“Yeah, I don’t see that happening,” he said.
Honestly, I didn’t either.
“The girls are doing their coffee night, why don’t we grab Chad and Zach and go do something. Take your mind off this for a couple of hours.”
“Yeah, okay,” I agreed.
I left my phone on my bed and we left the dorm. For the next little while, I didn’t want anything around that reminded me of the guilt I was feeling about Karma.
****
We decided on laser tag as the activity of the night. At first, it seemed like a juvenile idea, but only the four of us could make a stupid bet to get the night started. Whoever was the loser, had to wear a dress around campus all day tomorrow, and not just any dress, one the other three picked out. I really didn’t want to lose.
After we’d been playing for thirty minutes, I realized the three of them were ganging up on me. I figured this was Major’s doing and set my mind to get him, but he was sneaky tonight and playing a good game. By the time our hour was over I was the loser.
“You fuckers did that on purpose,” I said, as we turned in our gear.
“Yep,” they said, and started laughing.
“I hate you,” I said, but couldn’t help the smile that was forming.
“You can hate us all you want but you are wearing a dress tomorrow, all day,” Major said grinning.
“Yeah, yeah,” I said, knowing I would do it. We always honored our bets.
“Time to go shopping,” Chad said, with an evil grin.
I knew this was going to be really bad for me.
Chapter 13
Karma
Kayleigh, Gabbi, and I walked into the coffee shop that had recently become our new Tuesday night tradition. It was off campus and had great coffee so we made it our weekly girl’s outing.
“Oh my God, Tiffany,” Kayleigh said excitedly, when we got to the counter. “I didn’t know you worked here.”
“Hey, Kayleigh,” the girl behind the counter said. “Yeah, I’ve been working here for almost a year now.”
“How come we’ve never seen you before?” Kayleigh asked.
“I’m not sure. I usually work weekends and mornings. I’m filling in for someone tonight.”
“That explains it,” Kayleigh said. “We’ve only been here Tuesday evening.”
I nudged Kayleigh in the arm, and she got the hint.
“Oh, sorry,” she said. “Tiffany, this is my best friend, Karma and this is our teammate, Gabbi. Girls, this is Tiffany, a friend of Bodie’s.”
Tiffany smiled. “It’s nice to finally meet you,” Tiffany said looking at me. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”
“Don’t believe anything Bodie tells you,” I said, with a wink.
She laughed. “It’s all been good.”
“Then it’s definitely a lie,” I said.
That made Kayleigh snort. I smacked her arm, but she just laughed at me.
“This is exactly how I imagined meeting you would go,” Tiffany said with a grin. “Do you ladies know what you want?”
It took a minute, but we finally ordered and then went and found a table.
“When did you meet her and why don’t I know about it?” I asked Kayleigh, when we sat down.
“Bodie brought her to dinner the other night, you know, while you were busy being fancy at that party,” she said, smiling at me.
“And are they really just friends?” I asked.
“Yeah, as far as we could tell. Bodie said she’s in love with her best friend’s boyfriend.”
“Ouch,” I said. “And Bodie hasn’t fucked her?”
Gabbi laughed and Kayleigh rolled her eyes at me. “Karma, a guy and girl can be friends without sleeping together. You and Bodie are friends, right? And you two haven’t had sex.”
It’s a good thing I didn’t have my coffee yet or I might have spit it out. “Right,” I said, totally lying.
“What’s with the funny look on your face?” Kayleigh asked. “Is there something I should know?”
I had to think fast, or she was going to figure it out. “No, I’m just not used to casually using the word sex in conversation. I’m proud of you.”
“Whatever,” she said, but was smiling. “Are you ever going to let that go?”
“Sure, when we’re eighty.” I told her. This time it was her turn to smack my arm.
Tiffany brought out our drinks a few minutes later. “I’ll be right back with your food,” she said, and went back to the counter. Kayleigh got up to help her. “Here you go.”
“Thank you,” I said.
“You’re welcome. Do you mind if I join you guys for a bit?”
“Sure,” I said. “So how did you and Bodie meet?”
“At the beach,” she said.
“That’s too funny,” I said. “We met him on the beach too.”
“But I bet it wasn’t at midnight.”
“Um, no. What were you doing at the beach at midnight?” I asked.
“I had to get away from my apartment. The beach wasn’t far, so I walked there. I was sitting up on one of the lifeguard towers watching the waves when a guy sat down on the ramp. I’ll admit, I was nervous at first, but then he just sat there, doing the same thing I was. I finally said something and scared the crap out of him. We started talking and he seemed decent. Even threw a fit to drive me home since it was too late for me to be out alone.”
“Sounds like Bodie,” I said.
“I happened to mention I worked here, and he showed up the next morning asking to be friends.”
“That’s sweet,” Kayleigh said.
“How long have you been friends?” I asked, wondering why I didn’t know anything about her.
“Only about a week and a half, I guess. It was two Saturdays ago that we ended up at the beach at the same time.”
“And he hasn’t tried to sleep with you?” I asked.
Tiffany laughed. “No. I think he’s hung up on someone already. But that’s okay with me, I’m not looking for a relationship, or anything else for that matter.”
“Bad breakup?” I asked.
“No, worse, in love with someone I can’t have.”
“Wow, yeah, that is worse. Sorry,” I told her.
“But it’s been nice to get out and do things with Bodie. Or, even just texting or talking to him. He has a way of making me forget to feel sorry for myself.”
“That’s great,” Kayleigh said.
The door dinged with a customer. “I gotta go,” Tiffany said. “The four of us should plan to get together soon.”
We all agreed that sounded like fun. Kayleigh already had her number from the other night, so we were going to try and plan something in the next week.
As soon as we got back to the dorm, I texted Bodie.
Me: Why didn’t you tell me about Tiffany?
Bodie: Huh?
Me: I met her tonight
Bodie: What? How?
Me: It turns out the coffee place Gabbi took us to is the same one Tiffany works at
Bodie: Ok, what do you want me to say?