OLIVIA

Your roommate gave me your number. :)

Great.

Don't act so excited. BTW Crawford won't leave. He's become a couch potato.

He probably likes how clean your place is. He probably feels like he's on vacation.
You want me to get him?

No. It's fine. Sadie's loving the attention.

I set my phone down, not even realizing the smile on my face as I text Colby Jones. The man I kissed last night. The man I hated two weeks ago.

Fuck. I don't need to smile at his texts. This is not good. At all. It was just a drunken kiss. I don't like him. He just gave me attention.

"Livvy, what are you smiling at over there?" Sadie asks as she and Crawford mix margaritas at the island table.

Fuck. "Funny video," I say, turning my attention to the television. Crawford even clawed his way into what we were watching. We wanted to watch Gossip Girl, but he vetoed it, and now we are watching back-to-back NFL games because he's the guest.

It could be worse. It could be baseball. I find it to be boring, especially when they're good teams. It's just a constant back and forth of nothing happening. At least with a sucky team, you can watch runs come in from the other.

Jonesy plays baseball. He's a damn good player. He was in the top running for pitcher of the year last season. Maybe this year, he will get it. I watched a few games last season. My roommates forced me to watch, and he threw a no-hitter both times.

I'm a football girl, which is why I cheer. My older brother played, so I learned from him, and while girls couldn't play football, I chose the next best thing: cheer.

This past week was so fucking boring. I had to sit and watch my teammates cheer without me. All I watched was my spot being empty the whole time. It felt like something was missing.

"Orders up, Livvy," Sadie yells from the kitchen.

I set my computer down while working on an essay for my history class and walked to the kitchen. When I walked in, Michael Crawford wore an apron as he poured a drink into Sadie's glass. They look adorable together. I hope she likes him and isn't using him.

Michael grabs a glass, pours the frozen liquid into it, and then hands it to me. They grin as they watch me go to my first sip, and I almost throw up. "Jesus, is there any margarita mix in this?"

Sadie looks to Crawford, "I thought you were putting it in there?"

He grins wider, "I did."

"What a fucking drop? Could you at least warn me before I suck down a huge gulp!" He laughs, pulling the mix out on the table. I unscrew the cap, pour the mixture straight in, and stir it with my straw. I taste it, and it already tastes ten times better.

Sadie rolls her eyes, doing the same for hers, while Crawford takes his straight and sits back down in front of the couch. We follow him, and I sit on the love chair while they share the couch.

Michael quickly drinks his, already getting up for a second drink. "I thought we were causally drinking while we watched this. Not getting hammered."

He takes a sip, then looks at me, and I can already see the tequila hitting him, "I'll tell you what. If the Giants lose, we get hammered."

I turn to look at the game on our television and frown. "They're losing thirty to three in the fourth quarter."

"Hey. Have some faith."

Fifteen minutes later, the Giants lost, and my drink was empty. I wrote a single paragraph about a famous murder in the eighteen hundreds, unable to think about anything further. By the end, my brain was getting fuzzy. I shut my computer and took it to my room so it didn't get damaged by the male in our room.

When I return to the living room, Crawford has the door open, shouting at someone. "Who's he talking to?"

"I think his roommates. He invited them over."

"Are you okay with this?" I whisper.

She nods, smiling, "He's really fun. He's like a golden retriever. So energetic. I think I like him."

"I think he likes you too. Otherwise, he wouldn't make margaritas with you in our kitchen."

She bites her lip as we watch him from the door, "Come on, you fucking losers. One drink."

"Can we at least shower first?" One of them yells. "We didn't forget you bailed on us this morning, asshole."

Sadie blushes, "My fault," she mouths with a smile.

"Fuck you," he yells before walking back inside and slamming the door shut. He sits back on the couch, "Liv, can you teach me how to braid hair?"

I stare at him, confused. He went from angry to neutral in zero seconds. He must like how my hair looks in my braid. It was a fishtail, but I do not have the patience to teach him that. "Alright, sure. Hope you don't mind if we use you as a doll, Sadie."

"That's fine. I like people playing with my hair," she says and turns away from us so we can see the back of her head. Her hair is naturally straight, so it was easy to handle.

I grab her hair and split it three ways, "So you're just gonna take the end pieces and cross it over the middle and repeat."

"Liv, that makes no sense," he says, and I roll my eyes at him.

"Okay. Fine. You take the hair," he takes the three sections. Cross the left over the middle and move the middle to your left hand." He does exactly what I say. "Now repeat with the other side."

He does and begins the braid, "I'm doing it! Holy shit!" I laugh at how sloppy it looks. "Sadie, you can ask me to braid your hair anytime now."

"Good to know."

He yanks on it, and she gasps as he hovers above her, "Just testing," he says with a wink, and I almost throw up.

"Please keep that shit in the bedroom, please," I groan, going back to my seat.

There's a knock on the door a minute later. Crawford looks at me as I'm the closest to the door. I shake my head, "Oh no, buddy. Your friends. You get the door."

He groans, stands up, and walks to the door. "Sure know how to treat a guest, Olivia."

He opens the door to Jayden, and there's a body behind him. "You came."

Jayden steps inside, followed by Colby. "We've come for their sanity," Colby says, holding his weed bag.

"God, yes," I groan, already headed to the porch door.

Sadie and Michael stay on the couch while Jayden, Colby, and I sit on the porch. "Nice place," Jayden says while he sits in one of the chairs. "I see why he hasn't come home," he says to Colby.

He laughs, grinding his weed, "Fucker sent me a picture of him braiding hair and making margaritas, and I knew he was gone."

"He's just trying to fit in with us girls," I joke.

Colby packs the weed in the socket of the grav. He lights the weed, pulling the water bottle slowly out as the smoke piles inside. He lifts the lid and inhales the smoke in his lungs. He blows it out, letting the smoke disappear into the air.

He packs another one, shoving it towards me with the lighter. I push my braid behind my shoulder, grab the lighter, and follow Colby's steps precisely. When I inhale the smoke, I can feel him watching me intensely. Fuck. Him watching me makes me feel nervous.

I blow the smoke out, reaching for my drink resting on the ground. When I sit back, he still is watching me. "Why are you staring at me?"

"I just find it weird you smoke."

I laugh, "What's that supposed to mean?"

He shrugs, waiting for Jayden to finish his grav so he can take it. "A lot of chicks think smoking is gross. I guess I expected you to be like that."

"There's a lot you don't know about me, Jonesy."

"Believe me, I know. Don't get me wrong, I think it's fucking hot when you smoke. Especially cause it surprises me every time." Oh my God. Did he just call me hot? I feel my cheeks heating as he lights the grav and inhales the smoke.

Jayden chokes on the smoke inside his lungs, coughing up a storm, "Fucking hell, dude. Really?" He looks at me and shakes his head. His reaction is what mine wanted to look like.

Colby leans back in the chair as he blows the smoke above him. There's a permanent smirk on his face, and God, he looks hot smoking, too. I understand exactly what he means.

He looked sexy when he smoked.