Page 7 of Electric Blue Love

“Mmm,” he responded like he was carefully picturing the scene.

“What?”

He was quiet for a moment and my confidence in the way I’d played things with Todd dwindled with each second of dead air. “You did exactly what I told you. You’re a good student.”

“But?”

“But you forgot to have fun.”

“Excuse me?”

He looked at me through the phone like I was a fragile child which is exactly what I felt like.

“Let me ask you something, why didn’t you ask him to play flip cup?”

My brows pulled together. “Because I was trying to have a conversation with him.”

“Couldn’t you do both?”

I sat there for a moment, considering his question. Why was this so hard?

A low chuckle brought my attention back to the screen. When Court laughed, it lit up his whole face and made him look young enough that I could almost picture him drinking cheap beer out of plastic cups on a Sunday night instead of holed up in a hotel room getting ready for work the next day.

“Just tell me this, 8B, if Taz hadn’t been at the party tonight, would you have been over playing flip cup?”

“I went to the party to see him, not to get wasted.”

“And there is the problem. However unperceptive we may be, men are drawn to women who are having fun and even more so if they want to have that fun with us. We’re like little kids hopped up on sugar looking for the next rush of excitement.”

Walking into my room, suddenly feeling older than I ever had, I threw myself onto my bed.

“I’m terrible at this. I’m going to die alone in a house full of hamsters.” I grinned despite my despondent state when I realized I had swapped cats for hamsters like Court had done earlier. I liked that he liked cats. It said something about a man to admit they liked cats.

“Nah.” He shook his head. “You just need to forget about what’s his face and have some fun.”

“Fun,” I repeated the word back as I already began to dismiss the idea that it was that simple.

“Yeah, that thing most college kids live for.”

My stomach dropped. Fun wasn’t exactly my default setting. “I’m not some bimbo, party hopping, college girl.”

“Those things aren’t mutually exclusive.”

“I’m here on scholarship. I can’t afford to screw around.”

“I get it. I know all about hustling to get by, but you can have a little fun and still be responsible. At least I think you can. Admittedly my college days are a bit of a drunken haze.”

“Why am I not surprised to hear that?”

He grinned, a boyish charm overtaking his face again. “What do you want with this guy anyway? You’re young. You’re supposed to date around, kiss a lot of frogs or whatever that cheesy saying is.”

“I don’t want frogs.”

He nodded, and his features transformed into a serious regard. “Alright if we’re gonna do this, I’m going to need more intel. Tell me everything you know about Tonto.”

“We?” I asked, ignoring that he’d gotten Todd’s name wrong. Again.

“Clearly you need my wisdom and male perspective.”