"Now I don't know who you are
But you look like a star
And everybody here be thinkin'
Who's that boy?"
- Demi Lovato, 'Who's That Boy?'
It was going to happen at a nightclub.
Eleanor had said that Louis and his friends were going out that night, and that was when I would strike. Meanwhile, Eleanor would be at her job, which involved her handing out perfume samples at the local mall. This is the life that you live in college. All of those jobs that you hate on? Somebody, typically those between eighteen and twenty-five, has to do them.
In preparation for my big moment, I had been devouring magazines for the past eight days while Eleanor droned on and on about every single flirting technique that she knew. Which is a lot, by the way. Eleanor was subscribed to practically every magazine on the planet. Keller occasionally offered small bits of information, but still stuck to her claim that one of us was going to get screwed over in the end, and that person was more than likely going to be me.
“Hopefully, he’ll try and kiss you,” Eleanor said and I wrinkled my nose in disgust. Wasn’t her wanting for him to kiss me the exact opposite of how she wanted this to pan out? “And then you pull away and say that you have to leave.”
I nodded. “Why would I have to leave?”
We were in Eleanor’s apartment on that Friday night. I was sitting on the stool in front of her vanity mirror while she was attempting to wrestle my hair into something that made it look sleek instead of poodle-like. She was giving me a rundown of what was going to happen that night while I was blankly staring at the pages of some gossip magazine.
“Don’t say anything. Just smile demurely at him, give a flirty wink, and then walk away,” she instructed. “No speaking.”
“I can’t wink,” I stated dumbly. Actually, I could wink; it just looked thoroughly creepy when I did so. I was trying to attract a man, not scare him off.
“Everybody can wink,” she shook her head while trying to drag a comb through a lock of my hair. It wasn’t working. I was going to be bald before I even made it to the club.
“I look schizo when I wink.”
“Okay. Fine. Don’t wink,” Eleanor rolled her eyes in defeat. I love when I win arguments. “But you still can’t say anything.” I shrugged, because I had no problem with not speaking. “Now, what do you do if he tells you that he has a girlfriend?”
Go home and laugh in your face? “Try again,” I answered.
Eleanor had given up on the comb and was now curling sections of my hair. The worst part about having naturally curly hair is that you have to blow dry, straighten it, and then use a curling iron if you wanted controllable hair. It felt like I had been sitting there for hours while Eleanor burned and scalped me. “How many times?”
“If he rejects me three times, I leave. Just like in baseball,” I recited.
“I don’t know what that means.”
Damn. I forgot that I was the only American there every once in a while. And by once in a while, I meant about every other minute. “Don’t worry about it,” I said. “Three times and I’m out. And I guess that you’d be in.” Eleanor worked silently for a few seconds before I spoke again. “Do you really think that he’s cheating on you?”
“Don’t trust men, Hunter,” was her answer. Uh, alright, Elle. That makes total sense to me.
That was when Keller bustled in; holding what could have been a very large wash-cloth in one of her hands. The only reason that she was even there was because her and her boyfriend were also going to the club that night and I was hitching a ride. Plus, even though Keller would never mention it, she really didn’t want for me to get hurt. If I was too big of a failure, she would jump in and finish the job for me. That’s what best friends did.
