Page 33 of Foul & Fake
Simmons feints toward Vito like she’s gonna hit him, and he screams like a little girl, immediately blaming Mads for the whole idea because he dyed Blake’s hair first.
Riley giggles as she links their arms and says, “Okay, let’s leave these two alone. You can come back to my dorm and we’ll see what we can do about your hair.”
What an angel.
Wait, what?
“You’re leaving? I thought you missed me.”
“Don’t be selfish, Reyes. Look at my hair.”
She’s got a point. “It looks… fine.”
Damn, I didn’t even sound convincing to myself.
Riley comes over and pulls me to my feet, rocking on her toes to kiss me. “I’ll come back later, okay? I promise. I want you to do that thing with your tongue.”
“You love that, huh,” I say cockily, lifting her up by her thighs so she’s straddling me as I kiss her a little deeper.
“Huh… didn’t think I’d see the day Reyes was whipped,” Lucy jokes, and I flip her off behind Riley’s back.
“Text me when the jolly-green-giant-asparagus-head leaves.”
That was a lame diss, but it’s all I got right now.
She nods, kissing me again before I let her down. “Oh, I will. I want to hear more about Vito’s crabs.”
“I got more dirt on him than that,” I joke. “I’ll spill it all.”
It feels real as I walk her to the door, as I give her one more kiss goodbye, and even more real after I shut the door and smile to myself behind the wood.
But I need to remember that it isn’t before I’m fucked… or maybe it’s time I admit I already am.
Chapter 13
Two Little Minutes
RILEY
It takes us four tries to get all the green out of Lucy’s hair, but by the time we’re done, her hair looks better than ever. “See?” I spin her around to face the mirror, fluffing out her locks. “It’s like it never happened at all.”
“You’re a literal angel,” she says with reverence. “Seriously, is this why Sam’s been hiding you from us? We need to be friends.”
Sam’s not hiding me from anyone, I’m just so busy I typically don’t go to parties with her, and she usually goes elsewhere to hang out with her team. “Maybe she hid me to keep me away from the hazing,” I tease. “You guys don’t pull any punches, do you?”
Lucy laughs. “Hell no. Those fuckers have it coming. I’ll chop off his stupid man bun as soon as I have a chance. They’ve released mice into our locker room, called us with fake STI results, stolen our underwear, multiple guys have fucked with our hair — and that’s not even half of it.”
Absolutely barbaric. Some of that sounds illegal, not just immoral. It gives me hope that if I push forward with this, I can actually stick it to Eli and all the idiots like him who think they’re above the rest of us just because they play a sport. Andhell, maybe I’ll get an A in the process. “And this happens every year?”
“Yeah, but not the same people,” she explains. “The tradition is the senior guys haze us juniors, but luckily the senior girls help us get them back. It’s so dumb, but it brings us girls together and it usually causes at least two fist fights with the guys. Funny how it backfires like that, huh?”
Yeah, funny. Not archaic or stupid at all. “So you actually… like it?”
“No,” she scoffs. “They hide behind the word ‘tradition’ to make our lives hell for a few months and if we didn’t retaliate we’d just be victims. I don’t know about you, but as a woman I feel victimized enough. It feels good to pay them back. If I had it my way though I’d just kick them all in the nuts and call it a day. How’d you end up with Reyes?”
And this, Lucy, is why we can’t be friends. I’m already lying to enough people, and as much as I wish I could tell her the truth, I know I can’t. I’m playing the long game here, and if I play my cards right… it sounds like I could help more than just myself. “You know how it goes,” I deflect. “Jock sees shiny thing, jock woos shiny thing, and here we are.”
She groans, her head falling back with an exasperated sigh. “Yeah, I definitely know how it goes. He’s not hazing this year — which is hilarious considering the amount of shit he talked last semester, but I’m glad to see he’s choosing you instead. He’s good to you, right? I’ll haze his ass as a thank you payment and no one ever has to know but us.”
