The Switch Hitter (GxG)

Chapter 7

I sat at the kitchen table with my books spread around Sunday night, trying to finish my homework. After a rocky start, grade-wise, I knew I needed to start putting in some effort if I wanted to make the team and stay on it. So I'd spent the entire weekend doing all the homework I had skipped out on earlier in the year. But I had an ulterior motive for my new focused attitude.

I had been avoiding talking to Alyssa all weekend.

I knew she didn't have my number, so she couldn't just text me, and that she was probably waiting for me to text her. But there was no way I was starting this conversation. I didn't even want to have it. 

Shaking my head, I turned my attention back to my European History homework. But I couldn't think about World War I and its causes. My mind kept traveling back to Friday's party, back to Alyssa's kitchen, where Ari and I had been alone. And later, where Alyssa had dropped the news on me.

Ari was straight.

It didn't matter if I was attracted to her, because she would never reciprocate. I couldn't expect her to. And I wasn't one of those lesbians who thought they could "turn straight girls" either. Yet, in the back of my mind, I kept running over all of our encounters. On the field the first time, where her eyes had lingered a little too long; at the party, talking about how she loved my eyes; in the locker room, two inches away from each other, the tension so thick I could hardly breathe.

So I had no idea what to think. Did she feel the same way? Did she think about me like I thought about her? Or did she know how I thought about her, and she was just leading me on? I shuddered at the thought. Even if she wasn't attracted to me, finding out that somebody was straight couldn't just get rid of feelings--

Whoa there, slow your roll Soph. Feelings? There was no way. I, Soph Miller, breaker of hearts and practically inventor of one night stands, didn't catch feelings. They only got in the way.

How would you know? said the voice in my head that I wished I could get removed. You've never felt this way about a girl before.

I angrily slammed my pencil down. Anna looked up from the couch in the living room, a glass of red wine in her hand. "Frustrated?" she said.

I nodded. "I just can't focus."

"Understandable," she said, looking back down to the book she was reading, "you should take a break."

Shaking my head, I replied, "I can't. I have to get this all done for tomorrow."

"Do you have to?" she asked, eyeing me conspiratorially. 

I was shocked. "Since when are you the one telling me I don't have to do something."

She winked at me. "Since when are you the one trying to do all your work?"

"I'm trying to not get my ass kicked off the team in the future." I pointed at her wine glass. "How many of those have you had tonight?"

"One or two," she said, but she didn't meet my eyes. I grabbed the bottle next to her, which she had opened tonight. "Holy shit Anna it's almost empty," I said, laughing a little.

"Oops." She hiccuped. "I may be a little tipsy."

I rolled my eyes. "Such a lightweight."

"Compared to you, maybe." She drained the rest of her glass in one swallow and reached for the bottle, but I pulled it away from her. "No more for you. You've got to work tomorrow."

She gave me a weird look. "Since when are you so responsible?" she asked.

"I'm not," I said, "I just know you'll make my life living hell tomorrow if you're hungover. Now you need to get to bed."