BET

Chapter Nine

Kasia

After talking with Henry, he tells me that his practice won't be over for a few more hours. Then afterwards, he will need to go home and shower before meeting me. We settle on a time that I will meet him at his place and he goes back to his practice. I don't take a second look at the rest of the guys and instead, turn from the fence, walking back over to my car where Evelyn waits, watching in astonishment.

    "Number three secured." I say, holding up three fingers as I grab the keys from her and slip back into the driver's seat.

    "Are you kidding?" she asks, getting back in the passenger's seat.

    "Nope. I'm going over later tonight."

    "Wow." she says, leaning back in the seat. "You actually did it."

    I smile to myself, feeling the confidence of having won wash over me all at once as we pull away from the football field. We ride the rest of the way back to our building and it isn't until we pull into a parking space out front and I slide the gear shift into park, that Evelyn speaks up again about the bet.

    "Do you feel kind of bad that we've pitted these guys against each other?" she asks.

    "You're suddenly worried about the morality of this bet?" I respond, turning the key and pulling it out of the ignition.

    "I guess." she shrugs. "I mean, they're friends and they live together. I just can't help feeling like all of this could make things weird between them."

    I listen to her speak, nodding along with her words. Once she is done, she looks over at me and I turn in my seat to face her.

    "Look," I start, choosing my words carefully. "Guys do this kind of shit all the time without thinking twice. They don't worry if they're making people upset or tearing apart friendships, they just do whatever feels good to them in the moment and then expect the world to adjust. And you know what? Most of the time, the world does. It bends to their will and they can go to sleep every night without a worry in their heads about it."

    "I know and that pisses me off." Evelyn nods, turning in her seat too. "But now we're in those shoes and I can't just go to sleep at night without my head being full of worries about it."

    "We're not in their shoes. We couldn't be in their shoes even if we tore apart every college sports team at this school. The most we are doing is giving them a little taste of what it is like to be on the other side of things." I say.

My words seem to finally reach through to Evelyn and after a moment of thinking about them, she exhales, nodding her head slowly.

"You're right." she says.

I lean back in my seat and reach towards the handle of the door, opening it and letting in the warm breeze from outside the car.

"Besides, they're still getting to sleep with me through all of this." I remind her, stepping out of the car and looking over at her when she steps out too. "I promise you, they're not complaining."