how to catch feelings

51

"Thanks again for inviting me," Cole said as we turned into the parking lot.

"Hey, any time," Meg said.

"You wanna come over and play cards or something? We have wine and vodka." Damaris grinned at me in the rearview mirror.

"I should probably go back to my dorm and do some homework."

"Are you sure? It's not even eight o'clock yet."

"That's okay. Maybe another night. Essay due tomorrow."

I nodded in understanding. "Yeah, for sure."

Damaris stopped the Jeep at the split between the west and east sections of the dorms.

"Cool."

Meg jumped out to pull her seat forward.

Cole awkwardly clambered out of the car. "Talk to y'all later, then."

"Later."

Once Meg was buckled in again, Damaris took off with a screech of tires.

In under a minute, we were whipping into a spot decently close to our dorm.

"That was nice, wasn't it?" Damaris asked.

I rolled my eyes at her.

"Oh, come on, you can't tell me you didn't enjoy that. I saw you smiling."

"Shut up."

"You have a crush."

"Friend crush, sure. That's it. Nothing more."

"You send each other Tik Toks."

"I send you Tik Toks, too." I stuck my tongue out at Meg.

"Whatever. Deny all you want. One day you'll admit it."

"I already did." I jammed my key into the lock. "I had a crush on him. And then I got over it. End of story."

"Sure."

We put our leftovers in the fridge and then went upstairs to change into pajamas.

"Anyone wanna watch a movie?" Damaris asked.

"I guess, but I won't be down right away. I need to check in with the other editors and make sure the meeting went okay."

"We can wait."

"No, it's fine. You can start without me."

"Any preference on the movie?"

"Surprise me."

So they went downstairs and I stayed in my room, thinking about how to word the text message.

Finally I asked, "How was the meeting?"

It took a minute, but finally they started responding.

"Pretty boring."

"Trent asked where you were. He said there was something he wanted to talked to you about."

I sighed. He could've easily texted me. Oh well.

"Any assignments left?"

"Two stories and one photo."

"And that's all posted on Canvas?"

"Yeah."

"I also told the reporters to be thinking about cool feature story ideas," Jess said.

It shouldn't have rubbed me the wrong way, but something about Jess always bothered me. Probably didn't help I was already mildly irritated with my roommates and their little dinner party stunt.