Total pages in book: 89
Estimated words: 90682 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 453(@200wpm)___ 363(@250wpm)___ 302(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 90682 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 453(@200wpm)___ 363(@250wpm)___ 302(@300wpm)
Do I care? No.
Will I bring it up tomorrow morning? Also no.
We seem to have an understanding, Posey and I. I am Dink while I’m on the dating app having fun, she’s her, and outside these rooms, outside the apps—we’re Duke and Posey, roommates.
Nothing more, nothing less.
Posey: I grew up in Minnesota. Came here for college, haven’t left. Met Molly while we were living in the dorms and never left her, either. I love her like a sister.
Duke: You have siblings?
Posey: No, I’m a lonely only child. You?
Duke: Yup, 3 brothers.
Posey: THREE???? Wait. There are FOUR COLTERS running around??? Omg. Your poor mother.
Posey: How did she deal??
Duke: My pops was strict and Mama had help raising us with nannies and shit. We grew up on a ranch, but my dad made a good living, so. Nannies and a strict upbringing—that’s how she dealt.
Posey: Are your brothers older or younger?
Duke: Younger. They’re all in college. Dallas is a sophomore. Drew and Drake are freshmen. And before you ask, yes, they all play football.
Posey: Are Drew and Drake twins??
That’s not at all what I was expecting her to say; normally, people react to the fact that we’re football legacies, each one of us outstanding players in our own right. The fact that Drew and Drake are twins rarely gets mentioned.
Duke: Yes, ma’am.
Posey: Wow, holy crap. That’s awesome.
Duke: That’s how come there are four of us LOL. Don’t think they were planning on four boys, but that’s what they got.
Posey: Way too much testosterone.
Duke: I imagine it was.
It takes Posey a few minutes to respond to me or ask another question, and I wonder what she could be doing in that bedroom of hers, seeing as how she hasn’t come out.
I stare at my phone, ignoring the other messages that have come in from matches I made overnight, enjoying this back-and-forth with my little roommate.
Another ten minutes go by, and I click on her profile. A little green circle in the corner indicates that she is in fact on the app, and a tiny, jealous part of me tingles in my gut.
I give her a nudge by shooting off another note.
Duke: You fall asleep on me?
Ha. Unlikely since it’s only ten o’clock, but still possible.
Posey: Um, no. I was chatting with someone I matched with. It’s someone I went to high school in MN with, believe it or not. He used to live out of state, but now he’s back, living in the city—small world, hey??
I frown.
Duke: Yup. Small world.
Duke: What’s his deal?
Posey: What do you mean, ‘What’s his deal’?”
Duke: What’s his name and shit.
Posey: Brian, he’s my age.
Duke: What’s he doing in Illinois?
I’m not curious, but I have nothing more to say now that she’s gone and told me she’s chatting with some other dude she went to high school with.
I’m not jealous.
Fuck no, I’m not. I barely know this chick.
I’m just…whatever.
Posey: I’m not sure why he’s moved back, but I’m assuming it has something to do with work. He can work from home now or something.
I don’t actually give a shit.
Duke: Lovely.
Duke: And what does “Brian” do for a living?
Bet he’s not a professional football player like me. He probably does something stupid and lame.
Posey: He’s a civil engineer—he designs skyscrapers. And his name is Brian. You don’t have to put it in quotation marks.
Oh. I guess being a civil engineer isn’t stupid or lame.
Still, I hate Brian based on principle. He’s definitely a scumbag, and I’ll put his name in quotation marks whenever the hell I want.
Loser.
On a dating app to find a girlfriend, HA!
Duke: Well, la-di-da, a civil engineer.
Posey: LOL why does it sound like you’re pouting?? Weirdo.
Haha, yeah—I’m the weirdo.
More like a badass motherfucker—but she already knows that. She just doesn’t appreciate how cool I am.
Which is strange. Most women can’t get enough of me. I have them begging for me to take them out, trying to blow me at clubs and in the bathroom at restaurants. Married women, single women, older women.
It’s a problem I knew I’d have but one I wasn’t actually prepared for.
Obviously, my pops used to talk about it. He had an issue with infidelity for a time during their marriage, but they stuck it out. Mom had four boys to worry about, and Pops traveled all the time, and she just wasn’t in a place to pack up her kids and leave her husband.
I remember the fighting; the house was big but not so big we couldn’t hear the shouting through the walls when they thought we were asleep.
It was always worse during the off-season.
My pops was used to being on the road, doing interviews, and working out. He hated sitting around and acted like a tiger in captivity those days he had no games, no preseason, no training camps.
So he’d go out and drink.