Play Pretend

8: Erik Xavier

8: Erik Xavier

Connor Rogers

“So, would you like to share about your first week?” Aaron started.

“Connor got his eye on some girl,” Max was the first to answer, sniggering loudly behind his hand.

“Shut up,” I aimed a nudge at him in the ribs, which he easily deflected with a swat of his arm.

We were sitting in a circle in the FBI office, since Aaron had called us in to ‘report’. Or so he said. I supposed he was just curious how college was nowadays.

“I did not get my eye on some girl,” I clarified, “I was merely observing the students in college and she was one of them.”

“Whatever floats your boat, buddy,” Leila said with a smirk. I sent her a glare, which she returned with an irritating wink.

“Nothing happened, okay?!” I nearly exploded, crossing my arms defensively.

“Fine, fine, I don’t actually care,” Aaron dismissed our discussion, “anyway, that was just to lighten the mood, which apparently backfired pathetically. As I was saying, we have extra info coming in from Laura.”

He handed out several folders among us, and I took the documents out of mine. There were pictures of a certain brown-headed boy whom looked sickly familiar.

“His name is Erik Xavier, and he is in his first year of college,” Aaron explained, “he takes Sports, Architecture and Finance. Has a standard group of friends, and a girlfriend named Eleanor Kings.” He handed out some more photos.

I literally froze when the girl in the photos came into view. The brunette hair. The high cheekbones. The bright green eyes.

It was her.

“It’s that chick Connor was staring at!” Jason pointed out not-too-subtly.

“Shut up,” I hissed, glaring at him.

“Really?” This time, Aaron seemed utterly into the topic, “have you had a conversation with her?”

“If you call that a conversation,” I muttered reluctantly, but sighed with Aaron gave me one of his serious faces, “we bumped into each other in the library, and I helped her carry some books. All we said were things like ‘you okay’ and ‘thanks’. Nothing informative, honestly.”

“Did she look suspicious?” Aaron investigated.

“No!” I blurted quickly, before realizing I sounded overly defensive on her behalf, “I mean, she looks and acts just like every other college girl. Except for the way she dresses; honestly, she shows less skin than Santa Claus…”

“Nobody bloody cares about her skin except for you, Con,” Max interjected, smirking suggestively.

“No man!” I shot back, “I don’t even know her, and I’m not that kind of a guy. Besides, if she’s acquainted with Xavier, then I want absolutely nothing to do with her.”

Little did I know, my heart begged to differ.

The next day was school again, and we were ordered to approach Xavier and befriend him. This meant we had to make our way into the top of the status quo and join the most popular club in college, The Beach Club.

You couldn’t join The Club on your own; you need to have the fame to be registered. But since the past week, people had been swarming after us, trying to start a conversation or just to even catch a glimpse of us. For too many times I’d lost count of girls trying to touch my hair, and too many times Leila had to fight off her lot of admirers.