I nodded as I looked around the room. “I better go grovel to Quinn.”
“Okay.” Ava smiled at me in sympathy.
I was almost out of the room when I pulled myself up short. Turning quickly, I ran to the sofa where we had been last night. “Ava! Where’s my phone?” I cried as I looked for it on the table and the cushions.
“Why?” Ava asked as she came to join me.
“It could have beenworse?” I cried as I started throwing soft furnishings around the room in a frantic search. “Where the hell is my phone!”
“In Ash’s room probably,” Ava said as she grabbed me. “Why?”
I stood there frozen for a moment with my eyes squeezed shut. “I think I texted him.” I was definitely going to throw up.
“Who?Ash?” Ava’s eyes were as wide as mine. “Why?”
Cold, sobering realization dawned on me, and I looked at my best friend in true despair. “Oh, cracking hell, I totally texted him. Ava, Isextedthe Devil.”
Chapter 12: Ash
Practice this morning had been hard. It was unlike Coach to push us so hard on game day, but we were all feeling the pressure of the upcoming game.
As I sat in the locker room, listening to my teammates talk in the background, the music was playing, and the twins were huddled together talking routes and plays. I should have been with them, but my attention was on the phone in my bag. I’d been almost asleep last night when I got the first text. I’d almost ignored it — a part of me still wished that I had.
Glancing over at Jett and Gray, I saw Gray now had a pad of paper. They would be immersed in that for a good few minutes — they wouldn’t be looking for me yet.
Sliding my hand into my bag, I tucked my phone into my hand and headed to the bathroom. Locking myself inside a stall, I opened the message thread.
Red:I’m in your bed
Me:Why?
Red:Sleepover. . .
Me:And you chose my bed?
Red:Obviously
That surprised me; why was it obvious? I thought it would have been obvious for her to choose to sleep with Ava or something. I knew she would be there. They had decided all the girls needed to be together, and that was fine . . . but in my bed? I immediately thought about how messy my room was and then realized it was too late; she was already there. Also, I wasn’t trying to impress her. Was I?
I was no stranger to flirting, but wassheflirting? Which went against everything we had discussed, or was she justmaking conversation? Red had never gone out of her way to make conversation with me before this week. She was subtle in her signals to let me know she was available for a hookup. She wasn’t an in-your-face kind of girl. As I tried to consider her angle, she messaged again.
Red:Remember the last time I was in your bed?
Me:Hard to forget, I’m now living with you because of that
Red:You were definitely hard . . .
Sitting up in bed, I read the message thread again. She was definitely flirting. This wasn’t normal behavior for her, and then I thought about it: she was with Ava and Quinn.
Me:You’re drunk?
Red:Yup
Me:Don’t throw up in my bed
Red:Please . . . as if
Red:R u naked?
