The Opportunist (Love Me with Lies, #1)(23)

“She has the highest GPA in her major?” My stomach felt sour. “What’s her major? Pre-Polka Dots?”



Jim laughed, flicked a cigarette out of its carton and struck a match all in one cool movement.



“Actually, it’s Pre-Law. She’s one of yours and obviously doing better than you at it.”



I felt my mouth go dry.



“Why haven’t I seen her in any of my classes?” I shot back, scanning the article to see if it was true.



“Maybe she’s already taken the classes you’re in. Maybe she skipped them because she’s so smart.” I grunted and took a swig of his coffee. This was a monkey wrench. I mean—wasn’t it enough that she had her sausage money coming to her? She had to take Caleb and a stellar GPA all in one sweep? If he was going to date a smart girl, it should be me. It should be me!

He wanted me and I turned him away because prude ran thick in my veins.

I decided to befriend the enemy. Breaking into Jessica’s cabbage patch of friends was the only way I was going to be able to cause trouble. She had to like me. I began an observation of Jessica’s group of girlfriends that stuck to her like denture paste. They were impossibly friendly, but without the true loyalty of a Cammie. I coined them ‘priends’ (pretend friends). They bonded by shopping and threw the word ‘like’ into every sentence. “It’s, like, so cool to shop with you. You, like, know my style so well.” “You have, like, the best hair.” “When Brad broke up with me, you were, like, sooo my support system”.

Jessica lived just a few doors down from me and I began smiling at her as we passed each other in the hallway. Gradually, I moved on to a polite ‘hello.’ Being popular, she responded glassy eyed and with a small smile that tugged automatically at the corners of her mouth. A few weeks in, she began noticing me—waving at first, then one day telling me she liked my shoes. I learned that pretty girls tend to notice other pretty girls, if only to size up their competition. I was somewhat proud that I had drawn the eyes of such a figurine of beauty. If she was noticing me, maybe her boyfriend was too.

Our first official chat came one afternoon, as I was in the campus laundry room. I had just collected my clean clothes from the dryer when she arrived with a basket full of her dirties. Seeing this as a kind act of fate, I dumped my neatly folded load back into the washing machine and started a conversation that went something like this….

“Watch out for that machine, it destroyed my Channel pajama’s last week.” She looked up, eyes big, her hand poised over the open washer. Of course, I didn’t have Channel pajamas, I didn’t even know if Channel made pajamas, but if they did, this girl would have a set.

“Were they the new ones? With the silver embroidery on the cuffs?” Bingo. I nodded.

“How awful. I swear this school refuses to spoon out any money for, like, decent amenities.”

I poured a capful of blue detergent into the machine and slammed it shut.

“Didn’t you, like, move here from Vegas or something?” I asked, as I casually walked over to the soda machine and slid my coins into the slot.

Jessica nodded. “Yea, I, like, needed a change. I came here for a semester to try it out, but then I met my boyfriend and decided to stay.”

“Who’s your boyfriend?” I jabbed the button that would give me a Coke and bent at the knees to retrieve it from the bin.



Her face changed when she said his name. I hated her for it.



“Caleb Drake. He’s on the basketball team. He’s a really cool guy—total gentleman.”



Her voice was unbelievably annoying.

“Yeah? That’s hard to find, guys now days are such…..” I was trying to find the right word, the kind she would use, “stupid jerks,” I smiled.

Jessica nodded at me, her graceful eyebrows furrowed. I felt the denture-paste pull. She was accepting me into her “preindship.”



“Literally, I’m never letting him go. I’m gonna marry this boy.”





I hated it when literally was used for non-literal things. I popped the tab on my soda can and returned her grin.



Over my dead body…. literally.





Florida was wet. The forever blue sky was wearing chunky grey clouds like accessories. It had been like this for a week and I was sick of seeing umbrella’s bobbing all over campus. I decided to take my textbook to the student lounge to study. I tucked a few snacks and my reading material into a bag and headed out the door scribbling a note telling Cammie to bring me dinner from the cafeteria.

I took the elevator down a floor and headed west toward the quieter of the two study lounges in my building. The room was dingy and smelled like dirty socks but it was hardly ever occupied and I kind of liked the leftover ambiance of the place. I rounded a corner and saw a familiar blonde head framed in the window. Jessica. I was about to offer my most cheery ‘like hello’ when I noticed the droopy way she was holding her shoulders. They were crying shoulders. I was very familiar with this scene. I looked around cautiously. Blondes in distress were never alone. There were usually friends, comforting, patting, reassuring…

The hallway was empty. I took a step forward and stopped. Maybe they had broken up. Hope tickled my chest and I swept it away annoyed. There was no use getting ahead of myself.