Nick
OCTOBER | Five of Pentacles
“Geez, what crawled up your butt?”
Poorly timed joke. If they only knew. The problem was that my fingers crawled up somebody else’s butt. On accident. Dammit.
The whole incident showed me that 1) Annie was right and I was bad at being with girls, 2) I hated her for being right, and 3) I still couldn’t stop thinking about her.
And now she was my agent.
I’d have my work cut out for me trying to convince her to give me another chance. But that was the only way I could get this out of my system. When I have a goal, I meet it. I don’t back down.
Okay, that sounds creepy. I just wanted her to consensually want to bone me. Then maybe I wouldn’t think about her anymore and I could be good at sex with someone else.
“I’m just locking in,” I grumbled.
“Oh, you had a date, didn’t you?” Sorrento asked. “How’d it go?”
“She’s not my type.” That was a gross exaggeration. But if I really thought about it, she wasn’t. She had no . . . whimsy. And anyway, I’d irreparably pissed her off and would never see her again. Thank God L.A. was big. As long as I stayed away from her college campus and sorority house, I’d have no shot of seeing her again.
Annie had whimsy. Annie had played make-believe with me.
Annie was also mean and had talked shit about me behind my back.
But the shit was true, so was it talking shit?
“That bad, huh?” Mikey asked.
Guy was talking to Leroy. “Yeah, I’m not sure how long she’s staying with us.”
Leroy scoffed. “If it were my house, I’d have told Sydney she had to put out or get out.”
Guy recoiled. “Ew, man. This is my wife’s best friend.”
“Your wife’s hot best friend, no?”
My face flamed thinking about Guy having a three-way with Annie. And at Leroy saying she was hot. God, I was in a piss-poor mood.
“What’s wrong, Rook?” Beatty asked, drawing Guy’s attention to me.
“Nothing has ever or will ever happen with me and Annie,” Guy said, eyeing me cautiously. “I’m all for Kitty.”
“Famous last words,” Leroy mumbled.
“Leroy!” Sorrento barked. “You’re making Rook sweaty talking about his woman like that.”
My brow furrowed deeper. “I’m not a rookie anymore.”
“Sorry, Rook, we forget,” Beatty said with a chuckle.
“But she is your woman?” Leroy asked.
“No, she’s not my woman.” I pulled out my earbuds, jamming them in my ears as fast as I could. “You guys can fuck off if you want me to win this game for you.”
“Leave him alone,” Mikey said. “Leave fucking with the goalie to the other team.”
I turned up my music so I could focus. I was amped before any game I started, but I vibrated with jitters. Annie was there, probably already in the building. She’d be watching me. Should I use asking her out as fuel, or try and push it out of my mind?
