told Mako when we started this stupid challenge that we were keeping it to the juniors and seniors only. He hadn't listened, and I had ended up listening to a girl tearfully get back together with her boyfriend on the phone, so I wasn't really feeling like that was the best plan.
Mako sighed deeply but kept scrolling through his phone. I was pretty sure he was going through the responses of the ad he and Tino had left up, even though I’d expressly told them to take it down, and I was trying to pretend it wasn’t real. I kept my eyes on the giant board displaying all the drinks Heart’s Coffee had to offer. This was the only coffee shop on campus and although there was free coffee available in the cafeteria, it was so gross and watered down that somebody would have to pay me to drinkit. Instead, I’d been cutting my morning workouts short so I would have time to get a drink from here every morning.
“What about a hazelnut shot?” I mused out loud. “Worth it?”
“You don’t like hazelnut,” Mako said without looking up from his phone.
“Not for me,” I said. Had he been listening to anything I said all morning? “It’s for Saylor.”
“How do you feel about redheads?” Mako asked, tilting his screen toward me so he could show me a photo of another girl. I still felt the less I knew about the picking process of the dates, the better, but I was a little curious where he’d gotten all these photos. Did they send them in when they answered the ad?
“Too young,” I said. It was obvious from the photo that she was a freshman, or maybe a sophomore at the most. “Anyway, hazelnut shot—yay or nay?”
Mako continued flipping through photos, seeming completely unconcerned with the fact that we were almost at the front of the line and I had no idea what I should be ordering when we got there. I was this close to confiscating the phone from him until we were through the line.
“Does Saylor even like iced coffee?” He asked finally. It was like his brain was delaying everything I was saying to him, so he couldn’t answer until over a minute passed each time.
“Of course she does,” I said. But right after I said it, I realized that I couldn’t think of how I knew that. It was like I had this storage space filled with Saylor facts in the back of my mind, like the fact that she loved the color blue and hated swimming in oceans, even though I couldn’t remember her telling me. Did I learn it over the summer? Or was it on New Year’s Eve that she told me, back when she was happy for me to know everything about her?
“Next!” The barista called. Somehow, I’d completely missed that the two cheerleaders in front of us had already ordered and we were now at the front of the line.
“Could I get a large latte, please?” I asked. And then, with no time left to debate about whether Saylor liked hazelnut or if it would cause her to spit the drink out in my face—if she was even willing to take a sip in the first place—I stepped up, and ordered the largest size of iced coffee available with one shot of hazelnut. I’d watch her reaction today and if she didn’t like it, I could get her something else tomorrow.
“Anything else?” The barista asked after putting in both drinks.
I was about to say no, when Mako made a noise in the back of his throat. I rolled my eyes but said, “Yeah, a second latte, actually.”
“Thank you,” he said afterward, acting like he hadn’t expected me to do it.
“I don't see why I have to buy you a coffee,” I said as I put my wallet in my backpack. “You're the one sending me on terrible dates. If anything, you should be paying for me.”
“I’m not sending you on terrible dates,” Mako said. “I’m helping my best friend and teammate break his curse. Where’s the gratitude, huh?”
