Page 49 of Rumor Has It

She wondered if she’d left Wren just as covered, but then remembered the turf rash that had gone all the way up Wren’s leg and thought it was best to not think about the marks she’d left on Wren in the past twenty-four hours.

Becky shook the thoughts off again as she took a sip of coffee and waited for Katie to fling a barrage of questions at her.

Katie cleared her throat. “So, we both know that Wren…” There was a pause, one that went on for so long that Becky dared to look up at her friend under the edge of her hoodie. She was very clearly trying to choose her words carefully. “Well, that you and Wren… sort of… fucked it out last night.” She cringed at her own words.

Becky almost laughed at the way Katie’s eyes had widened at her own interesting word choice. She wondered if she should help or just see where Katie took it.

With a sharp inhale and a quick shimmy reset, Katie powered through. “What I don’t know is how y’all got from, you know, what happened at the game last night, to the,” she paused again, clearly trying to find a more eloquent way of phrasing it. She must not have been able to come up with anything though, because she finished her sentence with, “you know, to the sex bit.”

On a small, warped level, Becky enjoyed watching Katie struggle to have this conversation. They’d grown up in such a tight-knit, Southern Baptist community that while sex was something they’d both done, Katie had never gotten any better at talking about it.

Katie tilted her head to the side, her dark brown eyes studying Becky intently. “You know, when I got home last night to all the destruction, I almost barged into your room thinking that something had happened or that you might have gotten drunk or something,” she paused, her whole body softening. “But when I got to your door, I could hear you laughing. Don’t worry. I couldn’t hear what had been said. I think I’d rather not have those details. But you both just sounded so… happy?”

They had been, Becky thought. For almost the entire night, they had been deliriously happy. She nodded, confirming at least that.

Katie nudged Becky’s knee with her own. “So, how did you go from bloodshed to… you know… what happened next?”

“Hmmm,” Becky hummed, buying herself a little time by drinking some coffee and chasing it with a massive bite of ice cream straight out of the pint. “Well, obviously, the game did not go according to plan,” Becky started. Her shoulders curved inwards. She hadn’t heard from her family after the match or this morning. And honestly, she hoped she never did. She didn’t need anymore reminders about the game.

She pulled her knees up to her chest reflexively. “It was—the game, I mean—it was going just fine until near the end of the second half.” Becky didn’t need to give much of a recap. Katie had actually been there. She and her boyfriend, Danny, were season ticket holders. It was the first time in a long time that Becky hadn’t immediately found her after a game had ended.

Becky sighed, continuing, “I screwed up. Y’all saw it. She just—And I can’t—There’s just something about her. And when I play against her,”—she ran out of words. “I mean, before, like, during college, it made sense. But last night I still couldn’t let it go. I couldn’t let her go. When it comes to her, I can’t just lose.” She tucked her hands into the kangaroo pouch on the front of her hoodie.

“Okay. But how did y’all go from that to what happened here?” Katie asked, softly.

“Well, I had texted her several times after the game.” Becky flinched. “You know, apologizing. And she finally responded by asking for my address.”

Becky didn’t say anything else after that.

“So, then she came over here. And what?” Katie asked, clearly needing more detail than that.

“Then she kind of yelled a little bit,” Becky bit her bottom lip, remembering just how pissed Wren had been when she’d stormed through the front door. “And then, I don’t know, she mentioned the vibes that have been between us recently.”

“The vibes?” Katie asked.

Becky hadn’t really filled her in. Not about falling asleep in Wren’s bed while watching a movie. Definitely not about wearing her Los Angeles University sweater. She forced an uncomfortable nod. “Yeah, you know. Just kind of flirting and being overly nice to each other for once.”

Katie’s eyes narrowed. “How did she go from yelling to talking to you about vibes?”

“Um, well, she was saying about how we weren’t in college anymore and that she thought things were different between us. That we had become friends. And then she mentioned that she thought we had had some vibes. And I might have confirmed that we have, in fact, had some.” She sank deeper into her cushion on the couch.

“And then y’all had sex?” Katie asked, clearly still a bit lost on the jump from point A to B.

Becky just nodded. There really wasn’t much more in between.

“What happened to the hallway?” Katie asked, as if that would provide some more context.

Becky’s eyes widened, and she shook her head no. “I’ll fix the frames or get us new ones, promise.”

“I don’t give a shit about the broken frames,” Katie said with a laugh. “I’m more just curious how they got knocked off the walls?”

Becky sank even farther into the couch. “I was a little busy and wasn’t exactly watching where we were going.”

Katie’s head fell back in a laugh. “Y’all did that much damage just trying to make it into your room?” Katie wheezed. “Jesus Christ, did y’all just do it in the hall or something?”

Becky cleared her throat. “No.” It was the truth. They hadn’t done it in the hall. The little twitch of her lips gave away her near lie. She let out a laugh of sheer disbelief. “We did it in the entryway.”

Katie laughed manically at Becky’s confession. When she could finally breathe again, she asked, “So, what happened this morning then to cause Wren to leave in such a rush? From the sounds of things, you kids had a fantastic time last night,” Katie grinned at her.