my mind whispered.
“Fuck,” I muttered, slamming my phone on the counter.
A loud crunching caught my attention and I looked up. Cooper eyed me over a bag of potato chips. “Bad day?”
“Bad week.”
He nodded, tipping the bag toward me. “Chip?”
I sighed. “Why the fuck not?” Reaching in, I grabbed a handful of greasy Lays potato chips and then turned to the fridge to grab a beer. I reached for my wallet, but Cooper stepped forward, dropping a couple of bucks into our expense jar.
“I got it, man. You look like you could use a drink.”
The frat house dues only paid for so much, and with a bunch of college guys, food and beer could disappear overnight, so we all chipped in whenever we ate or drank. It was the only way to manage the expenses and keep the house stocked. We also kept a schedule of household chores. Not all the brothers lived in the house; it wasn’t big enough. But they all contributed to cleaning and maintaining the property.
“You seen Jonas?” I asked.
If Benji was so sure he was the secret admirer, it was only a matter of time before something happened. I had to either come clean with Benji or make damn sure that Jonas had good intentions. I didn’t know if I could stomach standing by, watching someone else date Benji, but I sure as hell couldn’t stand by and let Benji be used. That just wasn’t happening.
I’d confess everything, consequences be damned, if that’s what it took. But first, I needed to talk to Jonas, feel out the situation, and come up with a plan.
“He went out,” Cooper said with a shrug.
“Out?” I said sharply. “Like a date?”
I glanced back at my phone. Could it be that Benji wasn’t ghosting me but had better plans with a certain gay frat boy? I hoped I wasn’t too late.
“Nah,” Cooper said. “He was meeting up with that Frisbee golf league. Wanted me to go along.”
My heart rate slowed, and I breathed out. “Oh, right, yeah. Forgot he was into that.”
“Something up with you guys?”
“Hmm? No. Nope.” I didn’t sound suspicious at all. Luckily Cooper just wasn’t that curious of a guy. He wandered to the sofa, bag of chips in hand, and I followed because wallowing with junk food suited my mood. Tipping back my beer, I took a long swallow of bitter brew and tried to get my brain to stop its chaotic swirling.
Get it together, Ace. This isn’t like you.
I’d never felt so twisted up, turned inside-out by a person before. Benji was just a guy. Just … a pretty, green-eyed, sweet, innocent guy.
All the more reason to stay away.
But how to convince Jonas to do the same?
Benji
“Wait, how did you get that answer?”
“Um, let’s see…” Tracy turned her notebook toward me. “I multiplied these two numbers, then I did this operation first because of the parentheses, and … oh, wait, did I do that operation first? I did. Yeah. Didn’t I?”
“This is like the blind leading the blind.”
Tracy huffed. “I got a B on my last algebra quiz. What did you get?”
“C-minus,” I grumbled.
We were in different classes, with different books, but we were working on similar lessons. I thought. Math all looked Greek to me, and Tracy was not the Greek god that Ace was. Gorgeous and great at math … how was it even possible? He was defying the natural order of the universe.
I should be meeting him at the library right now, getting clarity, at least on how to perform algebraic operations. Instead I was with Tracy, getting confused enough I was starting to lose confidence in what I thought I knew.
“So just the partially blind leading the blind, then.”
Tracy laugh and smacked my arm. “You’re the one who wanted to work together.”
“Yeah, I know, sorry.” I shook my head. “I hate math sooooo much.”
She snickered. “Never would have guessed.”
I sighed, glancing down at my phone. Guilt knotted up my stomach. It was dumb to avoid Ace. He’d been my lifeline since I arrived on campus, but I just couldn’t face him.
Not until I found a way to get over my crush.
I should just text Jonas, find a way to ask him out.
“Can I ask you a question not related to math?”
Tracy looked up from her notebook, covered in equations in pink and turquoise pen. It was like math meeting up with the movie Clueless. Her professor must love her work. At least it was a break from the pencil chicken scratching and