get there. Or not.
S O P H I A
I’d lain in bed for what felt like hours after I’d given Drew a hard time. The truth was, I’d had a mini heart attack when all his noise had woken me up, and the fear had turned to anger when I’d seen him writhing around on the couch.
I’d immediately assumed he’d come home drunk, which was all I would’ve needed. This situation was messed up enough without having to share a small apartment for the foreseeable future with a reckless partier.
When he’d said that he’d been at work all night, guilt had crept in and diffused my irritation. I really hated when that happened. Being angry was much easier than feeling bad.
I’d finally fallen asleep, but it seemed like my alarm went off minutes later. Of course, Drew’s late-night interpretive dance in the dark had to happen when I had my earliest class of the semester the next morning.
I’d dragged myself through a shower and stopped to grab the biggest coffee I could before hauling ass to class. I hadn’t remembered to reset the alarm with an earlier time that would accommodate my longer walk, but I still managed to make it to class before the professor.
I felt all kinds of discombobulated when I slid into a seat and dug through my bag for my laptop. As I struggled to make room on the small desk for my MacBook, my phone, and the coffee that I wished I could mainline into my body, I registered someone taking the seat next to me. Once I had everything settled, I looked over casually and then did a double take when I saw Emma sitting beside me.
“What are you doing here?”
“I have a class down the hall and I saw you walk by, so I thought I’d come say hey.”
“Okay,” I replied, drawing the word out in my confusion. “Hey.”
“Hey.” Emma held eye contact with me but didn’t say anything more.
After a few seconds, I started to get weirded out. “Did you take an entire bottle of NoDoz again?”
“No. I was just trying to figure out who you are. Because you’re not the Sophia I thought I knew.”
I exhaled loudly and slumped in my chair. “I can’t do”—I waved my hands in front of her—“whatever this is today. Just come direct.”
She leaned closer to me like she was about to impart state secrets. “Why would you never tell your best friends how hot your brother is? It’s like…girl code.”
“It’s really not.”
“Well, it’s something, and Gina and I feel some kind of way about it.”
This conversation was a mental minefield I was not caffeinated enough to handle. Lying to my best friends in the sorority wasn’t something I was keen on doing, but I couldn’t trust them either. Emma would never intentionally betray my confidence, but she simply wasn’t built to keep secrets. And I could not risk the truth getting back to Aamee. She’d burn Brody and me like we were Salem witches.
“He’s my brother,” I said, hoping that would explain it.
“Please,” Emma said as she flipped a strand of her auburn hair over her shoulder. “Just because you’re related doesn’t mean you can’t see what’s right in front of you.”
I want to be literally anywhere else right now.
Because, yeah, I could have objectively evaluated my brother’s attractiveness. Was Brody hot? Sure, if you were into underachieving guys with Peter Pan Syndrome. But my sorority sisters were suckers for a boy with a pretty face, even if he didn’t come highly recommended. And the fact that the guy she was really referring to wasn’t even related to me was even worse because it meant I had to tread more carefully.
I’d ordinarily have had no qualms about remarking on the hotness that was Drew Nolan. From his long, lean frame, to his slightly lopsided smile that made him look like he was up to no good, to the way he at least seemed to be a decent person, there was a lot to remark on. But I couldn’t resort to my usual girl talk about him. He wasn’t some stranger I’d stumbled upon—even if they didn’t know that.
So I had to keep my urge to gush about how sexy he was firmly within the confines of my inner monologue. And I couldn’t have them sniffing around trying to hit on him either. So I did what anyone would do in my situation.
I panicked.
“He likes dick!” I blurted out loud enough to cause the entire room