She blew out a long breath that sounded like a deep growl and nodded a couple of times to herself. “Yes. I know. I’m considering not showing any bias during this one of my main areas to grow.”
“I appreciate that.”
She smiled tightly at me just as the door to her room flew open. We both jumped as the tall blonde entered and raised two thin eyebrows at us. She wore a playful smile but then her attention went to the computer screen. “Amber, Jeff, could you explain the dick pic greeting me right now?”
“Fuck!” Amber scrambled to shut off the monitor and it took all my strength to not laugh at the situation. Her entire face turned red and I swore I could feel the embarrassment leaving her body and making the room turn ten degrees warmer. “It’s not what you think, Laney.”
“Hm.” She entered the room and threw herself onto Amber’s small bed, making herself quite comfortable. “Well, I’m thinking that you’re interviewing Jeff Maddow for your senior piece and you got bold and asked him for a dick pic since we all wanted to know if the rumors were true. Knowing the egos athletes can have, he promptly sent you a picture.”
“Why would I send a picture if I could just whip it out right here?”
“Oh, great point, Maddow.” She winked at me and I grinned right back at her. She ate it up and tilted her head as she studied Amber. “Second hypothesis. You signed up for Tinder or Bumble and got matched quickly because you’re hot and you got your first dick pic.”
“Laney!” Amber seethed and the tips of her ears turned red. Again, if I didn’t feel so bad for her, I would have been roaring with laughter. But then, Amber’s posture straightened and she pointed her finger at Laney. “Okay, fine. You’re right. I signed upfor Tinder and swiped a bunch of times on some dudes and one sent me this immediately.”
Laney winced and leaned her elbows onto her knees. “I should’ve warned you about entering that world. The dating world is brutal. So many dick pics. I got one last night from a random number who called me Chasity. I don’t know why guys send them. No girl is like yes,that’sthe dick to rock my world. Eventually, they all look the same. Right, Jeff? When you get all sorts of tit pics, they blur together I’m sure.”
Why am I here right now? Jesus Christ.I said nothing.
But Laney wasn’t done. She got up, stretched and gave me an amused look. “This piece she’s writing about you will get you a lot of attention. She’s a dope-ass writer. But she is new to the whole dating thing and can’t spend all her time researching. So be nice and don’t be an overinflated athlete and steal all her time.”
“Really now?” I goaded Amber, loving the panic in her eyes. “New?”
“A total dating virgin,” Laney added.
“Good. Bye, Laney.” Amber stood and shoved her friend out of the door and leaned her back against it once it was shut. She closed her eyes and sighed, giving me a great view of her legs. The tiny shorts left little to the imagination and for the life of me, I never remembered seeing great legs on her.
Is that a tattoo on her ankle?God, I wanted to know what it was.
“You can go now.” She still hadn’t opened her eyes. She kept them closed tight and ushered with her hand for me to leave. There were a million things I had to do—go over practice plans, do my part on the investigation, look into law school without my teammates knowing I wanted out of the draft and grocery shopping. But I remained in the uncomfortable office chair and grinned. This was so much better.
“Nah, I’m good here. I want to hear more about thisonline datingthing you’re so new at.”
“Why did I ever think you were great?” she mumbled, and did not hide her displeasure when she came back to sit in front of me at the desk. “You suck.”
“I’ve heard worse.”
She snorted and pointed to the spiral notebook that had some wires escaping from the middle. “Let’s just… What do you want to work on? I already said my part.”
“We’re really not going to talk about what just happened?” I didn’t want to drop it.
“I’d rather take this stapler and bang staples into my leg than talk about myonline dating lifewith you.” She jutted out her chin and even put a hand on her hip.
“Why so defensive about it?”
“Because it is neither here nor there. I don’t have time for it, really, but my roommates push it on me. They think I need something besides my influencer life but these online apps… I’m new to them.”
“Andyou’re bad at it,” I teased, enjoying myself more than I thought.
“Technically, I’m not bad because I haven’t really done it. That’s like saying you’re bad at water polo even though you’ve never played. You don’t know. You could be the Lebron James of water polo-ists. I could be the Lebron of online dating but I would need to sign up in order to know for sure.”
Good lord.I couldn’t stop myself from smiling at her manic expression but also her words. That was a lot to digest. “You could be the Lebron of dating apps. Just gotta try it, Henderson.”
“Yeah.Okay. I’m ending this awkward conversation right now.” She stopped moving around so much and met my gaze, this time full of determination. “You look into rosters from freshman year and compare them to now and see if anythingjumps out. I’ll reach out to my connections and see if I can’t meet up with some of them and get some info. Let’s meet next weekend, same time.”
“Are you kicking me out, Henderson?”
“Yes. You’ve seen me embarrassed more than enough.” She crossed her arms and crossed her right leg over her left, giving me a quick peek at her tattoo again. “If anything comes up before Sunday, just let me know.”
