Unread
Yom couldn’t decide what was cringier: Lydia’s unread messages to Hanson or the fact that he himself couldn’t stop reading them. Over and over again. Even as the after-game party he was hosting at his lakeside mansion raged around him with at least a hundred athletes and co-eds getting wasted in honor of the Yolks winning yet another game to keep their streak alive.
The latest message had been sent just a few hours after Lydia had labeled Yom a sociopath and asked what it would take to make him leave her alone. Yet, she texted Hanson again with a desperate-sounding offer of her body.
Yom took another bitter swig from the bottle of clear liquor he’d been clutching by its neck all night.
“Hiii, Yuuummm. Whatcha looking at?”
Yom looked up from his phone to see Eliza, Lars Andersson’s Tri Kappa sorority president girlfriend, standing in front of the tufted armchair he’d been sitting in since the party started. Beside her was another blonde who looked almost identical, down to their makeup and matching outfits.
He must have still been glowering. Eliza’s friendly expression immediately morphed into a worried look. “Is everything alright?”
He hated these needlessly intimate questions Americans were always asking.
“Everything is fine,” Yom assured the team captain’s girlfriend, smoothing out his expression.
Everything was not fine. He’d only been back at school for a couple of weeks, yet it felt like his mind was unraveling. Because of one Library Girl whose actions he could neither understand nor tolerate. But the loud party at the lakeside mansion was not the place to discuss the girl he couldn’t stop thinking about, despite her constant texting to his worst teammate.
The desire to wreak more havoc on Lydia’s life rose inside him like noxious green smoke.
But then came the memory of her challenge from that morning.
Do you want to fuck me?What will it take to make you leave me alone?
He’d never in his life had to compel a girl into fucking him. But that one question had turned his dick to concrete.
Could putting her beneath him finally rid him of this ravenous ache he couldn’t shake, even after her true colors were revealed?
“Are you sure everything’s alright?” Eliza asked.
He must have started glowering again.
Inwardly sighing, he informed Eliza, “Lars is in the kitchen, taking shots with the other players.”
“Oh, I know where Lars is,” Eliza answered with a giggle. “He said you’ve been in a bad mood since that Restraining Order girl showed up. So, I wanted to introduce you to my little pledge sister, Hannah.”
Her pledge sister. So, that was why they were dressed in the same uniform: a scoop-neck pink tank top and black mini-skirts. In the middle of a Minnesota winter.
“Hi-yee!” Hannah said with a happy wave. “What are you drinking? Vodka?”
“No, it’s Chinese, Hannah,” Eliza answered for him. “Look at the writing on the bottle!”
He glanced down at the blue-label gift bottle of baijiu he’d received from Bai3, a Chinese spirits brand the Rustanovs had decided to invest heavily in a few months ago. The bottle’s sleek design, with its red-and-gold accents, mirrored the high quality of the liquor inside, but it was much stronger than his own family’s line of vodka. Almost 120 proof.
He’d hoped a few swigs would be enough to drown the turbulent emotions raging inside him.
But here he was, obsessively reading and re-reading the post-game text Lydia had sent Hanson—a player in every sense of the word. Earlier, Yom had watched the guy who’d left Lydia’s messages on Unread for over a week disappear into one of the many upstairs bedrooms with another sorority look-alike.
Did Lydia know how little the player she wouldn’t stop texting thought of her?
“Can I have a sippy-poo of your Chinese vodka?”
Hannah’s question jolted Yom out of another jealousy spiral.
He eyed the sorority girl up and down. No, baijiu hadn’t stopped his out-of-control brain from obsessing over Lydia.
But maybe this girl could.
