Unspoken(11)

Ellie, Sasha, and I groaned, and Ellie responded by pushing Brian off the stool. I threw a paper towel at him.

“How can you live with him?” I asked Sasha semi-seriously.

“We don’t share a bathroom,” Sasha said.

“And I pay the rent.” Brian looked piously into the distance.

“There is that.” Sasha sighed.

“Let’s talk about the most important topic of the semester,” I said. My audience perked up. “Where are we gonna spend spring break?”

We argued raucously about the merits of going north to ski or south to the beach for the rest of the afternoon. And I tried hard to push all thoughts of Bo, Clay, and Roger to the very back recesses of my mind.





Chapter Four



AM

WHEN MY PHONE ALERTED ME to a text message just before I was getting ready to go to bed, I figured it was my mother. Two weeks spent at home had made me ready to flee back to school. For my mother, time spent together at Christmas break only made her more melancholy when I departed. But the message wasn’t from my mother.

I’m going to put this number to good use. Bo Randolph.

What was he doing sending me a text message at nine on a Monday night? I debated deleting the message.

“Bo Randolph just texted me,” I yelled down the hall to Ellie. She appeared like a witch at my door a second later, scaring me half to death.

“My God, where were you?” I yelped.

“Looking for my hoops.” Ellie held up large gold earrings. Just outside my bedroom door, our front hall held a mirror and dresser, courtesy of the thrift store, and it had become a repository for all of our jewelry and half our makeup as we dumped things coming and going from the apartment. Most of the time it looked like the sale counter at the mall after the prom rush swept through.

“Should I reply?”

Ellie shrugged and pulled her pearl studs out of her ears. “What’d he say?”

I read her the text.

“He’s flirting. No guy texts at nine at night with just friendly intent.” Her eyes were bright with interest. I wondered what mine looked like. Probably full of stars.

“Replying would be encouragement I don’t want to give.” If I told myself that I wasn’t interested enough times maybe I could make it true.

“Why not?” she challenged.

I ticked off the negatives. “He’s really good looking. He doesn’t care what anyone thinks of him. He took advanced econ theory apparently just for the hell of it.” Because Clay Howard has a hard-on about me being on campus and is threatening me. I didn’t list the last one out loud.

Ellie’s mouth hung open. “These are his bad attributes? Give me the phone. I’ll text him back!” She lunged for the phone, but I turned on my side and held it away from her. Ellie’s pixie-sized, and I’m like a horse compared to her. There was no contest.

“Fine,” I huffed. Now that I’d told Ellie, I’d have to text Bo back or she’d take the phone from me somehow. Ellie didn’t make idle threats. She told you what she was going to do, and then she followed through.

How? You going to send duck-faced selfies? I shot back.

What? Came the immediate reply, like he had nothing better to do than send me texts.

I searched the Internet and then selected an appropriate picture of three young girls making the V with their fingers pointing to their overly pronounced lips pursed and pressed into little fleshy duck bills.

I now know why we’re sitting next to each other in bio. We need to find a cure for the disease those young ladies are suffering around their oral cavities before it spreads to others.

An inadvertent huff of laughter escaped me, and Ellie demanded to see the reply, which I showed to her.

“You’re toast.” She rolled off the bed and exited the room.

“I know it,” I told the empty space. Bo was funny, smart, and showing an inordinate amount of interest in me. I was so screwed.




OTHER THAN THAT LATE MONDAY night text, I didn’t hear from Bo again. On Wednesday, though, he met me outside of class.

“Cutting it a little short, aren’t you?” He checked his watch, a big black thing with many dials.

“Class hasn’t started yet.” I tapped his watch, which showed we had about two minutes to find a seat. “Besides, I like to sit in the back.”

“Since when?”

Since the rumors regarding my supposed sexcapades had infiltrated the classroom and people behind me felt bold enough to lean forward and whisper things like, “Leave your panties at the Delts last night?” I didn’t know whose panties were waving from the fraternity flag; they weren’t mine, but protests were only met with knowing smirks.