“Sometimes I get both words in my head and have to choose one.”
“The professor is literally only speaking one language.”
I smile. “You remind me of my sister.”
She squints at me. “I’ll take that as a compliment, I guess.” Closing the textbook, she sits back with a sigh.
“Take my mind off all this. Please tell me you hooked up with a frat boy over the weekend or something.”
Ben springs to mind. His flushed face during our last match. His chest pressed against mine during our celebration.
“No, but I did almost have a fake boyfriend for all of five seconds.”
Now I have her attention.
I grin. “My teammate is too nice to tell his best friend that his wingman skills are not wanted, so I offered to pretend to be his date so he’d back off.”
“So, what was the problem?”
“He’s too honest. He couldn’t pull it off.”
Joelle smiles. “You like him.”
“No, I was just trying to get him to focus on tennis. We suck at doubles.”
“But you beat Yale.”
“How do you know that?”
Joelle flashes me a sly smile. “I might have checked the scores online.”
“Fangirl.”
“You guys need to get a proper derogatory nickname for female fans. Like puck bunnies.”
“What are ‘puck bunnies?’”
“Girls who like to hook up with hockey players,” she says, curling her lip in distaste.
“So you, then?” I grin.
She slaps me on the chest. It sounds harder than it is and she grimaces. “Shit, sorry.”
I rub at the spot. “Ouch, careful. Not everyone is as indestructible as your hockey boyfriend.”
A sly smile spreads across her face. “He does let me beat him up a little.” She shrugs.
Urgh,I meant what I said about her reminding me of my sister. “TMI,” I groan.
We’re about to leave each other at the entrance to the library when Joelle calls me back. “If you like your teammate, you should just ask him out for real. He’d probably say yes, you know you’re not totally ugly.”
I snort. “Thanks. He’s cute, but I’m not interested.”
“Are you sure about that?”
“Yes. Anyway, I won’t be sticking around here for long.”
Her face drops. “Why not?”
