The Beautiful Truth

** 7

Out running with THE Barton Black...hooray, said Sawyer's Facebook status for the third time this week.

A couple mutual friends from high school had given her the 'thumbs up' for this post—apparently Michael's Mistress was some kind of über-underground band that only people who thought themselves to be super cool claimed to know of. He really wished there was a 'dislike' button. Why hadn't they thought of that?

However, as hard as he'd tried, Talyn couldn't deny that the guy made good music. He should have known—that was usually his reaction to her music. And, it was nice to know that Sawyer was having fun. From what he picked up in phone conversations this week, she sounded happy—which was unusual, but she wouldn't go so far as to call him her boyfriend.

Had Sawyer ever had a boyfriend? He sat back in his uncomfortable desk chair to think about it. No, she used to make out with Jason Mandrino on occasion, but she'd never dated him. He was too dumb for her. She did let him take her to prom junior year...

He shook his head to bring him back to present day. How pathetic—he finally got a few minutes alone, and he was stalking his best friend. Whatever. At least the guy could relate to her, he supposed—they both had parental issues. Figures.

Anyway, he snapped his computer shut and jumped out of his chair, although as soon as he did, he didn't know why he'd done it. He should be in bed sleeping—his first game of the season was tomorrow afternoon, and he'd been over and over and over the playbook until every page was burned into his memory. He'd watched enough tape on Virginia to know they weren't any real threat to the unbelievably talented team on which he now played.

By his own coach's advice, he should be relaxing. And now that Hadley Catalano had gotten bored of him, he should definitely be relaxing.

Impossible, when the girl of his dreams was out doing what she loved second most in the world (reading came first, by far, he knew) with what he imagined was the guy of her dreams...older...decent looking...Stanford grad...rock star. Modern day poets, she'd once called songwriters.

Annoyed that he couldn't think of anything else, he suddenly remembered he was in sunny Southern California. Surely there had to be some good-looking women around someplace not too far away...

The pool! The MickeyD's Swim Stadium...although he was pretty sure it wasn't named for Ronald McDonald. Whatever. He was going.

And with that, jumping out of his chair moments earlier gained a purpose. He was determined to get his mind off Sawyer Fitzgerald by taking in whatever the campus aquatics center had to offer. He'd heard some of those swimmer chicks were pretty hot...

On the way there, though, he listened to nothing but SF's Greatest Hits—the mix she'd sent him last week. Figures.