Play No More (Player Next Door sequel) ✓

07 | Wrong Romeo

Chapter 07:  Wrong Romeo

For a while, I had forgotten about Jake. He went to NYC for a week and... a lot has happened since then.

He looked even better than I remembered though. Fresh faced with his scruffy hair and tattoos. His finger drummed against the desk absentmindedly and it drew my attention to his open notebook.

Lyrics were written across the page in beautiful handwriting. Jake was a songwriter and I blushed as I remembered the song he'd written about me:

She don't realize
How those eyes hypnotize
And those lips never tell lies

It's funny really, because Luke usually calls my eyes demonic. Except this weekend, when he called them beautiful.

"Nothing changes around here, does it?" Jake mumbled to me in a quiet voice, as the teacher droned on.

Well, Luke and I started seeing each other.
I found out that Julia slept with my ex while we were still together.
And I tried to get the police to stop my blackmailer.

"Yeah," I agreed, "Nothing changes."

Ms. Hathaway asked us to turn to Act IV in the play we were reading. He'd forgotten his copy again. I tried not to overthink it when he moved his chair closer to mine so we could share. I also hoped he didn't notice the ketchup stain on the bottom left page.

That ketchup was meant to go on my crispy fries last night. I'd create 100 ketchup stains to relive those fries right now – but I digress.

Someone from the class was reading out an excerpt from Taming of the Shrew in a super dramatic way. It made many laugh.

"So, uh... you never answered my question," Jake whispered under the laughter.

We were sitting closer now, and his whisper was perfectly clear in my ears.

"Luke and I went on a date this weekend," I said, "And it went well."

His eyes remained glued to the page. He said, "I hadn't heard."

"Luke didn't mention it?"

That shady-

I couldn't hear any emotion in Jake's voice. But I could see he was disappointed. He was a better singer than he was an actor.

"What?" Jake asked me.

"Luke didn't mention it?" I repeated.

What's Luke playing at? They were brothers.

"We aren't exactly on speaking terms."

The teacher began to walk through the classroom and we immediately went silent. Last thing we wanted was to be picked on to answer a question we clearly hadn't been paying attention to.

I slid my phone under my notebook.

"Then my text to you was bad timing, huh?" he said, appearing to focus on the play while Mrs Hathaway passed by.

I blushed. Oh, the text when you said you wouldn't give up and wanted to change my mind?

"It wasn't ideal," I said, "But Luke and I are v-"

"Alright, you two lovebirds!" Mrs Hathaway popped up behind us, catching us mid-speech, "Since you're so chatty, why don't you read out the next scene together?"

Why does she have to do me like this?

The next scene was Act IV, end of Part I – Petruchio's declaration of love.