Page 33 of Unforgettable Player

I’ve lost him. He’s looking at me like I’m babbling a load of nonsense. I wonder what his face would do if I started talking about men in pantyhose.

“Huh,” he says.

Luckily, the trailers are playing when we sit down, so it isn’t immediately obvious that we’re not talking. At least Die My Love should be a fun romp, right?

Wrong.

Die My Love is a hugely depressing movie about a woman slowly losing her mind in a remote house somewhere in the woods. Jennifer Lawrence is incredible, and I’ll never complain about being made to look at Robert Pattinson, but jeez, for a first date? Talk about mood killer.

We don’t speak again until we’re leaving the screen with our empty popcorn bins. He clears his throat.

“So, what did you think?”

My mouth goes dry as I think of something intelligent to say. “Jennifer Lawrence was great.”

“Wasn’t she?”

Gabe hurtles into a scene-by-scene breakdown of the performance while I nod along and try to look interested. As soon as he pauses to take a breath, I excuse myself to go to the bathroom.

He’s looking at his watch when I come back out.

“It’s still early. You wanna go for a pizza or something?”

I had thought he’d see that there was no spark, that the date is a dud. But, from the expectant way he’s looking at me right now, I guess not.

“Thanks, but … I have to read this chapter tonight for school.”

“Oh …” He rubs the back of his neck, looking down at his shoes.

I feel terrible. But what am I supposed to do?

“Well, we’ll have to catch up some other time,” he says.

“Yeah … sure.”

Fuck.

10

CONNOR

This is ridiculous.

I’ve been driving around for hours, trying to stay out of the house so I don’t have to see Elliot getting ready for his date with ‘Cute Bookstore Guy.’

I drove around for a while until I found a spot to stop and then I scrolled through Elliot’s Instagram page and tried to find this bookstore jerk in his friends, but obviously no one has Cute Bookstore Guy in their bio. I couldn’t even find anyone who said they worked in a bookstore. And yeah, I did look that hard. I even scrolled through Scout’s friends—luckily, she doesn’t have many.

I got way too hung up on Elliot’s posts. Initially, I was relieved that he’s not the kind to post thirst traps, before realizing that every photo of Eli is an unintentional thirst trap. Most of his pics look like they were taken by Scout. She probably hassled him into posting them, too. He looks relaxed in the pictures, hanging out at familiar sites on the Harvard campus. Sitting under a tree in the sun, reading a book or pulling faces at the camera. Posing with some record I’m guessing was a rare find in some hipster-looking record store. I don’t know how long I’ve been stalking Eli’s Insta until my eyes start to burn.

I need to go home and stop acting like a psycho.

Elliot’s probably been on loads of dates over the years. Fuck, Elliot’s probably had sex. Why do I hate the thought of that so much?

He doesn’t belong to me. We had one sort-of kiss. But he feels like mine. He’s our Elliot at home. Doesn’t that make him my Elliot, too?

I park the car at the end of the driveway and let myself into the house. It’s getting late and it looks like everyone’s already in bed.

Did Elliot get back from his date already? Is he upstairs in Scout’s room, asleep on the fold-out bed? Will he come downstairs to study if I wait up for him long enough? I don’t see his shoes by the door. Even if Scout is a slob who wears her boots everywhere, Eli always takes his shoes off in the house.