his room with some girl who was ridiculously pretty, and then he just walked right past me while he was chasing after her,” I explained, and she was quiet.
“What did he do? Tell me,” Chance whispered, and I rolled my eyes even though they couldn’t see me.
“Just put me on speaker.”
“ ’K. We’re both here.”
“So, he ignored you? Maybe he didn’t see you,” Danika suggested, and Chance agreed.
“Mac can be dumb sometimes, you know.” That was Chance.
“He saw me. He looked right at me and walked on by.”
“He didn’t even say hi?” Chance again.
“No. He barely even acted like he knew me. It was embarrassing. I felt like an idiot,” I said, feeling vulnerable and dumb all over again. Being mad was so much better than this crap.
“I’ll talk to him,” Chance said, and Danika squealed.
I’d never heard my best friend squeal before.
“Did you just … squeal?” I asked, making sure the sound of that word was as unbelievable coming out of my mouth as it had been from hers.
“Be quiet. Chance just said he’d call him. Did you hear that part?” she asked.
“I heard, but you don’t have to do that,” I said, and I meant it.
Maybe if this had been a few months ago, Chance might have been able to make a difference, but I wasn’t sure there was any point now. Mac clearly didn’t care.
“I’m not going to let my best friend be a dick to you, Sunny. I’ll handle it. And I’ll find out what’s going on and put a stop to it.”
Before I knew it, the phone clicked off speaker, and Danika was on the line alone. “Well, I guess he’s handling it then,” she said with a little odd-sounding laugh.
“Oh God. You’re turned on right now, aren’t you?”
“Wouldn’t you be? Did you hear him? I need to go jump his bones for all that macho, bossy shit.”
“Go away. Call me later and let me know if Chance actually talks to him,” I said, and she made another weird sound. At least one of us was getting the baseball player we wanted.
“I will. And you should think about coming to New York and working with me. ’K-thanks-bye,” she said really fast before ending the call, knowing that if she stayed on the line, I’d argue with her about it.
Danika had mentioned a couple times since she’d started the new division in her dad’s company that she was going to need help eventually and that I’d be perfect for it, but it always made me nervous whenever I tried to work through the logistics in my head. I knew absolutely nothing about real estate, and I’d never even been to New York before.
How could she even think that I’d be good at matching high-end clients with properties when I knew nothing about any of it? I had to admit that it sounded exciting, and Danika had never been happier, but I thought that had more to do with Chance than anything else. Don’t tell her I said that.
*
After showering and washing my hair, I decided to run to the campus bookstore and pick up some things. It was hot out, and even though I was in cutoff shorts and a crop top, I still felt the beads of sweat starting to form. I reached for my long blonde hair and twisted it around my fist before tying it into a knot on top of my head.
Campus was pretty crowded for a Sunday with people milling around all over the place, staring down at their phones and almost walking into things. I couldn’t remember a time when we didn’t have cell phones, but my parents did, and they talked about it a lot. They made it sound so appealing and freeing, not having a phone attached to you twenty-four hours a day. But the idea of turning mine off for said freedom gave me this weird level of anxiety instead. It made me feel unsafe and uncomfortable to be so disconnected.
As I approached the two-story stucco building with a Get Your Books Here banner hanging from it, I noticed a We’re Hiring flyer underneath some Plexiglas by the doors. They were looking for part-time help, and I briefly considered applying before hearing my parents’ voices in my head once again.
“You have the rest of your life to work. Don’t start now.”
They had both emphasized my not working while I was a full-time student, insisting that once I started, I’d never stop. It wasn’t like I’d never had