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Stanley McKinley might feel more than I do, and his levels of idiocy are acceptable.
After meeting Ryder Weiss, the rest of the world feels eternally humble. That guy, as funny and friendly as he is, has an ego of the size of the Eiffel Tower. I don’t complain about it, though. It’s part of his essence, of what makes him so unique. It takes a while to get used to the intensity of his personality, but once you do it, you cannot get enough of him.
The truth is that having Ryder’s attention is nice because he’s the kind of guy that doesn’t take anything seriously, but he’s thoughtful for the people he cares about.
And he cares about Stanley.
Last week, Ryder put out his plan to save both of our asses, although he did it for Stanley, not for me. He sent John’s phone to his own mail, inside an envelope with a note, faking to be a couple of members of a rival team that Carter had gotten into trouble over the summer. Stan told me that he almost blew up when he read it and was livid, but bought the lie; everything can be believable if you blame the right people. If John had issues with that other team, he doesn’t have any reason to believe that his roommate stole the phone. It passes as a prank to push his buttons and see how he reacts.
It’s not a secret that rival teams are always trying to piss the other to spice it up during the games, to see if they can trash talk enough to get them kicked out of the field.
John isn’t a friendly player. He’s rough, and sometimes he has gotten benched for his aggressive behavior, something that irks me because we don’t know how he’ll react if he finds out the truth about what happened. I hope that this stays as something that he’ll take it out on the field when the season starts, and not beforehand because that might ruin everything for us.
“Fancy seeing you here,” Cora comments when she spots me sitting on top of the kitchen counter, eating chips with my phone in my hand.
I raise my eyes from the phone, frowning at her.
“I live here,” I remind her with an evident ring.
Karma’s laugh comes from the hall, and she appears, just barely entering the kitchen. I glare at her.
Is there some kind of inner joke that I’m missing? I despise being in the shadows without knowing what they have been talking behind my back. Because I don’t get their points, but part of me is afraid of wanting to know what’s gotten inside their crazy heads.
“Do you? Because we’ve barely seen you in two weeks,” Karma replies with a shrug.
Excuse me?
“Look who’s talking!” I accuse, wrinkling my nose with irritation. I point at Cora to support my argument. “You are always at the academy.” I turn to point at Karma. “You sleep the whole day, go to the art studio and disappear the whole night. And I won’t even talk about Ash and her infinite shooting schedule.”
They chuckle in unison, exchanging looks that I can’t comprehend. For the first time, I’m missing a joke between my friends. I’m lost, and I don’t know how to feel about the fact that maybe I have been distracted.
“We just say that it’s weird that you’re not with Stanley,” explains Ash, and I jump, startled to hear her behind me.
First, when did she get here?
I turn around to look at her, half confused and skeptical about the fact that she’s attacking me too.
Ash is carrying her high heels in her right hand, her exhausted expression buried under the layers of heavy and eccentric makeup. However, I spot a hint of mischief shining on her blue orbs.
“Why is it weird that I spend timestudyingwith Stanley?” I question as I drop the bag of chips at my side.
“Darling, two weeks ago you were screaming how much you hated his guts,” Ash reminds me, cocking her head. There’s a trace of amusement in her tone.
I hesitate because she’s not lying. I was professing my hate for Stanley McKinley, but that was before Iknewhim. He’s not that bad once you get past that façade of the egocentric jock.
“Because I did!” I express, heavily frustrated with the situation.
“And now?” Karma snoops, putting a hand on her hip.
Three pairs of eyes observe me cautiously, waiting for my response, for something that betrays me and gives them material to bother me for days, if not weeks. I admit that Stanley and I had an unconventional beginning, and we were forced to push our differences aside to join forces. We just happened to be nicer to each other, and now it’s sticking.
“Well, now he’s tolerable,” I mutter, shifting on my place, trying to keep it normal.
“So, there’s nothing more?” Ash inquires with entertainment.
I quickly shake my head in a negative gesture. Shit, that probably was more suspicious than I intended.
Iknowthat they’re messing with me and that there’s no way that they genuinely think that something is going on between Stanley and me.
