No fucking way will I let that happen.
“I didn’t get much sleep last night,” I say to Nick and Travis, trying to make it sound like it’s no big deal. “I was up late studying for my Marketing exam.”
“Ah, yeah. That one’s gonna be rough,” Travis says. He’s a business major like me, so we have a lot of the same classes.
“Just fucking great,” Leo mutters.
We look over at him, standing in front of his locker, glaring at his phone.
“Hey, you good?” I ask.
He tugs a hand through his sweaty hair before shoving his phone in his bag. “Not really.”
“What’s wrong?” Nick asks.
“My sister. She’s complaining about her boyfriend again.”
“What happened? Is she okay?” I ask.
Leo shakes his head. “I don’t know. I’ll find out when I meet her for family dinner tonight.”
Nick, Travis, and I exchange a look. Once a month, Leo goes to family dinner with his parents and older sister. It’s almost always a disaster because Leo ends up arguing with his dad.
“My sister is bringing her piece-of-shit boyfriend tonight. Should be fun,” Leo mutters.
He walks off toward the showers before we can ask him anything else.
“Well, that sucks for Leo,” Nick says.
“Yeah. I feel bad for him,” I say. He goes through enough shit with this dad. He’s close with his older sister Zoey, and they get along well, but I didn’t know she was dating a guy he didn’t like.
We all finish getting cleaned up, and I head to my last class of the day. After that, I have a study group meeting for one of my other classes. Then I head home.
When I walk in the door, Briar’s sitting on the couch, flipping through a textbook.
She straightens up when she sees me. “Hey.”
Her voice is pitchier than usual. She’s nervous.
“Hey.” I smile at her despite how nervous I am too. She’s so cute.
We’re quiet for a moment while we look at each other.
She plays with the ends of her hair, another one of her cute nervous habits.
“So, um, how was your day?” she asks.
“Busy. Tiring.”
“Oh…” She puts her hands in her lap. “If you’re too tired, we don’t have to do anything tonight.”
“I didn’t mean it like that. I just meant that I’m happy to be home.”
Her pretty mouth curves up in a relieved smile. “Oh. Good. Are you hungry? I made food.”
She stands up and starts to head to the kitchen, but stops and then spins back around to me. “Or maybe you don’t like to eat before you…do stuff in bed?”
Her cheeks flush bright red, and I can’t help but chuckle. She’s fucking adorable when she’s flustered.
