Page 13 of Lovesick
Merit saw me just like Coach did. Therealme.
I rub the back of my nape with my gloved hand—a nervous tic that I’ve perfected ever since I was a child. Whether I got caught eating my cousin’s birthday cake when I was seven, or I got caught shoplifting Trojan condoms from a gas station when I was sixteen—peer-pressured, of course—I was never great at hiding my emotions. And Harlan, with his overly analytical eye, is immune to my poor suppression tactics.
“Something else is bothering you,” he comments, taking a seat beside me.
My jaw tightens out of reflex. “It’s nothing.”
“Doesn’t look like nothing.”
“Drop it, Har.”
“Where did you go last night?” he interrogates, and not in a pushy way. More like an I-want-to-know-what’s-actually-going-on-with-you way. His morality is sickening sometimes.
Fuck. I forgot that I ditched him halfway through the night. God, what kind of friend am I? I don’t think I even remembered to text him my whereabouts. Granted, he was talking to some girl, but I should’ve kept him informed. I’m lucky he didn’t come back to the apartment.
“I’m sorry, man. Time got away from me. I was, uh, with someone,” I answer, purposefully omitting crucial details. Theless he knows, the better. Crew Calloway doesn’t catch feelings, especially not after sleeping with a girlonetime.
Harlan scours my face for any cracks in my poorly constructed façade, and much to my dismay, he cherry-picks the truth out of the smallest fissure. “So thisisabout a girl. Was it the one with brown hair by the bar? You kept staring at her the whole night.”
My cheeks burn with embarrassment as my voice rises to prepubescent levels. “What? No! I wasn’t doing that. I was watching the…the game! Yeah, the game. I don’t even know who you’re talking about.”
He chuffs a laugh. “Crew Calloway, King of the Flings, is flustered over agirl?”
“She’s not just a girl,” I mutter under my breath.
“So you admit it—there was a girl involved!”
Shit. He’s got me there.
I deadpan, “Fine, yes. There was a girl. We hooked up. She got the hell out of dodge this morning. End of story.”
Confusion bleeds across Harlan’s features. “Wait a second, she left before you could kick her out?”
I don’t appreciate the inflection there, but I digress.
“I wasn’t going to ‘kick her out.’”
“Ohhh, right,” he humors me, rolling his forest-green eyes. “Just like you weren’t going to kick out that girl from the club, or the girl from the car dealership, or the girl from Hobby Lobby.”
Ah, Hobby Lobby Holly. Went for popsicle sticks, left with herridingmy stick. Good times.
I’ve been body snatched—it’s the only possible explanation. My palms are sweaty, my heart won’t stop pounding, and I think my indigestion mightactuallybe butterflies.
AHHH! I don’t want these mushy-gushy feelings. I’ve lived by the three F’s my whole life: flirt, fuck, farewell. And it’sworked for me every time. The three F’s donotconsist of flirt, fuck, fawn.
“I actually wanted her to stay,” I admit quietly, even though my head is screaming at me to get a goddamn grip.
Harlan stares at me in complete shock, looking like a deer in headlights. “Shit.”
“I know,” I groan, planting my face in my gloves. “I’m fucked.”
My best friend offers me a supportive shoulder pat, but it’s about as soul-killing as the death blow that Merit dealt me before leaving me in the dust with my balls out and everything.
Be realistic, Crew. The possibility that you’ll see this girl again is slim to none. You don’t know anything about her. You had a great night together, and that’s all it’ll ever be. You need to move on. You have so many more important things to think about right now.
You’re right, Crew. Thank you for talking some sense into me.
“Maybe you’ll see each other again. I mean, you never know. If she was at Dusky’s, she’s probably a local.”
