Page 109 of Secret Puck
Dakota and Reagansit on one end of my bed, their concerned faces staring back at me. Ava’s gone for the weekend visiting Trent, and when I’d told my friends I was going back to my dorm alone after the game, they insisted on coming with me.
My phone pings on my desk and Dakota reaches to get it for me.
“Read it for me.”
“It’s Adam. He says he didn’t see you at the game and wants to know if you’re in your dorm watchingNotting Hill?”
She looks up to me for an explanation.
“When I was in like seventh grade, my first boyfriend broke up with me and I was so devastated I watchedNotting Hillon repeat for an entire weekend. Something like twenty times. It became my go-to breakup movie.” I could so go for watching that movie on repeat about now.
“I love that movie,” Reagan says. “Julia Roberts is a goddess.”
Dakota sets my phone on the bed. “Guess they didn’t see us. That’s good.”
“Yeah,” I agree. I mean, I think it’s good. I’m not sure what difference it would have made, but there was no way I could sit in my usual seat so close to the bench where he could read the sadness on my face. The game was brutal enough as it was.
Instead, the girls and I sat at the top of the student section blending in with the sea of blue and yellow. It was hard to watch them lose, but it fit my depressing mood nicely.
My phone pings again, and this time I reach for it.
Adam:Are you okay? Just let me know you’re at the dorm and that all is well and I’ll leave you alone.
Me:Yes, I’m safe and sound in my dorm.
He doesn’t respond right away, and I toss my phone back onto the bed. Holding it reminds me I haven’t talked to Heath. “Well, should we watchNotting Hill?”
We’re just cueing up the movie when there’s noise outside of my window. My window faces a parking lot, so it isn’t unusual that it’s noisy, but this noise is… well, it’s different.
“Do you hear that?” I ask.
“Sounds like a bunch of drunk guys heading out to party. It’s too early to be so obnoxious, must be freshmen. No offense.” She stands and goes to look. “Uh, Ginny, I think you need to see this.”
I scramble from the bed to look. There’s shrubbery along the edge of the building, so the aforementioned obnoxious guys aren’t directly under my window, but they’re as close as they can get.
Adam and Rhett are on all fours on the ground and Maverick is on top of them on his hands and knees and then Heath stands on his back. They’ve built a freaking pyramid. Reagan and Dakota laugh. We open my window as far as it goes, which is only a couple of inches.
Heath holds his cell phone over his head and sings along with the music.
“What in the world is he doing?” Dakota asks.
“Shh! He’s serenading her,” Reagan says.
“Why Mariah Carey?” Dakota asks in a whisper.
A few other residents have opened their windows and call out or sing along. People walking by in the parking lot are stopping. Some have their phones out videoing it, no doubt.
Heath wears a shy expression, one I wasn’t sure he possessed, but he belts out the song confidently. When he’s through the chorus for a second time, he stops.
Rhett calls, “Did she hear us? What’s going on? I can’t see shit down here.”
“The whole dorm heard you, asshole,” someone calls.
“What are you doing?” I ask through the crack. My heart hammers in my chest. Hope and excitement claw at the hurt and anger.
“I didn’t think this all the way through. I don’t know what to do now,” he admits with a sheepish grin.
“Tell her how you feel,” Mav urges. He looks up to me and lifts a hand to wave, which makes Heath wobble on his back.
