Out of My League - Sarah Sutton Page 0,74
make sure the warden wouldn’t get mad or anything.”
I could almost see her cupping one hand over her eyes, peering into one of the windows, chatting away. “Yeah, I’m in my room. Just be quiet. Mom’s sleeping downstairs.”
The front door creaked open over the phone, and I heard the quiet click as she shut it. “I feel like this is a boss level in one of my brother’s video games. Do not wake the mother unit.” I could hear her on the stairs. “Don’t roll your eyes at me.”
“I didn’t.”
“Please. I could practically hear those things rolling through the phone.”
And then she poked her head into my bedroom, smiling, her cell still pressed to her ear. I disconnected the call first, setting it back on my nightstand. “Hey.”
She stepped fully into the room, eyeing my attire. “Nice shorts.”
They were pink with little green cactuses on them, and little green pom-poms dangling from the hem. They were nice. “What’s up?”
Edith quietly shut the door behind her, making a face. “Why does your house smell like my little brother’s upchuck?”
Ugh. “Mom came home from work sick.”
Edith sat down at my desk chair, spinning in it. Her two pigtail braids swung out as she picked up speed. “She’s not pregnant, is she?”
“Don’t even joke.”
She tipped her head back and chuckled a little. “So, guess who called me yesterday.”
“Miss America?”
“Ha. No. A certain Mr. Perfect.”
Hang on a second. I blinked at her, unsure I heard right. “Walsh called you?”
She couldn’t hide her smile. “He got my number from Zach, I guess. Asked if I heard from you. When I said no, he got all quiet and broody.”
Okay, hold up. Why did Walsh call my best friend instead of me? Here I am stressing about him not calling me, not thinking about me, and he’s out hitting up Edith? “And?”
“And then he said he had to go. Then he hung up.” She shook her head. “Not the best phone skills, that one. But you’d have been proud. I didn’t even squeal once at the fact that Walsh Hunter called me. I can feel my popularity status building.”
Sometimes I forgot that Edith used to think that Walsh was cute—used to rant and rave about him from time to time. Those days seemed like forever ago.
“Did you go on your date with Zach?”
“It wasn’t a date,” she told me quickly. Edith pulled her legs into the chair, crisscrossing them and leaning back with a hand to her chest. “Just friends. It was fun.”
“But—”
“Just friends,” she cut me off, gaze serious. “For now, anyway. It’s easier that way. That way I can focus on volleyball, and he can focus on baseball.”
I couldn’t help but smile a little at how flustered she was getting. “Ed, that’s a load of crap, you know that? Just because you’re saying it again doesn’t make it true.”
“I didn’t ask him about paying off other teammates. It just felt weird. You get that, right?”
I nodded, not blaming her. If the situation had been reversed, I’m not sure I’d have asked either.
“How’s your article going?”
The wind in my sails died down a little bit because her expression wasn’t a positive one. She wasn’t asking because she cared—she was asking because she wanted to try and convince me to stop writing it. “Can we not go into this again?”
“Sooner or later, you’ll change your mind. Sophia, I just don’t want you to throw away a good thing. You and Walsh are perfect for each other.”
Hearing that made something inside me dance. “Edith, it’s—”
“Fake? I know.” Finally, thankfully, Edith rose from the desk chair and moved to sit next to me. She nudged me with her shoulder. “You two are still cute. I wouldn’t have guessed it in a billion years, because you two are just so different.”
I stared at her hands, her nail polish an oddly comforting sight, and I rested my head on her shoulder. My cheeks warmed, and that was because talking about him made me like this. Warm. Happy. “I think…” I chuckled a little bit, the noise just whispering out of me. “I think I like him.”
“You like him? Like, like him, like him?”
With my eyes squeezed shut and my arms wrapped around her to prevent her from escaping, I told her everything. I told her about the Fourth of July, about how he set up the inflatable flamingo so we could sit and watch the fireworks. I told her about how he wanted me to meet his parents, and then going