He seemed perfect. Almost too good to be true. Even better, under hobbies, there weren’t any sports listed. That might not mean anything in the long run, but as long as we had so many other interests in common, I could put up with the one flaw. He was already several times better than my ex-boyfriend, who only ever had three things on his mind. Sports, his friends, and sex.
“What are you doing?”
I looked over my shoulder, surprised to see Dana standing behind me, looking at my computer. Immediately, I wanted to hide the screen, but she probably already saw what was on it, and besides, it would be too suspicious.
“Uh, nothing really,” I said slowly. “I thought you were doing the assignment?”
“Yeah, I figured I would go to the library and do it there. Logan’s busy, but if he has time, he’ll be meeting me there.” Then she narrowed her eyes on my screen. “Now, seriously. What are you up to?”
I pursed my lips, wondering if she was trying to shove her relationship in my face because she caught me on a dating site.
“I’m looking for love,” I said with a challenging look. “Not lust.”
She arched an eyebrow at me, then rolled her eyes and turned toward the door with her laptop and notes in her arms. “Freak,” she muttered on her way out.
I heard her clearly, and it made me pause for a minute. But then I decided not to let it bother me and excitedly sent a message to the guy’s profile. I wasn’t sure how long it took me to think of what to say. The message I got from him was a prompt by the system, something along the lines of, ‘hi this is my username and my profile, I saw that we matched, would you like to chat sometime?’ I couldn’t just answer to the prompt.
After a long moment, all I could come up with was ‘hi, nice talking to you,’ and a smiley face. I sent the message before I could change my mind, then put my computer to sleep, and buried my head in my arms on the table, calling myself all sorts of names in my head for the weak message.
It didn’t matter or it did? I thought after a while. I was cautiously hopeful this would go well. After another long moment of worrying about the message, I raised my head and turned on my computer again. I checked the site, before opening the school’s portal to start on the next assignment.
Chapter Five
Elijah
Logan and I walked out of our last class for the day. It was still early in the afternoon, so we had plenty of free time for the rest of the day, and I was thinking about how to spend it.
“Hey, do you wanna go get lunch?” I asked, glancing over at him.
He was texting on his cell and didn’t bother looking up when he answered.
“Nah, man. Besides, there’s still some snacks in the dorm room, right? Go eat by yourself.”
I did remember we’d bought a bunch of stuff and left it there for when we were going to have a study night. It was a week until we finished exams, and I did most of the studying while Logan slacked off. Though I’d only lasted so long before I started playing games myself, my grades were steady. Logan…didn’t seem to care much about his grades as long as he didn’t fail, but he still managed to be average, so it wasn’t like he didn’t know what he was doing. I still thought he slacked off too much.
“Wait a minute,” I said, narrowing my eyes on him. “What exactly are you going to be doing? I treated you to lunch last time, so it should be your turn, right?”
“Oh, come on,” he said jokingly, looking up from his cell and patting me on the back. “We’re buddies, aren’t we? I don’t have to pay you back, right?”
“That’s not what you said when you asked me to pay for a fancy meal at a fancy restaurant the last time, and invited your girlfriend to join us without asking me.”
“It’s not like you can't afford it, right? Take it as I’ll owe you down the line.”
“It’s not like you can't afford it yourself,” I retorted, but I rolled my eyes because I expected this sort of thing from him. “And you realize you’re going to owe me a lot, right?”
“Yeah, yeah. Don’t worry about it; it’s not like I’ll forget.”
I sighed and let it go. Logan may seem like a flaky kind of guy, but he was reliable at times. Once he made a promise, he did his best to stick to it no matter what. He and I wouldn’t have been such great friends if he was really as he appeared to outsiders, not to mention that I’d known him since high school and he was one of my oldest and closest friends.
“Are you going to see Dana again?” I asked, raising my eyebrows. “How many times has it been this week? Don’t tell me you’re serious about her?”
“So, what if I am serious about her?” he said defensively, scowling at me. “Is there something wrong with being serious about someone? I mean, I know I’m young, and these are my golden years, so I should experiment as much as possible, or I’ll regret it later. But Dana… Shit, man. You don’t know. She’s a pretty, nice, and we get along nicely. I can have conversations with her, so it’s not just sneaking into her dorm room anymore…”
“Not that you snuck in there, to begin with,” I muttered. “You just waltzed in whenever you wanted.”
Logan must have heard me, but he just went on talking. He might not even have heard me, because he seemed like he was talking to himself, his face all lit up in that way I’d only ever seen when we talked about hockey, or there was an interesting game ahead.
I watched him trying to justify himself feeling a bit surprised. Even though Logan could be reliable in his own way, when it came to women he was a total playboy. It was usual to hear of him having several women on the line at the same time, and in the end, pick the one he liked most at the moment. It was rare for him to be with the same woman again once he moved on. He didn’t sleep with all the women he supposedly dated, but he was still known as a total horndog, but there were still plenty of women with a high interest in him.
It was a surprise to see his high interest in Dana, though. He seemed to love his status in the school and took full advantage of it. He wasn’t exactly a nice guy, but he was nice to the girl he was seeing when he was seeing them, and he didn’t, mince words or try to hide once his interest started fading. He’d say it and move on.
While a lot of people seemed to hate this attitude, quite a few didn’t mind it. Sophia, of course, was one of the ones that hated it, but she hated every sports player anyway.
“Well whatever,” I said after a while. “Just let me know so I'll know later where you'll be sleeping tonight.”
“I knew you’d understand,” he said excitedly while patting me again on the shoulder. “Not sure if I’ll be sleeping out again today, but I’ll let you know later. Don’t miss me too much.”
I rolled my eyes and shoved him off. “Who the heck would miss you? As long as you know, I’ll remember you owe me.”
“Don’t worry; I won’t forget. Later, man!”
With a final glance at his cell, he hurried off. I watched him
for a short moment, before turning toward our dorms. There was nothing for me to study for at the moment, and it was off-season for hockey, so I only had to deal with the practices three times a week. I was completely free for the rest of the afternoon, and I knew exactly what I was going to be doing with all that extra time.
Once I got to my dorm room, I locked the door behind me. Since Logan likely wouldn’t be coming back soon, there were no reasons to risk anyone else catching me on a dating site. I sat at my desk and let my laptop turn on as I looked through the notification on my cell. It only took a couple of minutes, and I typed in my password, then pulled up the browser and the dating site. It was the website I’d visited most recently, so I didn’t even have to look for it. I logged in quickly and grinned to see the notification icon lit up.
I pressed on it and found a bunch of messages. I deleted all of them but the one from Sophia’s username.
Rogue H. I’d asked Logan about it, and he’d told me Rogue was a character in the X-Men series. I wondered if it was Sophia’s favorite character if it was a male or a female. I only barely knew the plot of the series, knowing it centered around mutant humans, and only because I’d heard my friends talking about the movies a few times. The only other name I knew was some guy called Xavier, also known as Professor X.
I wanted my name to be as geeky as possible, so I went with Student X. I thought it fit, in a lot of ways. For one, it was a play on the character’s name, something she’d obviously caught and commented on already. She’d seemed both amused and pleased by it. Then, there was the other reason that she hadn't seemed to have caught yet; it was a total mystery, and I loved that Sophia had no idea it was me on the other end of that username. It had been only a few days, but we’d chatted more than we ever had face to face, not to mention the total shift in her personality. If I hadn't pulled her information up myself, I would have thought there was a mistake somewhere.
If only Sophia would act in real life the way she set up her online persona, she would be my type. I hated to admit it, but I was growing used to us chatting like this. I sent her messages quite often, and she always replied so easily. I’d initially planned to let her dangle on a string for a bit before pulling her in, but she was biting her way up that string instead of waiting for me to take action.