Page 12

Tobie

“You asked Caleb Boucher to lick your lollipop?” Max breathes, her expression an equal mix of shock, excitement, and anticipation.

I press my palms to my hot cheeks. “I did.”

She leans closer. “And did he?”

“Of course he didn’t,” I snap, still embarrassed. “Only five-year-olds share candy. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

Her expression is thoughtful. “He was looking at your mouth.”

“Probably wishing he had his own lollipop.”

“Or maybe picturing your mouth around his?—”

I smack her with a cushion from my bed. “ No. We are not having this discussion. I have to look him in the face, and I can’t if you finish that sentence.”

She laughs. “And Javier had that smutty book you were reading?”

“Yes, which reminds me, I need to hide it.” I move to get up.

“Nope.” She yanks me back on the bed and springs to her feet, plopping down on my desk chair to pick up my book. “I’m going to tab the relevant pages for him.”

I scrunch my nose. “Why?”

She reaches for my Post-it notes. “So he knows the things you like.”

I blush. “What makes you think I like those things?”

“Because all girls like those things. I’m doing it. I bet Javier ‘the Casanova’ Duarte would deliver a ten out of ten performance.” She waggles her eyebrows suggestively, and true to her word, she flicks through the book and starts sticking hot pink tabs to the pages.

“The Casanova?” I repeat.

“It’s the accent.” She lifts her head, auburn bangs falling into her dark blue eyes. She shakes her hair back and continues, “He could read me a shopping list, and I’d orgasm on the spot. You should totally sleep with them, Tobie.”

I stare at her. “What?”

She sticks another tab in my book, and I have no clue why I’m not stopping her. I must be more into this idea than I want to admit.

“Look. Revenge is all well and good, but you need to have a good time. If the opportunity arises, you should embrace it. Live in the moment. YOLO.”

“They are not going to want to sleep with me, Max. This is more of a business relationship.”

She snorts. “Yeah, tell that to Caleb Boucher, who was having impure thoughts while staring at your mouth.”

I arch my eyebrow. “ Impure thoughts ?”

“I was raised Catholic. What else would you call thinking about having a girl?—”

“ Max …” I warn her.

She lifts her hands, palms to me. “I promise not to say the words, but I am definitely thinking them. And so were you to freak out and ask him to lick you.”

“My lollipop ,” I tell her, blushing. “Not me . My lollipop .”

Her eyes widen. “Is that what you were thinking?”

Snorting, I shake my head. “He was probably hungry. Maybe he was jealous the doctor didn’t give him a lollipop.”

She stops tabbing my book’s spicy chapters to look at me, and she’s surprisingly serious. “You always sell yourself short.”

“No, I don’t.”

But she’s right. I do.

Since there was no way I could lie about something this big, I told her about Marc cheating and the guys’ offer—revenge on Marc in exchange for me clearing away the girls who flock around them, distracting them from the looming championship.

There was no way she’d have thought three hot hockey players would suddenly be obsessed with me.

“You do. You dress like an old lady.”

“ Hey !” I yell, outraged. “I do not dress like an old lady.”

“Okay, maybe that was a little harsh,” she concedes. “But you cover up all the time. You go to extreme lengths to hide everything but your ankles. They’re pretty ankles, but you’re twenty-two. You need to be showing more than your ankles at twenty-two, Tobie.”

“I have rolls, Max. My body shape is awkward.” Hers is athletic. She runs. I don’t. And even if I did spend more time hitting the gym, I’ve always found it painfully hard to lose weight—a symptom of Hashimoto’s I hate with every fiber of my being.

“You’re curvy.”

I throw my hands in the air. “Why do people always say that like it’s a good thing?”

It’s not a good thing to have small boobs and big hips. I’m a human triangle, which makes shopping a pain because, other than wearing all black, baggy clothes, or the occasional wrap dress, I have never found something that flatters me.

I point an accusatory finger at her when she opens her mouth. “If you tell me I have curves in all the right places, so help me God, I’ll smack you with a cushion.”

A smile cracks her face. “You’re spicy.”

I blink at her. “I’m what?”

She gestures at me. “Ever since Marc cheated and the Magic Three entered your life, you’ve gotten spicy.”

“Magic Three?”

“When they step on the ice together, they make magic, blah blah blah, yadda yadda.” She snaps the book shut and puts it on my desk. “ Passion . That’s what is important here. Passion is what you need and what Marc didn’t give you. He was as stale and dry as one of his law books.”

“No, he wasn’t.”

She raises her eyebrow.

I blow out a sigh. “I didn’t mean to defend him. But he wasn’t.”

Or he didn’t use to be.

We did more together in high school—went out on dates, things like that. This year and most of our junior year, he started pulling away from me. I thought it was the stress of studying and the pressure of getting into a good law school, but maybe that wasn’t it.

He looked happy at the hockey game. He was laughing and smiling with the blonde girl he cheated on me with, so that side of him was still there. Just not when he was with me.

“It wasn’t your fault, Tobie,” Max says softly as she flops on the bed beside me. “He was the fuck-up here, not you.”

“Maybe he thought I was boring. You’re right. I do dress like an old lady, and I never go out anywhere.”

“Because he never took you anywhere.” She takes my hand and squeezes.

“Even if he thought you were boring, which, side note, you’re not, he should have had the decency to break up with you if he wanted to be with someone else, not go behind your back.

That is grade-A tool behavior, and he deserves public humiliation after what he did to you. ”

“But it was my fault I fell.”

“No, it wasn’t,” she says, glaring. “It was his fault for cheating. Did he even come after you to check you weren’t hurt?”

“Well, no.”

“He just swanned off with Little Miss Blondie, and I bet…”

I walked home to my dorm room. It was a long walk. My head hurt, and I was heartsick.

I tried convincing myself I was wrong about Marc, and I’d find him waiting outside my room, ready to tell me he and the blonde were study buddies and the kiss was just a performance for the kiss cam.

But he wasn’t there.

I plugged my dead phone in and waited for him to call.

He didn’t call because he didn’t care.

My boyfriend kissed another woman on a kiss cam, watched me fall down the stairs, and didn’t even have the courtesy to send a text to check I got home okay.

Even Caleb Boucher, a veritable stranger, took me to his team doctor because he was concerned I had a concussion. He didn’t even see me hurt myself. Marc, my boyfriend of six years, did.

I smile as I listen to Max’s endless rant about Marc’s failings. For a guy she didn’t know all that well or hang out with that often, the list is long and detailed .

She glances at me. “What’s with the smile? Are you imagining pushing him down a flight of stairs?”

I give her a one-arm hug. “No. You’re a good friend, Max. I didn’t realize how good until now. Thanks.”

“No,” she says quietly. “I haven’t been. You’re graduating soon, and we should have gone out more. I wanted to this year, but…”

I take her hand and squeeze. “You’re an athlete, which means you’re busy. I get it.”

Max is busier as a junior than I ever have been as a senior.

“We’ll do something tonight,” she suggests.

“You run laps at night,” I remind her.

“Not tonight.” She pulls out her cell phone. “I’ll order us takeout, and we’ll watch a movie. Something funny.”

“I’d like that.”

“And what I said before,” she says seriously. “About YOLO.”

“What about it?”

She gives me a probing look. “It’s about having fun with who you want, not about hooking up with any old douchebag and me living vicariously through you because I don’t have a life.”

“You have a life.”

“Athletics is my life, but it shouldn’t be my whole life.

I haven’t heard anything bad about the Magic Three, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t potential secret douches.

Any sign of douchey behavior, you quit this fake-dating revenge mission, and kick them down the nearest flight of stairs, okay? Or I will.”

I laugh. “Kind of hard to do when they’re all over six feet tall.”

She lifts her chin. “I’ve been working on my quads this semester. I could do it.”

“You should hook up with one of them,” I suggest, though I secretly hope she says no. They’re not my boyfriends, at least, not for real, but I’m not sure I want to share them.

She shudders. “I don’t touch hockey players.”

“Why not?”

“Just don’t. What food do you want?” She lowers her head and starts scrolling on her phone.

“Anything is fine.” I try not to eat too much fast food, and I never miss my morning thyroid meds. While gluten or fast food isn’t a trigger for me like it can be for others, I do feel better when I don’t eat crap all the time.

Not sleeping properly and stress have always been my biggest triggers for flare-ups.

I eye her bent head, curious about her evasiveness.

I always wondered why Max opted out of living in the athlete dorms. Reynolds Hall has a lot more amenities than any other dorm—a gym, bigger rooms, a separate dining room with better, or at least healthier, food than the campus dining room, and it’s quieter.

She was dating someone in her freshman year, and they broke up in her sophomore year. That’s all she’s ever told me. From the way she blew up about Marc cheating, I suspect I know why they’re no longer together.

“How about Thai?” Max suggests, lifting her head. “They have those summer rolls with peanut sauce you like, and we can share a couple of curries.”

“Sold. And about the guys…”

She perks up.

“I’m not sleeping with them, but I will try to have fun. Any douchey behavior will be rewarded by a swift, steep, and painful fall.”

She nods. “And if you want to talk about Marc…”

“I don’t want to talk about Marc.”

I gave her the CliffsNotes version of everything that happened, but I’m not sure I’m ready to dig deep into my feelings about a betrayal I never saw coming.

“Well,” she says, watching me closely. “I’m here if you ever need to talk.”

“Thanks.”

“Now.” She relaxes on my bed and pops open the can of Diet Coke I offered her before I spilled all my secrets. “Tell me the part again about you scaring the shit out of the Magic Three in the arena. I’m putting my money on Reid being the screamer.”