Page 24 of Lovesick
Sutton is a great defenseman—always plays with the team’s best interest at heart, always punctual, always reliable. He does tend to keep to himself, and I’d be lying if I said that the lumberjack beard and the six-five height didn’t intimidate me. How does a twenty-two-year-old grow that much facial hair? I can barely pass off a five o’clock shadow.
“Are the penis-sized fingers erect? How would you be able to pick up stuff?” Harlan follows up.
Sutton snorts. “Why are you thinking so hard about this?”
“This might be a hypothetical, but you never know.”
Knox chimes in.Unfortunately.He’s the equivalent of thedog shit that I accidentally stepped in yesterday on my way to class.
“Fingers, definitely. The size of my cock is perfect,” he announces smugly, leaning back in his chair with his arms folded behind his head.
Barf.
“To be fair, Knox does use his cock more than his fingers,” Axel jibes.
“In what sense?” Sutton’s curiosity is well-intentioned, though I’m sure he’s about to regret his question in two seconds.
“Have you ever seen him use a keyboard? Dude takes like five seconds to find a single key.”
The table combusts into laughter at my enemy’s expense, and Harlan is to the point of tears as he smacks his palm on the table. I haven’t spoken once since we sat down. It feels like there’s a pinhole in the wall, and it’s steadily leaking monoxide poisoning into my airways.
Foster—quick to catch on to my uncharacteristic silence—slings his arm over my shoulder, a frown quirking his lips while he balances his half-full drink in the other hand. “What’s the matter, C? You worried about the game tomorrow?”
A heavy weight expands in my chest, and an unnamable sadness suffuses my veins in droves. I can’t even begin to explain its genesis.
“No,” I mutter curtly, abandoning my splinter-picking to drag my fingernail through the condensation on my glass. The cold is a nice reprieve from the sauna-like heat of the room.
Axel pipes up. “Then why the long face? We got through our first week. This should be a night for celebration, right?”
My flimsy words grate against my throat. “I just?—”
Suddenly, a girl teleports to our table, standing above me with a plunging neckline, heavy kohl eyeliner, and waist-length blonde hair, exuding what I can only describe as a “look at me”aura. She’s attractive in the conventional sense, but I barely even spare her a glance. The rest of the team, however, is salivating over her like mutts.
Her cloying perfume pollutes my nostrils in brimstone, and as respectfully as possible, I want to stick a ten-foot pole between us so that I don’t have to entertain whatever agenda she has tonight.
But before she can say anything, Knox’s obnoxious voice rings in my eardrums, confirming my theory that he must have some genetic defect that makes me burn with rage every time he opens that fat trap of his. Which is a lot.
So I burn.
A lot.
“Hey,” he drawls with a sizable helping of arrogance, nodding his head at her.
She ignores him.
Internally, I laugh. Externally, laughing would not be the appropriate response in this situation, as my therapist would say. So, I take the moral high ground and choose to keep my comments to myself.
Though karma isn’t far behind because when the blonde does speak, she addresses me, batting her eyelashes coyly. “Crew, right? Hi, I’m Kayla. President of Theta.”
I finally take a sip from my drink. “Uh, hi.”
“I can’t wait to watch the game tomorrow. I’ve seen you at practice—you’re really good,” she purrs, leaning over the table so her cleavage hangs out and accosts my vision.
It’s an empty compliment, I’m aware. Growing up in the limelight, I’ve become an expert at spotting disingenuity from a mile away.
I can feel Knox’s indignant stare on the back of my neck, red-hot, as if he’s trying to telepathically make my head explode.
Now, B.M. Crew—Before Merit Crew—would have been allover this chick the second she said hello, but right now, I couldn’t be less interested. In fact, my dick is as flaccid as a piece of overcooked spaghetti. It’s clear that she’s angling for something physical instead of actually getting to know me. Even if my thoughts weren’t dominated by the girl who wants nothing to do with me, I wouldn’t partake.
