Page 11 of Practice Makes Perfect (Pine Barren University #2)

six

EM

Exhaustion has officially become my personality.

I slump onto the couch in my dorm room, still dressed in my dance teacher uniform—black leggings, black crop-top, and a cut-off sweatshirt with “MOVE IT” emblazoned across the front. My feet are screaming after eight straight hours of demonstrating pliés and correcting the posture of tiny humans.

Who decided two jobs was a good idea anyway?

The TV remote feels unreasonably heavy in my hand as I flick through channels, finally landing on my guilty pleasure: Love Match , a reality show where attractive idiots pretend to fall in love while being filmed twenty-four/seven.

My grandmother and I usually watch this trash together, but lately, I’ve been “busy.”

And by busy, I mean deliberately overworking myself into a state where higher brain functions shut down, leaving just enough mental capacity to brush my teeth and collapse into bed.

And, as if on cue, my phone pings with a text from my grandmother, further convincing me she’s got my dorm room bugged.

I open it:

Why did Brett choose Tiffany? What a moron!

I sigh. My grandma has been deliberately sending spoilers all day in protest of me not watching with her.

I text back:

Haven’t watched yet. Just got home from dance school.

She responds faster than elderly hands should be able to type:

You’re working too hard.

I toss my phone aside without responding.

She’s right, of course, but I’m not about to admit it.

On screen, Brett—the blandly handsome guy with abs for days and the personality of unbuttered toast—is indeed professing his undying love to Tiffany, who’s crying perfect mascara-stained tears.

I can barely focus on their nauseating display because my brain keeps short-circuiting to a different romance.

The one I ran away from two weeks ago like a complete and total coward.

I’ve dubbed it the “Lincident,” which seems too cutesy and dismissive for something that’s actually consuming my every waking thought.

Lea and I have spent the past fourteen days on what we’ve optimistically called “Operation Hot Nerd,” which should really be renamed “Operation Spectacular Failure.”

It’s become a running joke between us, except it’s not funny when you’re trying to escape thoughts of a certain hockey player whose lips felt like?—

Nope. Not going there.

The door swings open, and Lea walks in wearing distressed jeans and an oversized white sweater.

Her dark curls are piled on top of her head in a messy bun that somehow looks deliberately styled rather than the rat’s nest mine would become.

I pause the show and turn to face her, knowing what’s coming.

“Whoa,” she says, taking in my sprawled form. “You look…”

“If you say ‘tired’ again, I will throw this remote at your head,” I warn.

“I was going to say ‘comfortable’… but you do have bags under your eyes.”

They’re Prada, thanks for noticing.” I smirk. “I need the money.”

“Bullshit.” Lea perches on the edge of the couch and crosses her arms. “You’re not even spending money on dates, given you refuse to ask Linc out again and seeing as Operation Hot Nerd has a current success rate of negative twelve percent. So is working so hard when classes just started up wise?”

“We found that one guy?—”

“The one who asked if ADHD was contagious? Yeah, real winner.”

I groan and pull a couch cushion over my face.

The truth is embarrassingly simple: I’ve been hoping that if I keep myself exhausted twenty-four/seven, I won’t have mental space to think about Linc.

It hasn’t worked, as evidenced by the fact that he continues to pop into my mind at the most inconvenient moments.

Lea lets out an exasperated sigh and puts a hand on my shoulder. “You know what I think?” she says.

“That Professor Simmons is hoping some rich lister’s kid hits on her? Because I swear I saw her bend over right in front of Duncan Ives in a very short skirt…”

She continues, ignoring my brilliant deflection. “Your exhaustion strategy is working as well as your ‘date nerds’ strategy. You’re still thinking about him.”

I drop the pretense. “It’s been two weeks, Lea. Why is he still in my head? I literally ran away from his apartment like it was on fire.”

“Maybe because you like him?”

“Nope.” I shake my head. “I like the idea of a nice, safe, boring guy who doesn’t have an entire campus fan club dedicated to his bedroom skills.”

My phone pings again with a text from Grandma:

Are you watching yet? You could learn something!

I groan and show Lea the text. “See, even my grandmother is judging my love life.”

“Your grandmother is my hero,” Lea says with a grin. “We’ll keep at it, Em, but promise me you’ll stop grinding yourself into dust?”

I suddenly find my couch cushion endlessly fascinating. The worn blue fabric has a tiny mustard stain from move-in day in the first semester that I’ve never been able to remove, despite the nine different cleaning solutions I’ve tried. It’s really quite intriguing if you?—

“Em.” Lea snaps her fingers in front of my face, knowing me well enough to know that I’m avoiding the topic. “Promise me.”

“What are you doing now, anyway?” I ask, executing a conversational pirouette worthy of the New York City Ballet. “You could watch Love Match …”

Lea narrows her eyes, clearly recognizing my deft subject change, but mercifully lets it slide. “Love to, but I’m going to the hockey game with Declan.”

My thoughts shoot to Linc again, and my stomach does a weird flutter thing. “Oh, cool,” is all I can manage to say.

“Mike’s having a rough time,” she continues. “He actually admitted it, which is basically apocalyptic in Mike-world.”

“Sounds familiar,” I say, scoring a point back on her, given she’s exactly the same. “The Altman family crest is a stoic face with a single tear, right?”

She laughs. “Pretty much. Anyway, he asked if I’d come to the game. I’m meeting Declan there, and we’re going to hang after. You should come.”

I nod, trying to look supportive while simultaneously wondering if Linc will be at this hang. Of course he will. Hockey players travel in packs, like wolves or sorority girls heading to the bathroom. And half the team saw me making out with Linc before I fled from him an hour later.

Which means I do not want to see him or them.

“Thanks, but…” I spread my arms dramatically across the couch. “I have become one with this furniture. We have merged into a single organism. Scientists would have to classify me as a new species: Homo sapiens couchius . I will not move for approximately six hours.”

“Right.” Lea raises an eyebrow. “And this has nothing to do with a certain hockey player who might be there?”

“Who? I know no hockey players. Hockey? Is that the one with the stick and the little black circle thing?”

“You’re ridiculous.” She grabs her keys from the hook by the door. “Text me if you change your mind. Game starts at seven.”

“Have fun watching men chase frozen rubber!” I call as she heads out the door, and I can almost see the eye roll through the back of her head as she closes it.

The moment she’s gone, I dive for my phone and pull up my food delivery app. It’s Friday night, I’m alone, and I’ve spent two weeks working my ass off—in class, at the restaurant, and at dance school—trying not to think about Linc Garcia. This calls for comfort food of the most excessive variety.

I vacillate between Chinese food and sushi, then unmute the TV. Brett and Tiffany are now on a beach, making out with entirely too much tongue. My grandmother is right—I could learn something from this show, mainly what not to do if I ever want to maintain my dignity.

I pull up my text thread with Grandma and respond to her last message:

Watching now. Brett and Tiffany are gross. He’s definitely cheating with Jessica.

Her response is immediate:

Finally! And he is! Episode 6 has the hot tub scandal!

I grin, the feeling like sunlight through the cloud my mood has been for the last two weeks. As I try to focus on the show, my mind keeps drifting back to Linc, and comparing him to Brett on the TV, a comparison he wins so easily he’d be the winner of Love Match for sure.

He’s the campus “bed chem” guy…

He probably has a different girl every weekend…

And he’s surely forgotten about me by now.

Right?

My dramatic exit was likely just a bizarre mark on his sexual scorecard.

And yet…

My phone buzzes with another text, this time from Lea:

Just FYI, Mike says Linc’s been in a mood lately. Thought you might want to know.

I stare at the message, and wonder what’s actually going on. Did our disastrous hookup actually affect him? No. There must be something else going on. Maybe he’s sick. Or injured. Or dealing with family stuff. Or?—

The food delivery app pings again. My sushi is five minutes away.

I toss my phone aside, dismissing the ridiculous notion that I had any impact on the campus hockey star, the guy who takes women to bed by the dozen. I’ve got a date with spicy tuna and bad reality TV.

And I tell myself that’s better than any guy.

Hours later, my stomach comfortably full from the half-decent sushi and my brain comfortably mushed from a dozen episodes of bad reality TV, my phone pings.

It’s a text, but I don’t bother checking it.

It’s probably my Grandma, who’s made it her mission to ruin every show she knows I’m planning to catch up on…

But then my phone buzzes again. And again. And again.

Finally, I check it.

It’s not Grandma. It’s Lea:

911 911 911 MY PERIOD STARTED AND I HAVE NOTHING

I startle upright. Another text immediately follows:

NEED TAMPONS @ HOCKEY RINK ASAP

Then:

IT’S AN EMERGENCY!!!!!!!!

And finally:

PLEASE EM I’M DYING I THINK I’VE BLED THROUGH MY JEANS

So many capital letters.

So many exclamation points.

It’s like she’s being held hostage by her own uterus.

I type back:

On my way with supplies.