chapter five

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The first night of the spring semester isn't spent in its typical fashion.

Nia, who would usually drag me out to a bar to get drunk off tequila shots and vodka cranberry to celebrate our last semester, is currently lounging right next to me on the couch. She's three episodes deep into the serial killer documentary series she's been binging, all the while stealing more than her fair share of the knit blanket we're sharing. She has a water bottle the size of my forearm cradled in her arms, and her short black hair is pulled back into a haphazard bun on the top of her head while a red headband attempts to keep the mane of flyaways at bay. Somehow, she still looks more attractive than anyone recovering from a nasty bout of food poisoning should ever be allowed to look. Sliding down further on the couch, she opts to use my shoulder as a pillow rather than one of the fifteen different decorative pillows we have piled around us.

Nia is a touchy person. She's always pulling us in for hugs, playing with our hair, or smacking our butts when we walk by. It's something I've grown used to in the three years of us living together, but sick Nia is a whole new level of cuddly. I don't mind, though. Aside from the fact that Nia is one of my favorite people on the planet, she's also like a little heater who generates more body heat than anyone else I've ever met, which is something that comes in handy in the early months here in Washington.

"Find anything new?" Her voice is still a little hoarse, and she takes a long sip of her water bottle to soothe her throat. She's watching me scroll through the scholarship website, and I groan in response, clicking from one link to another, rereading the same posts I've already looked at a hundred times.

As much as I'd like to toss my laptop aside and just relax on the couch, the voice in the back of my head telling me I'm running out of time to find a scholarship just keeps getting louder.

"It's all the same." I sigh.

The site hasn't been updated for a few days, and I'm starting to worry this is all I will have to choose from. Finding a scholarship is Plan A. Taking a few years off to work and save up enough money to pay for classes is Plan B. Throwing my inhibitions to the wind and becoming a stripper is Plan C. And taking out even more student loans is Plan D.

At this point, Plan C is looking mighty fine.

I'm not against student loans, and if I weren't already nearly forty-thousand deep in them, I wouldn't have a problem taking out more. But at this point, I'm already going to struggle to pay them back, and I don't even want to know how much more it will cost to finish my entire graduate degree.

The logical question to ask myself is whether or not graduate school is even a realistic option. If I have to take out more loans to pay for it, is it even worth it? Sure, going to graduate school is the only chance I'll have of securing a competitive job in the journalism field, but if I'm being honest here, I don't even know what kind of journalism I want to specialize in. Political? Entertainment? Investigative? Freelance? Column? Feature? Hell, even travel journalism is on the table at this point.

I've stuck to the typical articles since joining the university's newspaper freshman year, writing about the school's new additions, the different student-run concerts, and plays, and even a few feature articles on students who were recognized for their academic achievements. While they were all fun to write, none of them caught my attention enough for me to think, hey, I should keep writing stuff like this.

That's what I've been hoping grad school would help me with—finding my niche.

I refresh the website to keep myself from falling too far into the should-I-go or shouldn't-I-go rabbit hole and sigh in frustration when the only scholarship designated for journalism students stares back at me on my screen. I bite the inside of my cheek as I click it for the hundredth time and read through the description.

USA Sports Network offers competitive sports journalism scholarships in hopes of finding and fueling the next generation of sports enthusiasts with a passion for writing and broadcasting. Here at USASN, we strive to foster the same passion and enthusiasm for journalism in our employees as we see in the players we interview.

The rules for the scholarship are simple—show us who you are as a journalist. Write a piece that speaks to us and the millions of fans who read USASN every day. The possibilities are endless, and we encourage you to leave it all on the court—or the page—in this case. Submit your article to [email protected] by February 22nd at midnight to be considered.

The reward for the scholarship winner is more money than all the other scholarships I've seen so far. It would be enough to pay for my entire first semester, no matter which school I choose—room and board, textbooks, and classes. I reread the description again.

"Has it covered Bundy yet?" Jenny pads across the living room from the hallway with her hair wrapped up in a towel and a charcoal mask painted onto her face. Her plaid pajama shorts and matching short-sleeve button-up top are comical compared to my hoodie and sweatpants, but then again, she grew up in the Northeast, and I grew up in Florida, where it barely ever drops below the seventies. She falls onto the cushion beside Nia and pulls her legs under her, her eyes instantly glued to the TV mounted above the fireplace.

"Not yet. I think he's next," I say, readjusting the blanket so all three of us can fit under it.

I close my laptop and toss it onto the cushion beside me, giving in to the lure of the docuseries until the small ding of my phone pulls my attention away. I glance down at the screen for a second and then focus back on the TV before my mind fully registers the notification. My eyes dart back down, and I stare at my phone in disbelief as I reread the notification.

Tristan Beck's follow request is staring back at me, and I have to blink a few times before I'm convinced that I'm not seeing things.

What the hell?

I click on his page, and the blue verified checkmark takes me by surprise.

A verified check and almost two million followers.

I swipe out of his account and click back to make sure I'm seeing it correctly.

I scroll through his feed quickly to see a few selfies, some pictures of him and his teammates on an airplane as they travel to away games, and a bunch of action shots of him playing in different games—which I can differentiate by the changing jerseys of his opponents in each picture.

"Earth to Abby." Nia's voice registers, but I look up a second too late to dodge the pillow that makes contact with the side of my face. I look over to see both of them staring at me expectantly.

"What?"

"What are you looking at? Your eyes are popping out of your head," Jenny says, sitting up straighter. They have the TV paused, and my cheeks flood as I click the lock button on my phone. When the locking sound echoes through the room, both of them narrow their eyes at me.

"Just on Instagram." I shrug, turning back to the TV, hoping they won't pry. I don't know why I feel like I just got caught looking at porn, but my face burns as they both eye me skeptically.

Nia purses her lips and raises a perfectly sculpted brow. I can feel her stare boring into my soul as if she's trying to read my mind, and I sigh, knowing there's no use in trying to hide anything from them. When I toss my phone to Nia, she quickly types in my passcode. Her eyes go wide, and her mouth drops open as her thumb scrolls through the feed, and when Jenny leans over to get a look, her eyes dart up to meet mine as an excited smile pulls at her lips.

"Tristan Beck followed you?" she squeals, trying to take the phone out of Nia's hand, but Nia dodges her and holds it out of her reach as she scrolls through his feed, clicking on one of his more impressive photos. He's in a gym, and the way he's holding the camera gives a great view of his sculpted abs in that, I'm not trying to show off my body, but I kind of am way.

"Don't like anything," I yell frantically, lunging for the phone, but as Nia leans away from me, Jenny grabs the phone and pops up, walking back until her legs hit the other side of the couch. She's scrolling through his feed now as Nia and I watch her expectantly.

"He's only following like a hundred people. That means something, Abs."

"I don't think it does," I counter, standing up and detangling myself from the blanket. "We have a class together this semester. We're lab partners in chem," I say, trying to make sense of it, but the rush of excitement is pulsing through my veins, and part of me wants to take my phone and run into my room to stare at his shirtless pictures all night.

"Yeah, I'm sure Beck follows all of his lab partners." Nia snorts as she rolls her eyes.

"Oh, look at this." Jenny grins, walking back and leaning over so we can both see as she points to a picture of Beck with two girls at a beach. His abs and arms are on full display as he grins at the person taking the picture. Jenny clicks on the post, and the two tagged girls' usernames pop up. I try to ignore the immediate rush of relief when their handles come up LivBeck and MelodyBeckBrookes. Looking back at the girls, I can easily see the family resemblance—the same deeply tanned olive skin, brown curly hair, and all-around gorgeous genetics.

She clicks out of the picture and scrolls back up to the top and onto the following tab. As she flicks through the short list, I realize it's made up entirely of his teammates, a few people who share his last name, and the rest are all verified, which leads me to believe that they're NBA players or fellow draftee candidates. Not a single girl who doesn't share his last name is on there.

"How does he have almost two million followers?" Nia gapes.

"How is he verified?" Jenny adds.

"He's a projected first-round pick," I say, suddenly making sense of it. "All the players projected to be drafted in the first round are verified."

I've edited a few articles for the university's newspaper about his projected draft pick, and I've watched more than enough NBA Drafts with my dad and brothers when I was younger to know what it takes to be drafted in the top five of the first round. He's got it.

"He's going to the NBA?" Jenny balks.

"I mean, it's not set in stone or anything. He still has to be drafted," I explain.

"Okay, you're accepting it," Nia decides, grabbing the phone from Jenny. I watch in horror as she clicks out of his following tab and presses the accept button on his request.

"Nia," I scream, lunging for my phone, but Jenny grabs for it before I can, and she backs away again.

"You were just saying the other night how you need a fuck buddy. Who better to fuck around with than Beck?" Jenny grins as my face instantly turns a deep red.

I glance at Nia, whose jaw drops as she stares at me like I just grew three heads.

Why is everyone bringing this up?

"Abby?" She looks at Jenny for confirmation as she points at me. "Abby Ryan, my sweet, innocent, cinnamon roll of a best friend who blushes at the mere thought of sex, said she wanted a fuck buddy?" she asks incredulously.

"No," I correct. "Well, yes, I said that, but I was joking." I stop when I fully digest her comment. "And I'm not that innocent. You know I'm not a virgin. I slept with Tyler."

"You had PG-13 vanilla sex with Tyler." Nia rolls her eyes.

"Sex is sex." I cross my arms across my chest, but even as I say it, I know that I'm lying.

Sex with Tyler was...well...it was sex. It hurt the first couple of times, and then it didn't, and then it felt kind of good. We were both virgins, so neither of us really knew what we were doing, and I was always across the country, so we didn't have a ton of opportunity to actually do it, but when we did, it was...nice. But it wasn't like anything I've seen on TV or read in the smutty books I always brought home from the library and hid from my parents and brothers under my bed.

"Sex is not sex, my naïve little grasshopper." Nia smirks, motioning for me to sit down. I put my hand out for my phone, and Jenny begrudgingly hands it over as she falls beside Nia on the couch. I follow suit and look down at Tristan's page again, scrolling through to make sure they haven't liked anything on accident—or on purpose.

"How would you rate your sex with Tyler?" Nia asks seriously, watching me curiously as I pull the blanket around me again as if it could somehow shield me from this conversation. My face flames again as my eyes flick between hers and Jenny's.

"I don't know." I shrug.

How do you translate nice into a number?

"Well, there are factors to consider." Nia sits back on the couch and pulls her legs under her, grabbing her water bottle again. "You have to take into account foreplay—oral always adds bonus points," she explains, ticking them off on her finger.

"If he knows how to find your G-spot." Jenny snorts.

"True." Nia laughs. "And how often he made you orgasm."

I feel like I'm on fire, sitting here burning to a crisp in front of my two best friends who are staring at me expectantly, waiting for me to explain the details of my sex life, which I now realize was extremely PG-13.

I was always so particular about our times together. The lights were always off, we were under the covers, and the one time he offered to go down on me, I ended up chickening out. Most of our sexual experiences were spent silently in the missionary position and lasted all of two minutes. And if I'm being completely honest, I don't know if I've ever had an orgasm. The sex felt good, but he was always finished before I really got into the rhythm of it, and I wasn't exactly going to ask him to keep going after he already climaxed.

"I don't know if I've ever actually..."

Nia raises her brows, and as the realization begins to dawn on her, her eyes grow wide, and her mouth pops open. I look down and click out of Tristan's Instagram account, as if having it open might somehow give him access to this mortifying conversation. He's the last person on the planet I would want to know that I've probably never had an orgasm, especially since his level of expertise is well known around campus.

"Wait...never?" Jenny asks, appalled.

"I don't know." I shrug, looking back down at my phone, willing myself to evaporate into thin air.

"You'd know," they say in unison.

I can't take much more of this conversation or I'll combust from embarrassment, so I stand up and grab my laptop from the cushion next to me. "If you'll excuse me, I'm going to go die of embarrassment now," I say, skirting past them toward the hallway leading to our bedrooms.

"Don't be embarrassed, Abs," Jenny calls after me.

"Yeah, it's not your fault Tyler was a bad lay," Nia agrees.

I wave a dismissive hand over my head as I round the corner and slip out of view, desperate for a hot shower to help ease away the embarrassment and newfound realization that maybe I should be looking for something more than just a grad school scholarship before graduating from college. 


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