Present Day (Chapter Thirteen) Tuesday

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Tucker

Liandra stared at me from her side of the room.  She'd been watching me since I'd come home from my last class.  I could feel her eyes on me, and I made a concentrated effort to ignore her.  My day had been long, and fraught with clever, teasing texts from Joey that were driving me crazy.  I was so unused to getting interruptive messages that I left my phone on during a class.  It chimed loudly during a lecture, and I'd had the humiliating experience of every eye in the room turned my way.  I was tired, I was worked up, and I didn't feel like talking about it, even with my roommate.

But when she sighed loudly for about the eighth time in a row, I finally gave in and looked up from the book I was reading for my biology class.  I scowled at her.

"What?" I said.

"You can still change your mind about it," she replied.

"About what?"

"Taking Joey to the fundraiser!"

"Aren't you the same girl who told me last night to give him whatever he wanted?"

"It was the middle of the night. I didn't know what I was saying. And that was before I knew that he was Trans U's resident playboy."

"Have you seen the guy? Of course he's a playboy. Besides that, I am the one who told you about his bad habits." 

"I know. But…"

"But what?" I narrowed my eyes at her. "Who have you been talking to? So help me, if you've been spreading rumours about me and Joey Fox…"

She waved off my frantic expression. "I mentioned him in passing to a girl I sit with in Poetry. She just happened to have spent the night with him once."

"So?" I said, pretending that it didn't irk me a little bit to picture him in the arms of some co-ed.

"It was just weird. The way she talked about him like he'd ruined her life. In one night. She was royally pissed about whatever happened," Liandra told me.

"Tell me about the girl," I said.

"Huh?"

"Was she pretty? Smart? Young?" 

Liandra frowned. "Petite with big boobs and a designer purse. Probably not stupid, but pretends to be a little. Dramatic. Why?"

"Do I seem anything like that girl?"

"Of course not."

"So why would I spend the night with him and let it ruin my life?" 

"I'm seriously not sure why you would. I'm more concerned about if you would," she replied. "We've living together for a year, Tucker, and I've never seen you so much as look at a guy. This makes me nervous."

"I'm not looking at him, either. I'm using him for his manly physique. He's going to wait tables, lift heavy stuff, then go home. Like a good friend. Who is a boy," I joked.

My roommate was still frowning. "When you moved here, you were in rough shape. What Mark did to you…Do you want to go through that again?"

That wasn't just about Mark, I wanted to argue, but the look on Liandra's face made me swallow the words.

"No, never," I said softly instead.

"Do you want me to come with you to the fundraiser and act as a buffer?" she offered.

I shook my head. "I know you've got tickets to your nephew's school show. I'd rather take my chances with Joey than risk incurring your eternal resentment."

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