Page 4 of Forecheck
“You love me.”
I snorted but didn’t argue.
When Mitch had signed with the Warriors three years ago, he and I became fast friends. His first two years, we’d lived in the same building, so we’d often ride to practices and the airport together, or get drunk watching football on Sundays if we weren’t playing. What started under the ruse of welcoming a new guy to the team had morphed into one of the best friendships I’d ever had.
“I’m still not sliding into her DMs,” I ultimately announced, sitting once again and fishing my phone out of my bag. “But…I guess it wouldn’t hurt to see if I can find her Instagram.”
“Atta boy!” Mitch said, clapping me on the back as he dropped onto the stool next to mine.
I opened the app and clicked into the search tab, but as I began typing, I realized something.
“Does anyone know how to spell ‘Berkley’?”
“Is it like the college?” Rat asked.
I typed B-e-r-k-e-l-e-y, but after scrolling for what seemed like ages and clicking on profiles at random, I decided that wasn’t it.
By now, Mitch had taken his own phone out to aid me in my search. “How about…B-e-r-k-l-e-y,” he said as he tapped out the letters.
I looked over at Mitch’s screen and squinted at the tiny profile pictures that popped up alongside usernames.
A flash of blonde hair caught my eye. I shouted, “That’s her!” and snatched Mitch’s phone out of his hand before he could react. I clicked onto the profile…and was greeted with over four hundred photos of my mystery girl.
Fuck, she’s beautiful.
Someone whistled low like a catcall, and Grey said, “Damn, Jean.”
“Shut up,” I grumbled, though there was no venom in the words. I was too focused on the screen. “Berkley Daniels.”
Her full name at last.
“Third year law student at Wayne State,” Mitch said as he read her profile. “That’s impressive.”
“Beauty and brains,” I agreed. “Love that.”
“Look, she went to MSU!” Rat said just as my eyes snagged on the line in her bio that read “Michigan State alumna.”
“That’s gotta be some kind of sick joke,” I murmured.
“Why?” Grey asked.
“Because,” I said, swallowing hard, “what are the chances we were there at the same time?”
The boys were quiet as they considered that. Knowing I was twenty-nine and had forgone playing juniors to head right to college at eighteen, Rat tapped his fingers as he did the math.
“How old is she?” Mitch asked.
I scrolled through her photos, searching for anything to indicate when she’d finished undergrad or celebrated a birthday.
At last, I landed on a photo of her graduation day from Michigan State two and a half years prior. And about six months before that, after carefully studying photos of her in various poses with various groups of friends at bars or events around campus, or perfectly curated outfit photos or selfies, I found what I was looking for.
Berkley was surrounded by three girls—one of which I recognized as the tall brunette she’d been at the bar with—all squished together on a dilapidated couch in a room that clearly belonged to one of those quintessential rundown college houses. They were all dressed to the nines, and Berkley wore a black sash across her chest emblazoned with the words “BIRTHDAY GIRL” in sparkly gold.
The caption read, “I don’t know about you, but I’m feelin’ 22” with a string of birthday related emojis.
“Okay,” I said, squeezing my eyes shut as I did the math. “If she turned twenty-two in 2017, she had to have started college in…”
“2014,” Mitch supplied.
