Chasing Lucia

The thing about living in what is essentially a luxury frat house—because let's be real, that's what Sigma Alpha is—is that parties are basically mandatory. Especially when it's Friday night, the baseball team just swept BC in a doubleheader, and half the student body wants to celebrate our success by getting shitfaced in our living room.

So here I am, red solo cup in hand (containing water, because I have conditioning at 7 AM tomorrow and Coach will make me puke if I show up hungover), standing in the corner of our packed main floor while EDM pulses through the expensive sound system Kyle's parents bought us.

And I am bored out of my fucking mind.

"Yo, Marshall!" My teammate Devon claps me on the shoulder, beer sloshing in his cup. "Sick game today, man. That strikeout in the ninth? Fucking poetry."

"Thanks, bro." I take a sip of my water, eyes scanning the crowd. I don't know what I'm looking for. Or maybe I do know, and I'm just in denial about it.

She's not here. Obviously she's not here. Lucia Garcia doesn't come to Sigma Alpha parties. She's probably in her dorm room right now, highlighting textbooks and drinking herbal tea like the responsible future therapist she is.

"Trent! There you are!" A high-pitched voice cuts through the music, and suddenly there's a girl attached to my arm. Blonde. Short dress. Smells like coconut body spray and vodka cranberry. I think her name is... Ashley? Amber? Something with an A.

"Hey," I say, because I'm not a complete asshole. I try to subtly extract my arm. She holds on tighter.

"I loved watching you pitch today," she gushes, pressing closer. Her hand slides down to my bicep, squeezing. "You're so strong. Do you work out every day?"

"Pretty much." I manage to step back, creating some distance. "Listen, I—"

"Trent!" Another girl appears, brunette this time, wearing what I can only describe as strategic scraps of fabric masquerading as a top. "We're doing shots in the kitchen! You have to come!"

Maybe-Ashley pouts. "I was talking to him first, Madison."

"And? He can talk to both of us." Madison grabs my other arm, and now I'm being pulled in two directions by girls whose names I'm not even sure about.

This should be every college guy's dream, right? Two attractive girls fighting over me at a party. A year ago, hell, even six months ago, I would have eaten this up. I would have flirted back, enjoyed the attention, maybe ended up making out with one of them in my room while some trashy bikini model poster watched from above my bed.

But now? Now all I can think about is hazel eyes and sarcastic comebacks and the way Lucia's nose scrunches up when she's trying not to laugh at something I said.

"Sorry, ladies," I say, gently but firmly removing my arms from their grasps. "I need to check my phone. Team stuff."

It's a lie. There's no team stuff. But they buy it, both of them pouting as I extract myself and head for the stairs.

I navigate through the crowd—past couples making out against walls, past the beer pong table where Kyle is absolutely destroying some sophomore in a Patagonia vest, past a group of girls taking Instagram photos with our "aesthetic" brick feature wall.

Finally, I make it to my room on the second floor. I unlock the door and slip inside, immediately hit with the familiar scent of my cologne and the faint staleness that comes from being a twenty-one-year-old guy who doesn't deep clean as often as he should.

My room is exactly what you'd expect from a college baseball player. Red Sox posters cover most of one wall—David Ortiz mid-swing, Pedro Martinez in his windup. My desk is cluttered with Sports Medicine textbooks, protein shake bottles, and a couple of trophies from high school that I haven't bothered to put away properly.

And then there are the other posters. The ones I suddenly feel weirdly self-conscious about.

Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition spreads. Bikini models with impossible proportions and bedroom eyes. I'd put them up freshman year because that's what guys were supposed to do, right? Prove you liked hot girls. Prove you were straight and horny and normal.

Now, looking at them while thinking about Lucia, they feel... juvenile. Like evidence of who I was before I realized that the hottest thing about a girl isn't her cup size—it's the way she challenges you. The way she makes you work for every smile, every laugh, every moment of her attention.

I collapse onto my bed—unmade, sheets twisted, because making my bed has never been a priority—and pull out my phone. It's been exactly four hours since I asked Lucia out, and she said she'd "think about it."

Four hours. Two hundred and forty minutes. And I've checked my phone approximately seven hundred times.

I shouldn't text her. I should play it cool. Let her come to me. That's what every dating advice article would say. Don't be desperate. Don't be needy.

Fuck it.

I hit send before I can second-guess myself. Then I stare at my phone, watching the three dots appear, disappear, appear again.

I grin at my phone. There it is. The sass I've been craving all night.

There's a knock on my door. "Trent! You in there, man?" Kyle's voice, slightly slurred. "Some girls are asking for you!"

"Busy!" I call back, not taking my eyes off my phone.

"Your loss, bro!" I hear his footsteps retreat.

The three dots appear and disappear. Appear and disappear. I can practically see her sitting there, typing and deleting, trying to figure out how to respond.

Fuck. She's right. Of course she's right. She's a psych major—reading people is literally what she's training to do.

I stare at the screen, my heart doing that annoying thing where it beats too fast. Music thumps through my floor from the party downstairs. Someone's laughing way too loud. I should go back down there, play the part of the popular baseball star, enjoy the attention.

But all I want is for those three dots to appear again.

I let out a breath I didn't know I was holding.

I hit send and immediately want to throw my phone across the room. That was too much. Too forward. Too—

Wait. What?

Holy shit. She said yes.

Lucia Garcia just said yes to going out with me.

I'm grinning so hard my face hurts. I jump off my bed, actually jump, like some kind of excited golden retriever. If anyone could see me right now, my reputation would be completely ruined.

I fall back onto my bed, phone clutched to my chest, grinning at the ceiling. Above me, some bikini model in a red string bikini stares down with bedroom eyes. I should really take that poster down.

No—I will take it down. Tomorrow. Before Lucia somehow ends up in my room and gets the wrong idea about me.

The party continues to rage downstairs. Music. Laughter. The sounds of people having a good time.

And I'm up here, alone in my room, texting a girl who threatened to castrate me less than twenty-four hours ago.

Best Friday night I've had in months.

To be continued...

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