“I’ll be there too.” Her smile turns shy and she glances down at the ground. “Maybe we could hang out. At the party.”
This girl is not shy. She’s loud, and she goes after what she wants. And when she realizes she doesn’t want it after all, she dumps it. Fast. I know this from experience. “I’m not sure.”
She lifts her head, eyes blazing. “What do you mean, you’re not sure?”
“Cam, if you’re trying to get back together with me, I have to be real with you. I don’t know if it’s a good idea.”
“Oh, you’re always so negative.” She waves a hand, as if dismissing my worries. “We make a great couple.”
No, we really don’t. There’s always a lot of fighting involved. We get on each other’s nerves. Even the sex isn’t that great, though honestly, we started fucking our sophomore year and I had no idea what I was doing. Three pumps max and I was done. Hell, she’d barely touch my dick and I was close to coming. I had zero control. My skills have improved greatly since then.
Though it’s been a while since I’ve had sex. Since I’ve even wanted to have sex. There’s no one here at this school who interests me.
This is why maybe getting back together with Cami isn’t such a bad idea. We have history. We understand each other. And maybe we could improve on our past sexual encounters.
Is it really a good idea, though? She’s also controlling. She blabs to all her friends every single detail about our relationship. She doesn’t understand the meaning of the word private.
The worst thing of all? Pretty much my entire family doesn’t like her.
“We’ve tried this before—” I start, but she cuts me off.
“I’m different now.” She smiles prettily, her hand resting on my chest again, her fingers curling into the fabric of my T-shirt and giving it a slight tug. “I’ve changed. I know what I want. And what I want is…you.”
I think about what my friends have said. How I need to relax and get laid. I bet Cami would be down. She always was before.
“You want to wear my jersey tomorrow?” Shit. The words fall out of me before I give myself time to reconsider the offer.
Her entire face lights up. “I would love to,” she breathes.
Guess this is going to happen. “I’ll bring it to you in the morning.”
She takes a step closer and rises up on her toes, brushing her mouth against my cheek. “You’ll win tomorrow. I just know it,” she purrs close to my ear.
I watch her walk away, hips swinging, my gaze zeroed in on her ass, noting how her butt cheeks are practically hanging out of her shorts. Cami and I, we would look good together. Everyone wants the cliché, and we could deliver. Maybe we could make this work again.
And then again, maybe not.
Four
Hannah
It’s Friday after school and we’re at Pete’s Place, a local restaurant not too far from the high school, gorging ourselves on fries and chicken strips. We also bought an order of fried zucchini because eating them makes us feel like we’re making better choices, considering it’s a vegetable. A fried vegetable, but whatever.
I’m sitting at a table with Marty and my other best friend, Sophie, who I feel like I’ve known my entire life, considering we’ve gone to school together since preschool. The three of us used to joke and call ourselves the misfits, but I’m starting to believe we truly are exactly that.
A group of misfits. Our social circle exists of exactly the three of us. That’s it. Sounds boring, but we always have a good time so…it’s fine.
Most of the time.
“We’re going to the game tonight, right?” Sophie asks as she shoves another fry into her mouth. She’s scrolling through her phone, her golden blonde hair falling into her face. Sophie is really tall, almost six feet, and with long, graceful limbs. She’s a dancer and competes with the local studio’s team every year, and it mostly consumes her life. Having a snack at Pete’s goes against everything she’s been taught, so I’m sure she’ll be hard on herself and practically fast over the weekend.
Me? I just keep gorging myself on the delicious fried food and not bother exercising whatsoever. I don’t think I’ve overexerted myself since my P.E. class my sophomore year.
“Um…” I send a look to Marty, who’s furiously shaking his head, his eyes wide, his expression horrified. “No. Why would we do that? We never go to the football games.”
Sophie lets loose an exaggerated sigh, glaring at both of us. “Didn’t we make a pact at the end of last year that we were going to participate more? Go to all the games? Have fun at the rallies? Go to the dances? Maybe even snag an invite to a party out by the lake? It’s our senior year, guys. Our last chance to have some fun before shit gets real and we have to grow up.”
“I’m beyond ready to grow up and leave this town,” Marty mutters, and I nod my agreement, though I don’t really mean it.
Growing up terrifies me. The idea of going to college both excites and scares me. I don’t know how I’m going to make it on my own. Which means I probably won’t and I’ll live with my mother for the rest of my life, the two of us versus the world.
God, just thinking like that makes me terribly depressed.
“You are both absolutely no fun.” Sophie points at us with an extra-long fry before she eats it. “Guess I’ll go to the game by myself then,” she says after she swallows.
“You won’t go by yourself,” Marty says. “You can hardly come to school by yourself.”
“That’s not true,” Sophie says. She used to be more on the shy side, though recently she’s come out of her shell. She used to freeze up and never talk around anyone, especially in middle school.
Funny how she’s never has a problem performing on the stage though.
“Listen, I want to go to the game.” Sophie gives a little shrug. “I’m sure I can convince some of the girls from the dance studio to come with me. They always go.”
“You’re going to hang out with a bunch of sophomores then?” Marty rolls his eyes. “Boring.”
The majority of the girls on Sophie’s dance team are younger than us. “At least they’ll want to go with me, unlike my best friends who are totally ditching me to do…what exactly? Spend Friday night at home watching Netflix?”
“There’s a new series I wouldn’t mind starting,” I say weakly, clamming up when Sophie shoots me a pointed look.
“You of all people should go,” Sophie says, staring at me. “Then you can witness if Jake Callahan plays a perfect game or falls on his beautiful face.”
I hate that she called his face beautiful because she is so right. He’s annoyingly attractive. And I don’t want to talk about him. Yet here I go, talking about him. “Did you see Cami Lockhart wearing his jersey today?”
It kind of hurt, witnessing her strutting around campus with the number four emblazoned on her chest. Though why am I hurt? He asked me first, so I suppose that should make me feel better. She was his second choice.