Hating the Player - Loving the Game

Chapter 7: Good Things Come to Those Who...

I sat on my bedroom floor - antsy, restless, and bored out-of-my mind. A few feet away, Jaime and Millie sat next to each other, content to watch whatever movie was currently playing on the little kid-sized tv they had on the floor in front of them. 

They too, sat cross-legged on the carpet, absently munching on popcorn. But unlike me, they seemed utterly unconcerned by the fact that we hadn't heard anything from Jay yet. 

It had been two days since I left my phone in his car. Two days since he had kissed me - but he hadn't 'tracked me down' yet. Which means I was also on day 2 of not having a phone (the cell-phone withdrawal was not helping my stir-craziness). 

That night, when I had reached Jaime's SUV, park on the curb under a large tree, I slipped right into the backseat. (Millie had taken up residence in the passenger's side at some point during the night). 

"How'd it go? Why'd it take so long? Did he suspect anything? Who did you steal that ugly sweater from? I told you to 'no jacket'. I told you- wait...is that his sweater?" Millie's questions flew out one after the other, not giving me enough time to answer.

I smiled at her incessant stream of questions, waiting till it was out of her system. Waiting for a pause or a lull, so that I might actually be able to answer some of them for her. Meanwhile, Jaime remained silent (his usual shy silence that made me realize is a good pairing with Millie's usual excited/nervous talkative demeanor), though he looked slightly surprised when Millie pointed out the sweater I was dawning. 

It wasn't necessarily 'ugly', as Millie had so poetically put it. It was just a plain black zippered hoodie. Nothing particularly unsightly about it, unless you counted the slight fraying at the bottom of the sleeve. It was just old. The zipper was broken as well, but I didn't really need it anyway - considering that it was much bigger than me, I could just wrap the material around my frame in order to stay warm.

When Millie finally took a breath, I jumped in before she had enough air in her lungs to continue a new set of questions: "It seemed successful. I planted my phone in his car, so now all we have to do is wait." If I only knew at the time how maddening that task would be.

Millie had seemed impressed and wanted a rundown of everything that had happened since I'd left their truck earlier. I obliged, telling her about how I messed up in the beginning - not realizing that I had been talking to him, telling her how we danced before leaving the club, and that when we did leave - his car was parked farther away than we thought. I told her about how he thought she might be my boyfriend because I called her 'Mo' on the phone, and that he used the sweater as an excuse to call me back when I started to leave, in order to try and get a picture with me. 

However, I left out my misstep with nearly forgetting to plant my phone in his car, because than I might feel obligated to explain why I almost forgot: that I had been caught off guard when he had surprise-kissed me stupid. And that in the immediate aftermath my focus had been a little impaired.

"You were in there for quite a while - I was getting ready to come in after you when you texted."

"It took me a while to find him" I shrugged. No use telling her how long we danced for, it might cause her to raise more questions about it - and I had glazed over that part the first time around for a reason: Millie didn't like the idea of Jay touching me - she thinks seems to think that having any form of physical contact with him is going too far to teach him a lesson. But Millie is too innocent and naive sometimes. There is no avoiding it if we want to accomplish our goal. But Millie is also trusting to a fault, and so, when I told her that I could/would bait Jay without any physical contact beyond 'hand holding' and 'arm touching' (I think my exact words were: "fine, I won't touch him anywhere or in anyway that I wouldn't be comfortable touching you) - I obviously lied, and she believed me.