Page 21 of Unforgettable Player

“You remember Rohan Chbosky?”

“No.” I shake my head.

“You do. He was in your year in school. He had that beautiful red hair and all those freckles.”

“Oh, yeah. Sort of. We weren’t friends or anything.”

Mom gets that hungry look in her eyes, the same one the women on The Real Housewives get when they’re about to spill some tea. “Well … his mom was going around bragging about how he got a job on Wall Street, right? Turns out he lied to her. He was actually working in the mail room of some⁠—"

I zone out, feeling kind of sorry for Rohan Chbosky and not wanting to be one more person gloating about his failure. Imagine being the subject of gossip by people you don’t even know.

Dad saves me from having to comment on this guy’s predicament by shushing us so he can hear what the narrator’s saying about the mating habits of the ringtail lemur.

I go up to bed as soon as I can slip away without Mom complaining. It helps that I can’t stop yawning.

But the second I brush my teeth and get under the covers, I’m wide awake, my stomach in knots. Are people going to gossip about me if I fail in California? Will Mom’s so-called friends be laughing behind her back about her loser son who told everyone he was going to be playing in the NHL one day? Did she brag about me to them when I was drafted to Colorado? When I got into Harvard? And is she embarrassed by me now? Is that why she doesn’t seem happy about me pursuing a job in sales? But would it really be better for her to have to tell her friends I’m playing minor league hockey and making just over $500 a week? At least with my sales job I can make over $60,000 a year, without commission and bonuses. Still, it must have sucked for her to have to tell her friends that I was dropped by my draft team, that I’m ‘taking a break’ from college. I can just imagine their fake concern and how much they’d be itching to get away from her so they could gossip.

When I look at the time, it’s two-thirty in the morning and I haven’t had a wink of sleep.

I head downstairs to get a drink, maybe watch some TV to distract myself. The house is deathly quiet except for the snores coming from Scout’s room. Does Elliot snore, too? Are his snores drowned out by my warthog of a sister?

There’s a soft glow emanating from the living room when I get downstairs. My heart rate picks up at the prospect of bumping into Eli.

The TV is off—the glow is coming from the lamp—and in the reflection of the TV screen, I can make out a figure hunched over something on the couch.

I recognize the back of Elliot’s head straight away. His usually neat, black hair is a little mussed, like he laid down and got back up again. I step closer, until I can see the side of his face. He’s wearing his glasses. I had told myself it was the no-glasses thing that changed the way I looked at Elliot. That maybe if I saw him wearing those dorky glasses he’d worn since we were kids, I’d see little Elliot again—Scout’s adorkable best friend. But nope. He’s still the hot guy I drooled over the second I saw him walking around Scout’s car that day. Still the guy with the hot body I spied sitting by the pool. Still the producer of those droplets of water I fucking held in my hand. Despite my attempts to make everything ‘normal’ again, I know things can’t just go back to the way they were. It’s become painfully obvious that acting like Elliot is just my sister’s nerdy best friend won’t magically make him my sister’s nerdy best friend again.

Before he can turn around and catch me creeping on him, I say the first thing that comes to mind.

“Hi.” Genius.

He jumps. Luckily, this time he doesn’t drop anything.

“You scared me,” he says, his hand against his chest.

“Sorry. Didn’t mean to.”

He smiles, pushing the bridge of his glasses up. They’re different from the round ones I remember him wearing when we were younger. Still dorky, though. Still unbelievably cute. “New glasses?”

“Huh? Oh … no, not that new. My contacts were irritating my eyes.”

Why was he making himself uncomfortable with contacts when he looks incredible with his glasses on? That sounds like something I shouldn’t say to my sister’s best friend, right?

Get your glass of water and leave him alone.

He has a big, heavy textbook spread out over his legs. Is he down here studying at two-thirty in the morning by himself?

“A little light reading?” I ask, pointing to the textbook.

“Oh, yeah.” He fidgets, like he’s thinking about closing the book, but also like he’s waiting for me to hurry the fuck up and leave so he can get back to it.

“Well, I’ll let you⁠—”

“It’s okay,” he interrupts. He’s squirming when I look back at him, like he’s embarrassed. “I mean, it’s your house. You can stay.”

“Why do you keep saying that?”

“Saying what?”