Page 117 of Fifty First Times (Sharing You 0.40)
looking at?
Why have I wasted so much time hating someone who doesn’t deserve it?
He’s not a game player. I know that. We’ve done countless events together, and if I’m honest with myself, I can admit that he’d been chosen to help out the publicity department because I pushed for it. My instincts were right, he’d been perfect at every opportunity, but I hadn’t known that at the beginning.
I just wanted to be around him.
I’m staring at him as all this goes through my head, and he’s staring back as if he can sense what I’m discovering about myself.
That I’ve been lying to myself about my own feelings.
“So,” I say, blowing out a deep breath.
“So,” he replies, and he’s smiling.
I abruptly push myself out of the doorway and head for the bass coming from Trippy’s.
He follows. He doesn’t touch me, but I can feel how close he is as we make our way through the crowd.
When I find Rosie, it’s worse than I could’ve imagined.
My roommate, a sensible redhead and chemistry major who’s gunning for med school, is taking body shots off the first baseman.
“Spinelli.” Ben mutters the name under his breath.
Caesar Spinelli is the perfect example of every stereotype I’ve ever believed about baseball players. It’s laughable.
Or he would be, if Rosie weren’t licking him.
“She’s really, really drunk,” I say to Ben, by way of apology. I don’t know why it would matter to him what—or who—my roommate chooses to do with her time, but I defend her anyway. “She’s a really smart girl, but tequila is her downfall.”
Spinelli starts to unbutton his pants.
“Oh no.” Ben and I say the words at the same time.
I reach for Rosie and he grabs Spinelli. The crowd around them, made up of players and groupies, vocally protest their disappointment.
“Why did you do that—” Rosie starts the sentence but stops it when she sees Ben behind me. “You’re with him. Are you with him? Oh ye gods, you’re with him!”
“I am not. You took my key, and he brought me here to get it. That’s it.”
“You couldn’t drive here yourself?”
“Dead battery.” I wrestle her into a sitting position and wipe the remnants of salt off her chin. “What are you doing? I’ve told you about players. That guy’s the worst one.”
“That guy has abs the size of speed bumps.” She giggles and waves at him. He winks before he goes back to a heated conversation with Ben.
Who now has Spinelli by the hair.
“I’m in a dry spell,” Rosie continued, pulling my focus. “There’s nothing wrong with a hookup here and there. You should try it. Maybe you wouldn’t be so uptight all the time.”
The words should sting, because they’re true, but I’m still reeling from my revelation about Ben. Wondering how I’ve fooled myself for so long.
Wondering if his abs are the size of speed bumps, and what my tongue would feel like—
“Hey. Hey!” Rosie yells at me. “The key is in my purse. My purse is . . .” She flings her arm in the direction of the dance floor and almost falls over. “Over there, somewhere. Since we’re all here, we should party. Together! Let’s party together! But let’s get out of here. It’s too loud. And I don’t want to do it on a bar. Because the last time I did it on a bar, there was margarita salt in my—”
“No one’s doing it on a bar, or anywhere else. I don’t want players in my house, Rosie. It crosses a line.” And I have no doubt my underwear will go missing, only to show up later, glued to home plate.
