Clearly

5 - My Man

I swear I do not regret asking Gennifer to move in with me. But the fact that she asked practically half the team to come over the morning after I was supposed to reconnect with Simon makes me wary of her true intentions.

"I swear I just needed help putting some of the furniture together," she gasps. She seemed thoroughly offended that I would imply that they were spying on me, but the nail in the coffin was Anna's non-stop questions.

"What time did you sneak him out? Because I was here pretty freakin early and I didn't hear a thing," she rambled before backtracking. "Not that I was listening or anything!"

Gennifer gave her a look that could kill and appeared defeated. I grabbed some of the breakfast that she had laid out for everyone to pick at inbetween assembling the furniture.

"I'm sorry. I swear I didn't tell anyone about you going to meet Simon last night, but I thought if things did go well, you wouldn't want to spend the morning putting the couch together," Gennifer explained. I appreciated the thought, but it only reminded me of how badly I screwed up last night. If I was going to work on things with Simon, a good start would be being honest with him about the secret stalker I had apparently picked up.

"Well, thanks, but I left pretty early last night. I doubt Simon will be coming back here anytime soon," I mumbled, escaping to my room. While I was getting dressed for my classes, I heard my phone buzz on my bedside table. I didn't hope that it wasn't Simon anymore; I wanted to talk to him.

I knew we had plans tonight, but that didn't seem soon enough. I would be dragging around the guilt of ditching him last night until I saw him. Probably after too because I definitely shouldn't start my long-awaited explanation by admitting that I lied to him.

Aiden Grey: Hey. I know this is super out of the blue, but do you want to get coffee or soemthing sometime?

Well that's a blast from the past. It wasn't that Aiden and I ended on horrible terms, but his reaction to my rejection made me tempted to turn him down the second I read the text.

Aiden Grey: Before you say no, I just wanted a chance to apologize.

But my mind went straight to Simon. I want to be with him so much it hurts. And I keep doing things that'll mess that up for me. I know he says that he understands that I wanted to put hockey first, but maybe I made a mistake.

I already had a spot on the team. Mack never mentioned anything about not training hard enough before Vancouver.

I used it as an excuse to cover up the actual problem, and I owed it to Simon to be honest about it. I didn't have time to think about making amends with Aiden right now—I need Simon in my life. I'm done waiting.

~~~

Tristen opened the door to Simon's dorm in nothing but his boxer briefs. Determined not to let myself get distracted from the real reason I was here, I kept my eyes away from the perfectly sculpted body of the hockey player.

Besides; I had seen Simon this naked and even I can admit that Tristen has nothing on my man.

"Paige. Everything okay?" he asked, still rubbing the sleep from his eyes. He had seemed closed off last night, but the first thing he asked was if something was wrong. I loved the guys that Simon had in his life.

I nodded quickly. "Yeah, everything's fine. I was just wondering if I could talk to Simon."

He shrugged, grabbing a pair of sweats that were hanging over a table beside the door. "He's not here. Said he was having breakfast with some girl before class. Alora...Alysa..."