The Girlfriend [discontinued]

IV. "Etiquette around a**holes."

IV. "Etiquette around a**holes." 

As suspected, Riley shits bricks and then some when I fill her in on my evening after I get dropped off back at the dorm, escorted by one of the Muscle Men, my now-cold pizza in tow. Only, she doesn't exactly freak for the reasons I was expecting. 

"Holy crap! Winnie, this is perfect! You can get access to all sorts of secret information!" she exclaims, almost bouncing on the bed in her excitement. 

"Like what?" I question doubtfully, eyebrow raised. I take a bite of my pizza, chewing on it slowly. Yeah, I'm actually not too keen on cold pizza right now. 

"I don't know, secret government stuff. Something I can threaten the Prime Minister with when I finish school so that he'll give me a job in Parliament or something," she shrugs. The scary part is, she's only half joking. 

"Riley," I groan in frustration. "We're not actually dating. I'm not just going to gain access to some top-secret government files overnight. Or any other time, for that matter. Besides, why would I give you power like that? When you take over the world, you'll probably make me your personal slave to pay me back for how many times I've kicked your little toys out of the dorm. Especially when they're on my bed." 

She rolls her eyes in exasperation, but still smirks. "Well, of course. But I promise I'll only make you rub my feet twice a day," she jokes. 

"Once," I compromise, deadpan. "You let me sleep in my bed the other night without changing the sheets." 

I manage to keep my face straight for all of three seconds before we both burst into laughter. 

"You really need to get over that. It's not like you haven't done it before; you just didn't know," she teases, grinning. And - 

"What?!" 

She only rolls her eyes and reaches for another slice of pizza. Well. If I wasn't too keen on my piece before, I'm definitely not now. 

I slowly put my half-eaten slice back on the lid of the open pizza box, scowling at Riley. 

"You are a horrible person," I inform her seriously. 

She shrugs. "It depends on how you define horrible. I think I can think of a few guys who would beg to differ." 

Yeah, no, definitely not helping with the appetite issue. 

"They just don't know you well enough. I'm going to get ready for bed." I duck into the bathroom before she has a chance to paint even more mental images in my mind. 

It's just my luck that the one morning of the week, not including the weekend, when I don't have a morning class and get a chance to sleep in, my phone starts ringing, startling me awake. 

I just lie there for a while, glaring at it sitting on my bedside table. It stops, and I breathe a small sigh of relief, about to roll back over to hopefully get back to sleep. Of course, I don't get the chance; my phone resumes its ringing, and I briefly wonder why I didn't turn it off before I went to sleep, but then I remember - oh yeah, that's right, I didn't because I was too busy trying to escape the terror that is my roommate, who appears to have already left for her classes. 

"Hello?" I grumble into my phone, shoving it to my ear without bothering to check the caller I.D. 

"Winter James, learn to answer your phone! I've been ringing for ten minutes now," my mum scolds through the other end of the line. I pull my phone away from my ear to check the screen and, sure enough, find that I have five missed calls, along with a handful of texts, presumably all from my mum.