“Eliza, you cannot be that naïve. Your roommate isn’t sitting at home pining for me—she’s having fun being single and I am the last thing on her mind when she’s out with her friends. She only wants me when we’re in the same room.”
“What are you implying?” she asks slowly, rolling my direction and propping herself up on an elbow to face me, not wanting to miss a word of my answer.
“That you can’t let her dictate what you do with your personal life. She is not in love with me—why are you worried about what she thinks? She doesn’t control you.”
“I know, but…girl code.”
“What’s girl code?” My brows furrow, and I’m not even trying.
“Are you joking me right now? Do you not know what it is?”
“No I’m not joking you—I’m from London.” Some shite just does not translate and we didn’t exactly discuss Girl Code at the all-lads boarding schools I went to.
“It’s like bro code, but for females.”
I’m still not following the lingo.
“Bro code.” Eliza laughs. “Let me look it up, hold on a second.” Her mobile magically appears and illuminates the bed of the truck as she searches. “The bro code states: thou shalt not sleep with your bro’s ex-girlfriend. In addition, if a girl falls into the following criteria, she is off limits forever until the end of time: your friend’s ex-girlfriend, your bro called dibs on her, he’s in love with her, or it’s your bro’s sister.”
Finished, she looks up at me expectantly.
“Is that all it says?” I take the mobile from her hand so I can read the screen myself. Surely she’s making that shite up. “Bros before hoes—that one is universal.” I laugh. “Also, never drink the last beer, unless you have been granted specific permission.”
“Correct. And all this pertains to roommates and girlfriends, aka: girl code.”
I understand what she’s saying, I just do not care for how it pertains to this particular situation.
Not at all.
Fourteen
Eliza
How do I tell my roommates I’ve been spending time with Jack? How do I tell them we were at breakfast together and then took a drive? A drive that lasted long into the night.
Stargazing.
Talking.
Jack trying to convince me that what we’re doing isn’t wrong.
That being friends isn’t wrong. Yes, men and women can be friends but not when the woman is friends with Kaylee and she saw him first.
How do I tell them?
Correction: how do I tell Kaylee?
Lilly isn’t going to care—she probably has no idea who Jack even is, so occupied with her own social life that she’s never noticed mine.
And we’ve been living together for two years.
Kaylee on the other hand?
Not so much.
She is in my business, up my butt, in my room, all the time.
Just so happens she’s hovering over me now, making plenty of noise, so I’ll hear her and wake up of my own accord without her having to jostle me awake as she usually does when she has news for me. Not the least bit subtle and dreadfully obnoxious.
“Have you seen this?” Kaylee shoves her cell in my face, eyes wide and a bit wild.
“What time is it?” She has no way of knowing I was out past midnight—out with Jack, laughing and talking and making out with him until the sun rose in the sky. Showing him my work, gushing about anime and ComicCon and movies.
“What difference does it make what time it is?” she asks snidely. “Look what’s posted on the campus Instagram.”
The screen of her phone is bright and blinding in my small room with its drawn shades, nearly pitch black.
“Get that out of my face. Give me a second, jeez,” I smart back, not in the mood for her attitude. “I’m blind.”
Takes a few seconds for my pupils to adjust.
Focus.
It’s a picture of Jack standing behind me, the moment he rose and came to my side of the table and leaned in to whisper in my ear. To brush his lips across my cheek. To mutter words that made the space between my legs wet.
My eyes finally adjust to the light and I’m able to read the post in front of me: KING OF CAMPUS SEEN SMOOCHING MYSTERY GIRL AT LORDS CAFÉ
Jack Dryden-Jones—our transfer from across the pond—and his mysterious love interest caught canoodling in an off-campus café #LondonCalling #TheBachelor #EligibleBachelor #UniversityofIL #StudentBody
Love interest?
Mysterious?
Who wrote this, my grandmother?
“Did you know he was seeing someone?” My roommate pulls her phone back when I’ve finished reading the post.
“How would I know if he was seeing someone? I’m not his keeper.”
“I know, but you know him better than I do.” Instead of leaving the room, she sits at the foot of my bed. “Does he have a girlfriend, Eliza? You can tell me.”
I’m not entirely sure how to reply. Anything I say is going to lead to more questions, questions I don’t know the answers to and do not want to deal with at all.