Chapter 13 #2
Stella snorts. “Yeah, but those girls are ditzes. They’re not even worth a second of his time.
” She sips her green smoothie, then sets it down with a thunk.
“But you’re right about one thing, which is that my dad gets around.
Honestly, he’s always got at least two or three girls in rotation.
Thomas thinks I don’t know, but I do. He’s basically a male slut. It’s almost impressive, at his age.”
Mary Kate chimes in. “That’s just, like, rich dude standard, right?”
Kayleigh nods, swirling her straw in the melting ice. “If I had his money, I’d have a harem too. No offense, Stella.”
Stella waves it off, eyes still on me. “No offense taken. I’d probably do the same, but a male harem of course.
I want cock anytime, all the time,” she says with a naughty gleam in her eye.
“Anyway, you’re better off without Thomas, Andie.
I know my dad. He’s—” she pauses, searching for the word, “—fun, but not a forever person.”
It should be funny. I should be laughing with them. Instead, my insides feel like they’ve been flash-frozen.
I raise my smoothie in a salute, giving them the best nonchalant smile I can manage. “Duly noted. Onward and upward.”
Mary Kate laughs, then turns back to Kayleigh to ask if she’s going to DM her stepbrother before the wedding or just show up naked on his hotel bed.
The conversation splinters; the pressure bleeds off.
Mary Kate tells a story about a girl from her high school who lost her virginity on prom night in the parking lot of a Hardee’s.
Kayleigh tells a story about getting kicked out of the senior lock-in for trying to steal a janitor’s golf cart.
Stella just scrolls her phone, occasionally giggling at a meme before passing it around the table.
I sit in the middle of it, the buzz and noise of the café settling on me like an old blanket.
The blender whirs, some freshman in a Century lacrosse hoodie shouts to a friend across the room, the faint sizzle of pancakes comes and goes from behind the counter.
Outside, the sunlight glints off the Formica sidewalk.
My foot’s gone to sleep under the table. My smile, too.
I don’t let myself look at my phone, but I want to. I want to see if Thomas has texted, even though I know he won’t—he said he was flying to New York and then straight to London, and that he’d be “off the grid” for a while. But maybe. Just maybe.
Suddenly, an awful thought strikes. Does he have women waiting for him in New York and London?
Paris and Tokyo too? Am I just his hook-up when he’s here, in Minneapolis?
Oh my god, oh my god. Immediately, my mind starts spinning as my vision becomes a blur.
I imagine Thomas, with a beautiful French coquette on his arm.
Or maybe a gorgeous geisha girl, with ruby lips and shiny black hair.
Who am I by comparison? I’m a horrifically naive, horrifically boring co-ed living in the Midwest.
Stella glances at me, and for a split second I think she knows. She can sense my unease. Not just about the bet, or her dad, but everything. The panic invading my brain. The way my pulse races, my pupils dilate.
But then she looks away, and the moment passes.
The girls start talking about the dorm party that’s happening tonight, and whether anyone will have the guts to spike the punch.
Kayleigh bets it’ll be “beyond basic,” and Mary Kate bets she’ll end up dancing on a table before midnight.
I promise nothing and try to appear normal.
I say I’ll see how much studying I can get done first.
They start packing up: Stella stuffs her phone into her tiny black purse, Mary Kate tucks the spiral notebook under her arm, Kayleigh slips her keys between her knuckles like a set of brass knuckles. For a second, I don’t move.
When I finally stand, the world rushes up—bright, cold, a little too sharp.
We say our goodbyes on the sidewalk, hugs and air-kisses and “Text me later, bitch,” as if we’re all in the same show, reading from the same script. And maybe we are.
I walk back to our dorm alone, feeling nauseous. My phone buzzes in my pocket, and my heart leaps—only to find a generic promo from the campus bookstore, and a message from Simone reminding me that she left a cupcake for me in our mini-fridge.
I let myself into the room, kick off my shoes, and collapse onto my mattress. I close my eyes and picture the city, the penthouse, the way I looked in the bathroom mirror: flushed, a little wild, not quite myself and exactly myself at the same time.
My phone sits heavy in my hand. I scroll through my camera roll and pause on the video file—the proof, the evidence, the thing that could win me everything. I almost delete it. Yet Thomas’s image is there in my mind’s eye: bronzed, handsome, intense, and hung.
But am I just another hook-up to the billionaire? One woman among many?
With a punch of my finger, I lock the screen and hold the phone against my chest. I don’t know what I’m looking for. But I know I’m not ready to let go.
Not yet.