Infamous Like Us (Like Us 10)

“What do you mean?”

“He said I’ve always been your exception.”

I let out a laugh. Yeah.

Banks Moretti is my favorite, and I’m done trying to hide that or underscore what he means to me. I’ve been done, and it’s too dang obvious to conceal anyway. Maybe it always has been. “If the Yale boys give you more crap for the special privileges, just tell them to come argue with me.”

Banks bends a knee as he sits higher up the wall. He winces slightly. “It’s never bothered me. They can pout about it.”

Under his sweatpants, his kneecaps are black-and-blue from the fall tonight. Before I draw attention to the injury, he clicks into the rape tweet.

“Wait.”

He pauses.

“Way to go, Viktor!” someone shouts in the hallway. Chatter ignites with some cheering. Frat house commotion, but we’re not on fraternity row. Just the Olympic Village. Late-night noises are constant in the thin-walled residential building for athletes.

Sulli hasn’t minded skipping out on the big social part of the Olympics. She didn’t join these celebrations four years ago. Too focused.

Too determined.

When the chatter dies down, I tell Banks, “You send one tweet under your account, it’ll be reposted on every single tabloid and become headlines. Then we’re going to have more eyes on Sulli than before.”

Banks frowns. “So we’re not responding?”

“No, we are. Just not as ourselves.”

His mouth curves upward. “We’re making a fake account?”

“A fan account.”

He actually grins. “Right on, right on.” He signs out and starts to create a new account. We discuss the username for a few minutes before picking @Love4Sullivan.

“Profile pic should be water. Like a pool,” I tell him.

He finds one off the internet. Uploads. “Got it. First tweet?”

“Take it away.” I’m giving Banks the reins.

“You sure?”

“Yeah.” He needs this. Whether it’ll help him or us—I don’t know. That’s the thing about mistakes, I usually don’t know I make them until it’s too late.

Leaning into Banks, I watch him type out a reply tweet.

@Love4Sullivan: @tee2hee you’re really going to threaten to rape a girl? What’s fucking wrong with you??

That’s more restrained than I thought. “I’m shocked you didn’t call teehee names.”

“I want to know why he’s thinking this sick, unconscionable, unholy fucking thing.” Banks leans back. “Then I’m going to call him names.”

“You really think he’ll reply?”

He shrugs, then sticks his hand in a box. He shovels cereal in his mouth.

I zero in on the box. “What are you eating?”

“Cereal. Want some?”

I reach over his chest and snatch the box. Granola O’s. Tobias Kingly’s face is on the fracking box, staring smugly at me. “Really?”

“I was hungry,” Banks protests.

I chuck the cereal. And the box skids across the floorboards.

Banks cocks his head to me. “We aren’t supposed to be the petty ones.”

“His cardboard face can go eat the floor.” I remind Banks, “He put doubt in Sulli’s head.”

Banks nods strongly. “Until he calls Sulli what she is—the greatest—he’s been dead to me, too. I just don’t let him dictate what I’m eating.”

“Love you a whale-y ton too, Nona-Frog.” Sulli emerges from the bathroom in nothing but a towel. I drink in her long legs, athletic frame, and her cute, messy bun. In a hot second, I start imagining my hand slipping between the crease of the towel.

Skimming her inner-thigh. My fingertips grazing closer and closer towards her heat. I want so deep inside Sulli.

“He responded to us,” Banks whispers to me, but not quietly enough. Sulli can hear, and I feel her zeroing in on us as I urgently read his phone.

@tee2hee: @Love4Sullivan you can rape her too

I’m glaring.

Banks is fuming. He’s typing back quickly.

“Okay, yeah…bye.” Sulli hangs up. “What’s going on, guys?”

We both look up like we’ve been caught plotting murder.

20

SULLIVAN MEADOWS

“Security stuff, Sul,” Akara answers me. But his tensed features make me believe it’s more. They’re hovering over Banks’ phone like they’re in an after-school clique and I’m the loser asking the cool kids to befriend me.

That’s not what this is.

I’m not being left out.

They’re my boyfriends, for fuck’s sake.

Right?

The rational parts of my brain are biting back at my insecurities.

“Security stuff?” I repeat. “Not boyfriend stuff?”

“Well…” Akara scrunches his face.

Banks softens his gaze on me, his head dipped a little. “Partly boyfriend stuff.”

“A quarter,” Akara amends.

Banks clearly thinks otherwise. He slips Akara a hard look like he’s wrong.

Akara shoots a look back like I’m not wrong, man.

And I’m fucking proud of myself for being able to discern their silent glances. Only people a part of the clique would understand the clique, right? Therefore, I’m in the inner-fucking-circle.

Math isn’t my strong suit, but fuck it, I’m liking my math.

“A quarter, half—whatever it is, are you going to tell me what’s up?” I leave wet footprints as I pass my single-bed and approach them. Muscles aching and sore from swimming tonight.

They’re sitting on the cot like a couch against the wall, and Akara shoves Banks’ hand, clearly telling him to put the phone away.