Thirty Reasons Not to Date a Player

17. He'll Tap into Your Emotions

Before I can even blink, I find myself at school on Monday.

For the record, time doesn't fly. It travels at the speed of light.

"I ran into a wall," I say, "I mean, a door. I got hit in the face with a door." 

"No offense," Rachel muses, leaning against a row of lockers, "but you're a terrible liar." 

I know I'm going to have to lie to everyone about what happened last night. It was mortifying enough to have Ryder save me, and the last thing I need right now is to relive it through everyone's questioning. 

"No, I just prefer being honest." It's been hard keeping the story from my parents, but with my overprotective mom, I know that if I even breathe a word of what happened, I won't be allowed to leave the house again until I'm like, forty. 

"Honesty isn't always the best policy," she warns me, holding up her forefinger. "Especially when you're crushing on your best friends ex." 

I roll my eyes, shoving my physics textbook into my locker. "I'm not!" 

"Keep telling yourself that," Rachel muses, "But you know it's true." 

Someone comes up behind me. "What's true?"

I turn around to see that it's April. "Oh, nothing—"

"What happened to your face?" She gasps, cutting me off.

"She got hit by a door," Rachel answers for me. I give her a look that says, I can speak for myself.

"Poor thing," April says, linking her arm with mine. "Let me walk you to class." 

Rachel takes that as her cue to leave. I guess the two of them really haven't settled their differences. I'm not sure why they don't get along, but I'm not about to ask questions. 

"You didn't answer any of my texts last night," April complains. 

"Yeah, sorry, I was busy taking care of this," I say, motioning toward the cut above my eyebrow. I changed the band-aid once this morning, and it looked pretty gross. "But I, uh, wanted to say sorry for whatever Ryder said to upset you yesterday." 

"It's not your fault that he's a douche," she tells me, "it's not like you're really friends with him or anything." 

I don't know what me and Ryder are, especially after last night. 

"So do you and Aiden have anything planned?" I ask, changing the subject with the first thing I can think of. I know she'll always have something or other to say about him. 

"Yeah, this weekend he's taking me apple picking," she gushes. 

"Sounds fun," I say. "That's pretty creative." 

"He's great," she smiles at the floor, "but he's not as naturally gifted in the kissing department."

Not as naturally gifted as who? Because to my knowledge, Ryder is the only other guy she's kissed. He's probably great at it with all the practice he's gotten. My face gets hot with embarrassment.

Ryder and kissing do not belong in the same sentence!

"Maybe you could teach him?" I suggest, trying to ignore my thoughts. 

"I've been trying," she tells me, "but he either does this weird fish-face thing, or uses too much tongue."

I laugh. "Ick." 

She waves her hand dismissively. "Yeah, but I really like him, so it's easy to look past that."

We arrive in front of the AP Lit room, my first class of the day. "I'll see you after school, okay?"