With Every Heartbeat

I wasn’t. I kept giving her a hard stare until she stood up, lifted her chin and strode away. I blew out a breath, glad to be rid of her, even though I was pretty sure I wasn’t done with her for good. People like Cora didn’t just fade off into the woodwork. And her being Zoey’s roommate was going to make it real ugly in the future when she found out about us. With a sigh, I buried my face in my hands and tried not the think about what would happen when all that went down.

A chime from my book bag had me lifting my face.

What the…?

I twisted and unzipped the pocket where I hadn’t been able to find my phone earlier. After digging my hand inside, I jolted when my fingers almost immediately wrapped around it.

Pulling it free, I found a new text from Zoey. I can’t stop thinking about what we did in the library.

All other thought flushed from my brain. My body responded immediately. I cursed the fact that I’d have to work tonight and couldn’t spend it with her. But maybe…

I’m here now. Want a repeat?

I bit my lip waiting for her answer, hoping she was willing to be as wild and abandoned as we’d been on Tuesday.

I wish. But I’m stuck in the print lab waiting in the longest line ever to get a paper printed. Tonight?

Disappointment had my shoulders sagging. I have to work, remember? Unless you want to come over after… I ended my pleading with an emoticon to show her just how much I wanted her to say yes.

Sorry, my big man. I have a big paper to finish. I promise I’ll make it up to you after you win your game tomorrow. K?

My stomach roiled. Her excuse sounded exactly like the million and one excuses Cora had always given me when we’d been together. A moment of fear clouded my brain. Was Zoey playing me, too? But then I reread the text, and something else odd triggered in my brain.

Big man. That was what Cora had always called me. Surely, Zoey hadn’t been around her roommate enough to glean that nickname off her. But that could only mean…

I swallowed and glanced behind me at my backpack. My phone had not been in that pocket after Rachel had talked to me—after she’d reached her arm around the back of my seat—and then it had miraculously reappeared after Cora had slunk by...and set her arm across the back of my seat.

Realizing I hadn’t been texting Zoey just now, I stared in shock at the words Cora had written to me. I fisted my hand and set it against my mouth. She knew about what we’d done in the library…which meant she knew about us, period.

This couldn’t be good. I started to text Ten to ask him for Zoey’s number, since Cora had apparently cleared it from my phone and replaced it with her own, when I paused. What if she’d messed with more of my numbers? To test the waters, I typed: What’s the first thing you ever said to me?

Ten answered almost immediately. Man, seriously. What the fuck are you smoking?

I blew out a relieved breath because I already knew without a doubt that I was communicating with my roommate. But I went ahead and explained everything. Just answer the question. Cora hacked into my phone and changed numbers around. I need proof I’m actually talking to you. I’m ninety percent sure she knows about me and Zoey.

Instead of texting back, he rang my number. “Shit,” he muttered as soon as I answered. “I never trusted that fucking bitch.”

“Well, I wish you’d clued me into her months ago. Now, give me Zoey’s number. Cora cleared it off my phone. I need to warn her.”

Ten obliged. But before he hung up, he said, “Oh, yeah, and the first thing I ever said to you was that steroids made your pecker shrink.”

A grin lit my face as I hung up. That was exactly what he’d said to me on the first day of practice when he’d looked up at me and refused to believe I was just naturally this big.

Before I could text Zoey, Ten texted a selfie of him flipping off the camera. It’s still me!

What a goofball. I shook my head and glanced at the time, only to curse under my breath. I had less than two minutes to get to my noon class. I typed in a warning to Zoey, anyway, gathering my things as I told her to be careful around Cora, that she’d been in my phone, tried to pass herself off as Zoey, and that she knew everything.

Zoey didn’t answer my text before I started calculus, and she hadn’t responded by the time I got out. I had two more classes before I headed straight to practice, and then I had to hustle to work after that. When I’d heard nothing by the time I got off work at two Saturday morning, I began to panic. I would’ve gone to her apartment when I woke, but I had a noon game and the coach had wanted us in early. I didn’t get another moment to check my phone until we’d been excused to the locker room where we were supposed to put on our game uniforms.