TWENTY-EIGHT
NEVE
“Have you ever shopped at Skims?” Cynthia asks, scrolling through her phone, nails clicking on the screen. I glance at my own red nails, freshly done yesterday evening,afterbeing questioned for two murders I did not commit, and shake my head.
“No.” I say it out loud because she’s not looking at me. At all.
We’re sitting beside each other on her all-white bed asCorpse Brideplays for the thousandth time this year no doubt, from her TV screen mounted on the wall, and the sun is sinking below the streets outside her window.
It’s Friday night, and all I want to do is sleep. Faust and I got up too damn early yesterday morning, and yeah, maybe the stress is getting to me. I ended up making it to my poetry workshop and wrote a couplet that rhymed “blade” with “fade” and I don’t even know if I was talking murder or hockey.
I’ve successfully avoided answering any of Nolan’s calls and I have not told him I spoke to Detective Lincoln. Without a lawyer. I did text him back to shut him up, but that’s all the bullshit I can deal with right now.
I mentioned Lincoln to Cyn, leaving out the parts about Will coming to our place. I want to keep her ignorant, so if they come for her, she can tell the truth of having no knowledge of it.
“I guess since you’ve stolen a pair of Dragon Hockey sweats from the hottest player in Ontario, you don’t have a need for loungewear, huh, Miss Vee?”
Vee.The name Sylvan used for me. My heart races but I keep my eyes on my own phone, despite the fact I’m staring at nothing. I’ve avoided updating my social media, avoided my brother, avoided a random text from Mom and one from Lyra, a girl I sometimes meet up with for gym sessions together. She was in my Family Psych class last year. She wanted to see what I thought about “everything going on.”
Ha.
Cynthia knows I stayed with Faust last night and it took her nearly an hour of begging me to admit we had sex to truly believe we didn’t.
I don’t know what that says about me that my own best friend thinks I’m a whore, too, but when I got annoyed about it, she understood I was being serious.
“Maybe you can snag a pair for me,” Cyn mock-whispers when I ignore her, the only indication I’ve heard her at all a stupid grin on my face.
Stupid for many reasons.
I finally gave in and Googled both boys.
As starry-eyed as Drayton University students seem over both Faust and Sylvan, it’s nothing compared to what the online world thinks of them. Girls stalking them, making fan art of them, gushing over their every move… and I don’t blame them. Both boys have social media accounts whichshocksme, but I came to understand how it is Faust, at least, and no doubt Sylvan too, pay for all the luxury they have.
They can’t get paid as college hockey players for playing hockey—Google cleared that up for me—but they both do sponsorship posts and brand deals.
Seeing Faust Darling modeling a pair of sneakers floored me.
But the thousands of comments, many of women asking to have his babies and too many fire emojis to put out with a hose, did not.
Heishot.
Pouty lips, quiet swagger. He’s not small either. The kind of man who could throw you across the room but, in my opinion, never would.
He’s hot, and yeah, so am I, but this isnotan arena I want to be competing in. They could have anyone, and while I know I’d be a prize, it feels like you’d always be looking over one shoulder. They’re boys, really. Not ready to settle down. And when they’re in the NHL like I know they’ll be—Reddit thread rumors go crazy on who they’ll sign with—it’ll get worse.
Not my circus. Not my hockey players.
“I’m not going there.”
“Where? His bed again? Because I think you should be face down in those sheets at least once.”
I whip my head around to Cyn, her brown eyes lit up as she grins at me, full lips tipped up high, white teeth flashing.
“Are you serious? You’re the one always telling me to stop sleeping around!”
She giggles, then looks back down at her phone. I see a whole ass shopping cart full of Skims. Guess she’s going for it. “Yeah, but that was before you picked a winner.” She winks at me and I roll my eyes.
“Speaking of,” she says, just as a text pops up on my phone, now that I’ve let notifications come through. So I don’t miss any from the detective, I tell myself, but I’m a liar. “Tonight. We’re going to East York.”
