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She nods and sniffs, her smile kind of weak and watery. “Then I’m happy for you.”
The smile stretching my mouth wide is huge, I can feel it. I’ve been waiting to hear her say this.
“I just don’t want to lose you,” she admits with a desperate little frown.
“You never could.” I squeeze her shoulders, then move in beside her, wrapping my arm around her as we walk toward the dorm. “We’re stuck together for life. No matter what.”
“No matter what,” she whispers, staring ahead of us with this lost look on her face.
It unnerves me a little. Lani’s usually so in control and confident. She’s a boss bitch—strong and sure of herself. I almost don’t know what to do with this new version of her. Me getting serious with a guy has really thrown her. And the fact that I’m pregnant.
I guess it’s proving to us both that life can’t be predictable the way she wants it to be. You can plan your ass off, but unexpected things still come along and disrupt everything.
But change can be good. I have to make her see this.
“Hey, why don’t you come out with me and Casey sometime? Maybe if you get to know him better, you’ll start to see what I see. He’s really funny and sweet and easy to be around. I swear, you’re gonna love him.”
She gives me a reluctant smile. I can still see that skepticism underneath it, but at least she’s nodding.
“Maybe he can join us for trivia night this week.”
“Great idea.” I beam, squeezing her closer to me before opening the door to our building.
This is awesome.
Lani’s gonna see that Casey’s great, and then she’ll chill out and things can go back to the way they were between us. Two college girls living it up, working hard, and having fun together.
I mean, yes, I still have the pregnancy thing to deal with, but I don’t want to think about that right now.
Let’s just play pretend for another week or two and let me enjoy this whole “Casey is my boyfriend” thing!
CHAPTER 28
CASEY
I was supposed to be at Biblio Beans fifteen minutes ago, but practice ran over, and now I’m hauling ass to not be late for my girlfriend.
Yep, still sounds weird.
But kinda makes me smile too.
I bob my knee while Asher races down the street. I convinced him to come with me. He was kinda dubious, but when I said trivia night, his inner nerd came to life, and he couldn’t say no. He’ll claim to everyone that he was just helping me out, but all the Hockey House bros know the truth. We’ll take it to our graves, of course, but smooth Mr. Asher Bensen is a closet dork who loves collecting comic books, watching documentaries, listening to classical music… and he feeds off trivia like it’s a narcotic drug. The guy is always telling us inane facts about everything, from the latest scientific discovery to how many teaspoons of sugar is in a can of Coke to some historic thing about some historic person who did something significant.
“Did you know that…”
How many times have I heard that line. The guy’s a walking Wiki page.
But he hides it all under a veil of hockey and basketball cool, his true geek not really surfacing unless he’s too drunk to stop himself or we’re the only ones around to hear him.
“There!” I point to the café sign as we zip past it.
Apparently on Tuesday nights, this bookstore café stays open late to run a trivia night. I got the impression from Caroline that it’s pretty damn competitive, which is the only thing exciting me about tonight. Oh yeah, and seeing her, of course. And scoring a few points in her good books too. Not sure why I’m even wanting to score points, but this woman has cast some kind of spell over me, and it’s making me do shit I never would before.
I’m trying not to think too hard about it.
Asher finds a parking spot down the block, and we jog back to the café, walking in just as Round One is beginning.
Excellent. Not too late, then.
