“You ever going to settle on one?” I ask, tapping out a text to my sister as Troy comes into the kitchen after showing Bethany out.
He stills in front of the coffeepot. “Now, no. Later, maybe.”
“Not one of these women does it for you?”
“Are you seriously lecturing me?” He turns to me, coffee in hand, his shoulders going tight as I look up to him from where I sit at the table.
“Nope. Just curious.”
“You going to the bonfire?”
Avoidance. All play, no pay.
I flip his tactic. “You should be pre-law.”
He grins, taking it as a compliment. Like he does everything else.
“So, you going?”
“Not sure.”
The bonfire is the annual ‘be there’ party and takes place in the outskirts of town. I’d gone my first two years with Nora. She gave her virginity away the second night, to the guy who took her home.
“Supposed to be good. I’m going to help set up.”
“I’ll think about it. Toss me some ice, would you?”
He nods, opening the freezer where I have a Smirnoff waiting on him in plain sight.
“You fucker.”
Groaning, he twists off the cap and kneels as I shoulder my backpack and smirk down at him. “Bethany is a biology major and an only child, but she has two cats, Frick and Frack that she considers siblings. She’s a vegetarian and a Virgo. Her favorite book is The Handmaid’s Tale. She’s pretty sure she’s into kink but hasn’t trusted anyone to explore it with her yet. Oh,” I say as he finishes the bottle looking like he’s smelling burnt hair as I pull out my phone, “she gave me her number and left you her breakfast dishes.”
I make it to the door as Lance bounds down the stairs making a rare appearance in nothing but mesh shorts. “Sup, Lance?”
He nods. “Sup,” before passing me at the foot of the stairs.
Troy barely acknowledges Lance, arms crossed as he regards me curiously from the kitchen.
“She left her number for me?”
“No. Because you didn’t ask her for it.”
“And you did?”
“No,?
?? I shrug. “I didn’t ask her for it either. Later.”
Theo
Laney: Let he who is without hangover cast the first stone.
Theo: *throws rock* Did you feel it?
Laney: Just your judgment.
Theo: Still hungover from Saturday?