Daydream (Maple Hills, #3)(16)
“Huh?”
Kaia laughs and nods in the direction of Mason across the room talking to someone else. “Toxic men. Do you like them? Is your life being ruined by a fuck boy something that you want to experience in college?”
It isn’t something I’ve ever had to consider. “Uh, I don’t think so. No, no I don’t want anyone toxic. Why?”
Cami’s thumb taps the screen to delete the number and hands me back my phone. “Then I just saved your life. One of the housekeepers at the hotel has a sister who dated him, and let’s just say he isn’t for the weak hearted.”
Of course I picked out the guy in a room full of guys who is likely to ruin my life. Not that I would have called him, but it’s good to know that my natural instinct for self-preservation is zero. “Thank you?”
“You are so welcome!” Cami says happily.
I take another huge sip and Poppy wraps her arm around my shoulders. “This is why I don’t date men.”
“And this is why I hate them,” Kaia adds, sighing dramatically. “But I do date them… unfortunately. It’s my main character flaw, but nobody is perfect.”
I don’t know whether it’s the buzz from the drinks or the high from being surrounded by fun people who seem to be genuinely happy I’m here, but my brain doesn’t stop me when Henry walks toward the stairs alone in my line of vision. “What do you think of that guy?”
“Who?” Poppy asks. “Henry Turner?”
Oh crap. “Do you guys know everyone?”
They all look into their cups. Cami is the first person to break. “I don’t know him, know him. But I know of him. And his reputation. A very positive one, nothing like Mason, but well earned if rumors are to be believed. He’s… popular on campus. With women.”
“I think he’s nice,” Ava says, interrupting Cami. “I had a class with him last year. He’s quiet. Sweet.”
“I think he’s hot,” Kaia says. “Like really, unreasonably hot.”
“My friend is dating his roommate, Russ. Do you want me to find out about him?” Poppy asks.
It’s in that moment that I realize how entangled the Maple Hills web is. I don’t mention to Poppy that I know Aurora, too, or that Henry was talking to someone earlier anyway. I just down the rest of my drink and put the cup on the counter. “What’s my next quest?”
Chapter Five HENRY
WHEN ANASTASIA USED A BASKETBALL party last night to back me into a corner and tell me she was going to come around today to make sure I study and stay on track academically, I thought she was kidding.
I thought it was weird when she showed up to the party, particularly because I was there to avoid her coming over to try to help me. The woman doesn’t know how to accept the word no.
But as I listen to her sigh for the twelfth time, while not breaking her typing speed, I realize she wasn’t kidding, and I’m somehow in a study group with the least productive people I know. “It’s not a valid source, Kris,” she says when her long sigh ends.
Kris is still spinning his pen around his finger, like he has been for ten minutes. “What do you mean it isn’t a valid source? It’s Wikipedia. It’s the source.”
Anastasia finally takes her eyes off her laptop to glare at him across the dining room table. “Stop being antagonizing or I’m banishing you from study group. You freaking know it isn’t a source, Kris. You’ve been writing essays for as long as I have. Work or leave. They’re your options.”
I wish she’d banish me from study group. I love her; she’s my best friend, but she doesn’t understand that forcing me to try to do something makes me not want to do it. Plus, she’d have to banish my teammates from far more than study group for them to stop antagonizing me.
“You’re grumpy today, Allen,” Mattie says, probably not as carefully as I would have given the scowl on her face. “You need a hug?”
She looks down at her laptop again, shaking her head. “Not from you. Just study, okay? I need to head to the rink in literally two minutes and I only have two more paragraphs to write.”
The guys look to me like somehow I’ll know what’s wrong with her. I want to ask her if she means a hug from me, because it’s not really something we do, so I’m not sure what the signs are. Before I can speak, Russ nudges me with his foot and my cell phone lights up on the table beside my textbook.
RUSS
She misses Nate.
I miss Nate, too. Definitely not in the way she misses him, but it’s been an adjustment without Nate, JJ, and Joe around. I’m grateful that she’d find time for me in her busy schedule, but maybe she needs to study with me more than I need to study with her.
I was going to tell her this isn’t helpful to me, but now I don’t think I will, because I don’t want to upset her. Anastasia cries a lot, and usually Nate would handle it, but I already took over the captaincy from him. I don’t have the energy to be someone’s pseudo-boyfriend as well, no matter how much I like them.
There’s an unusual silence in the den as we all sit around the dining room table, mostly pretending to work. Even though he’s angled his laptop away from me, I can still see that Bobby is playing Tetris. Russ’s cell phone starts vibrating against the table, and he immediately looks embarrassed when the guys start booing him.