“It’s pretty bad. But not as awful as my International Finance lecture. That’s torture.”
“Wait, I thought you loved that class? What did you call the instructor? Professor Hotty McHotpants, or something?”
“Yeah,” she sighs. “But the hotness wears off the ninety-seventh time the guy prattles on about the DD-AA model. I mean, unless the man is talking about putting his DD in my AA, I don’t know when I’ll ever use this stuff.”
I laugh at her ridiculousness. Seriously, one of the things that I love about Emma is how she makes me seem like the calm, rational one.
“Laugh it up over there, Blondie,” she taunts. “You’re getting all the sex. You don’t need to survive on mere crumbs of hotness like I do. How’s Big Red, anyway? I haven’t seen him in a couple of days. I figured you either had him chained to your bed or you guys were staying at his place.”
I must get some dreamy, sappy look on my face, because Emma starts gagging. “I can’t even handle the cuteness. Stop it. We need a subject change,” she complains.
“I didn’t even say anything,” I whine as we enter the dining hall.
She gives me the stink-eye. “But you were going to. I could tell. You were going to get all gooey over Spencer’s big dick and I can’t have that kind of energy right now. I’m in the middle of a dry spell the likes of which I haven’t seen since I hit puberty, and I’m about to stuff my face with cheese fries. Now is not the time for me to be thinking about Spencer’s dick.”
“Uh, I’d kind of like it if you never thought about my boyfriend’s dick,” I tell her, laughing, “just sayin.”
We get in separate lines and meet back at our favorite table. True to her word, Emma’s plate is piled high with cheesy fried goodness.
“So...he’s your boyfriend?” she says, picking up exactly where we left off.
“Well…” I take a bite of my turkey club and chew, stalling for time. “Kind of? I mean, we haven’t had that exact conversation, but we agreed to be exclusive and we had the safe sex talk. So...yeah?”
“I’m seriously happy for you, Paige. You deserve all the good things. So, I won’t take it too personally that you’ve abandoned me and left Lily to be my wing-woman.” She pouts, and I almost feel bad. Lily is a notoriously bad wing-woman. She’s too easily distracted.
“Sorry about that…”
“Well, the good news is that you can make it up to me. The Kappas are having a party Friday and we’re going.” She smiles like it’s a done deal.
“I mean…”
“Oh, no. Don’t you even. Hoes before bros, my friend. You have been spending every spare minute with Spencer, and though I really can’t blame you, I miss my girl. You owe me one fun night and then I’ll let you get back to your happy couple shit. Besides, next weekend is your birthday. There’s no way we’re not celebrating.”
“All right,” I relent. “It’ll be fun. It has been way too long since I got my party on.”
13
Paige
Emma and I are in my room, getting ready to head out for a night of drinking and dancing, and I can’t wait. I love any excuse to party, but my birthday—my twenty-first birthday—is the best reason I can think of.
“I can’t believe your boy dumped us for a bunch of sweaty men,” Emma grumbles for, like, the fortieth time, then checks her ass in the mirror.
“They’re his teammates and I’m glad he’s hanging out with them. He can be a little anti-social, you know. So this is a big step for him,” I defend, even though, truth be told, I’m a little salty that he chose tonight to socialize with his team.
“So he thought your birthday weekend was the perfect time to blow you off so he could play video games with his friends? Um, I hate to tell you this, love, but you might be dating a middle-schooler. Granted, he’s inhabiting the body of a hockey god, but still.”
“It’s fine. I’m spending my actual birthday with him tomorrow. Besides, we are going to have such a good time tonight. Three parties await us, we’ve got roadies,” I salute Emma with my cup, “and we look fucking hot.” We stand in front of my mirror, admiring ourselves. It’s one of those cheapy dorm ones, but it can’t hide the fact that Emma and I are looking fine as fuck tonight.
And sure, I wish Spencer was coming. He’s my guy and being with him makes everything more fun. But he doesn’t party pre-season or in-season (or at all, really), so he wanted to go low-key. This is his last weekend before the season starts, so I get him wanting to bond with his team.
I get it, but I don’t like it.
What I do like is Fireball. And I can hear those shots calling my name from here.
Spencer
“Dude. You’re not her dad. What’s with the pacing and the constant phone-checking?” Zac asks.
