The front door slammed far sooner than I had expected. I hadn’t even read a single article yet.
“Jess?” she shouted into our space.
“In my room,” I shouted back.
Rachel’s curvy frame appeared in my doorway before she hopped onto my bed, making my laptop bounce up and down on my legs. “What’s up?”
“Just working on this assignment for Psych.”
“Ugh, core curriculars suck,” she said, referring to the classes I had to take to fulfill my general-education credits. She pushed back off from my bed and walked out of my room without warning. “I need a drink. And I’m starving. Come out here with me and I’ll make you food.”
I couldn’t resist her offer, so I bookmarked the site, closed my laptop, and grabbed my soda before heading toward the other room. “The class is actually really interesting, but it’s also really hard.”
“That’s why I took Sociology instead of Psych.”
“Well, maybe if you’d taken Psych, you could analyze the day I had today,” I said with a slight huff.
“Why? What happened? Are you okay?” Her eyebrows drew together with concern, which surprised me. I hadn’t expected my comment to worry her.
“It’s nothing bad. Sorry. I just spent the entire break between my classes with Nick today,” I said in a rush. I popped open the can, taking a sip to silence my babbling.
Rachel choked on her words. “You what?”
I grinned, my smile feeling like it took up my entire face. “You heard me.”
She grabbed my hand and pulled me toward our couch in the living room. Forcing me to sit down next to her, she released my hand before angling her body toward mine. “Tell me everything immediately. And don’t leave anything out.”
“He wanted to hang out with me after class, so I told him I had ninety minutes.”
“Wait.” She held up her hand. “What about your fake boyfriend?”
“I told him we broke up,” I said with a laugh, and she laughed with me.
“Okay, go on.”
“He bought me lunch, and then we went to the football stadium and talked.”
“Talked?” She cocked an eyebrow as if she didn’t believe me.
“Yeah. Talked. He’s . . .” I paused, searching for the right word, and Rachel jumped in.
“He’s what, hot? Horny? Great in bed? He’s what, Jess?”
Shrugging, I said, “He’s really cool.”
Really cool? That’s the word I use to describe him? #Fail, Jess.
“Cool?” Her lips curled up with distaste.
“I don’t know. He was nice. Super nice. And normal. I don’t know what I thought he’d be like, but this wasn’t it.”
“What did you guys talk about?”
I didn’t want to tell Rachel about Nick’s family life or his dad’s business, so I decided to keep those things to myself. Even though I didn’t know him all that well, some things shouldn’t be shared without permission.
“I don’t know, everything. We talked about where we grew up, our families, our majors, what we want to be when we’re real grownups.”
Rachel swept her dark wavy hair off her shoulder with a flick of her wrist before leaning back against the cushions. “Did he ask you out?”