Chapter 23
Flirty Texts
CHARLOTTE
Weeks had flown by since my first date with TJ, and life had been a whirlwind. I’d been dedicating most of my free time to practicing with the guys, as the tournament was now just two weeks away. This meant I’d be flying out in a little over a week.
The time I’d been investing in practice had eaten into the time I could have spent with TJ, which had left me feeling a bit down. We hadn’t had any more official dates, but I’d visited his house a few times just to hang out. Each of those visits ended with us making out, which I was more than okay with.
However, in the past week or two, he had seemed somewhat distant. We still hadn’t exchanged numbers, but whenever I texted Tracy, she always told me he was swamped and couldn’t chat. I wasn’t sure what was happening, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that he was pulling away. If he was genuinely busy, why hadn’t he just told me? I was left feeling confused.
I had practice with the guys until six, but I was heading over to Tracy’s afterward for a sleepover. I was hoping TJ would be around so we could talk—I missed him terribly.
Despite my longing to see him, I was genuinely going over for Tracy. I hadn’t been able to spend much time with her recently, either. But before I headed over there, I needed to wrap up practice. It was crunch time, so we were exclusively doing tournament-style PVP now.
“All right, guys, we’re going to play this next round using strategy epsilon,” Jup announced.
“Which one is epsilon again?” Plut asked, sounding confused.
“Dude, you have to memorize the names. You’re running out of time,”
Nep grumbled.
“Sorry,” Plut mumbled.
“Epsilon is the strategy designed to counteract the number one team’s tactic where they appear to attack head-on, but really that’s a distraction— and the main force attacks from behind,” I explained.
“Huh? I’m still lost,” was all Plut said.
“It’s the strategy I texted when you replied back that I was cock- blocking you and to stop texting so you could get some,” I responded.
“Oh, okay, strategy Sheila,” Plut replied with recognition.
“Sheila?” I asked.
“That’s the name of the girl I was trying to get with at the time. She was smokin’ hot and good in the sack,” he said.
“Gross, don’t be Nep,” I told him.
“If we’re renaming that one, can we change omega to Clara? She sure was a screamer, and it was so freakin’ hot,” Nep said.
“Guys, we are not renaming our strategies for girls you were getting with at the time I sent them!” I replied exasperatedly.
“Oh really? But I wanted to change zeta to…” Jup started.
“Don’t say it; I don’t want to know,” I quickly interrupted, making him laugh.
“All right, fine, Mars is being a party pooper. Let’s just play, guys. We
are using strategy epsilon,” Jup said.
“Sheila, got it.”
“PLUTO!” I yelled.
“Haha, you got your full name used!” Nep laughed.
“Mom and Dad are so mean sometimes, huh, Nep?” Plut complained like a whiny kid.
“I claim Dad; you can be Mom, Mars,” Jup said quickly.
“So, you two really are lovers!” Nep exclaimed.
“Maybe we divorced, and we have joint custody?” I suggested.
“Mommy, don’t break up with Daddy! We won’t function well with a broken home!” Nep said.
“Okay, enough, guys—back to the game,” Jup said with a sigh.
We then proceeded to play the match using the designated strategy. It was a little difficult since the strategy didn’t fit the team we were playing against, but they weren’t ranked, so our skills allowed us to win even with a poorly matched strategy.
While we were playing, I started thinking about Nep’s statement earlier and decided I would ask Jup away from the others.
Mars Hey lover, quick question
Jupiter Ignoring that…what’s up
Mars Do guys really like a girl that screams?
Jupiter I guess it depends, but it does make the guy feel like he is doing a good job.
Mars Really?
Jupiter Yeah, I mean, I know I wouldn’t mind hearing my girl scream my name in pleasure someday
Mars Wow, not sure what to do with that info…
With that, I put the phone down and went back to our game. I wasn’t sure I wanted to picture Jup with some girl screaming his name, especially since I was still not sure about my feelings for him. I knew my feelings for TJ were getting stronger every day. Maybe I just needed to give up on the waiting and give one hundred percent to TJ. He deserved it, and he made me happy. Jup didn’t even know my gender.
I diverted my attention back to the game to distract myself from my confusing love life. We continued to practice different strategies until each of us could perform them flawlessly, then Jup finally said that we could be done for the day.
He was my best friend, but man, he was strict sometimes. Luckily, we finished by five, so it gave me almost an hour to work on my homework
before I needed to head to Tracy’s. I quickly opened my chemistry book and started going through the questions. We had a test next week, but I was pretty well prepared, so I just did the homework.
By the time I needed to head to Tracy’s, I had finished all of my chemistry and calculus homework. Tomorrow I’d find time to finish my history assignment, since that was all I had left to do.
· · ·
“Hey, Charlotte,” Tracy greeted me cheerfully at the door.
“Hi,” I replied with a smile, stepping inside.
“Before you ask, he’s not home. He just left about five minutes ago,”
Tracy said as we walked up to her room.
“Oh, I guess he didn’t know I was coming over,” I said, a hint of sadness in my voice.
“Well, he knew, but he said he already had plans he couldn’t break,” she replied.
“Oh, that’s okay. I’m here to see you after all,” I replied, trying to sound cheerful.
I wondered why he had left. What was so important that he couldn’t stay and see me? Was he avoiding me? Was he seeing someone else?
Clearly, I wasn’t doing a good job of hiding my emotions.
“Don’t worry about it. He just has a lot going on right now. It’ll be
okay,” Tracy told me.
“Come on, makeover time!”
Much like the first time I was over here, Tracy decided to treat me like a doll and put lots of weird stuff on my face. She started by smearing on a black mask. We played Hearts while we waited for the mask to harden.
Once it was done, she told me to go to the bathroom and peel it off, then wash off any that was left. It took me longer to get the stupid thing off than it had taken her to put it on.
When I walked back into the room, she had an odd look on her face, but I didn’t really think anything of it. She then put this greenish goo on my face, and we went back to our game while I waited for it to do whatever it needed to do. I asked her if she wanted gunk on her face, and she just
laughed and said no. When that was done, I walked to the bathroom to wash it off.
As soon as I got back to Tracy’s room, she told me I had received a new text while I was gone. I picked my phone up off her bed and went to look at
it.
Jupiter Did my talk of moaning in pleasure scare you away?
Mars I just don’t want to know what you do in your private time. I’m not a voyeur
I just chuckled and shook my head, then put my phone back down. I noticed Tracy was giving me that same odd look.
“Was that from him?” she asked.
“My friend? Yeah, he’s a dork sometimes.”
“Ya know, if you’ve decided between them, you really should tell TJ so he can stop torturing himself,” she told me with a small smile.
“Yeah, I know, I need to talk to him next time I see him.” I guessed I was more obvious than I realized if Tracy could tell I had basically decided on TJ.
I didn’t see that it was worth waiting until after spring break. I was crazy about him, and it physically hurt when I wasn’t around him. I thought I might actually be in love with him, so I needed to let him know.
Jup was a friend, a great friend, but he wasn’t TJ.
After Tracy was finished playing with my skin, I convinced her to let me paint her nails. I was a little uncomfortable having all of the work done on me, so I wanted to do some on her. I found a dark purple color and painted her fingers and toes. Once that was done, I took a lime color and painted little flowers on the purple. She seemed to like it a lot. When she asked to paint mine, I requested black with red flames on it.
“Why?” she asked.
“No reason,” I said, but I wanted something that symbolized Mars at the tournament.
When we finished our nails, we decided to watch a movie before going to sleep. I woke up at eleven and snuck down the hall to the bathroom.
Afterward, I went downstairs to see if maybe TJ was up, but the lights were
all off and no one was around. I wondered if he was asleep, or maybe he hadn’t come home yet.
I wasn’t sure if he was out at a party or on a date with another girl—or what.
Frankly, it bothered me, and I wished for once that I had his number. It was about time we exchanged them.
The next morning, I woke up and had to head home before I was able to see TJ. I wondered where he was. I missed him.
