Play Fling (A Stupid Cupid Book) by Amber Scott Read Free Book Online Page A

head, a simpering nod, never saying a word against a single
accusation sent Brooke’s way. Nope, Jason never defended her honor.
If he had, Brooke wouldn’t have become so stranded. So isolated
that she actually considered calling the whole thing off and
groveling back into his good graces.
    Maybe that had been his plan, to starve her
out, her very own fall of Rome.
    Then along came Millie. Just in time. She’d
plowed into Brooke’s world. Everything changed. Not a big bang
change either. Incremental, uncomfortable at first. Then easy and
new and before Brooke knew it, she was focused on her new business,
taking classes and no longer thought about Debbie’s simpering nods
or anyone else’s.
    If Millie had a surprise for her, Brooke
would trust her. Hold her breath, plug her nose and dive in. She
trusted her to read her papers, she trusted her when Millie dragged
her to a new restaurant. Plunked her in front of a new TV show or
into a new pair of shoes. Perpetually late, sometimes thoughtless,
she was the truest friend Brooke had ever had.
    The flash of black on white under her nose
snatched Brooke’s thoughts back to class, which was ending. She
slipped her graded paper, another miserable B minus, into her bag
and forced herself to walk, not run, for the door. Shope offered
his typical farewell, reminding them of their assignment, comparing
their lives to desperate victims’ decades past.
    She just left. Got in her car and headed for
Meadow Wood Mall. Seeing that B, though, got him back in her
head. She imagined Elliott sitting in Shope’s darkening office,
desk lamp highlighting his mighty red pen’s scholastic slaughter.
Loathing his job and taking it out on students. Did her meager
grade make him feel like a bigger man? Hah.
    Blinker flipped, she pulled into traffic. “He
probably doesn’t even read the things,” she said to herself.
    Not once had she gotten comments or
suggestions, after all. No explanations along the margins. Which
rankled her. How could she improve if no one told her how to?
Probably liked it that way, though. Or, maybe he didn’t care, just
slapped a letter on them in random order. Alphabetical. Alan
through Faust, an A, Finch through Munkle, a B, and so on.
    Wait, was that her turn back there? She
glanced in her rearview mirror. No. Good.
    Of course, he’d have to switch his system
around to keep a system like that up. Otherwise, the average would
look skewed. Too many fails.
    Humph.
    She’d put her soul into those papers. Well,
not her soul exactly, but a lot of work. A lot of stress for so
many B’s. She kind of hoped he did hate his job. Shope was probably
a pain to work for. It made her feel better, too, imagining he had
better things to do than sift through historical regurgitation that
couldn’t possibly merit an A.
    Thank God she hadn’t admitted that paper was
hers.
    The car behind hers honked.
    Brooke winced and waved at the driver, whose
hands were up in the universal come on dummy. She knew, she knew.
Wouldn’t get any greener if she watered it. She pressed the gas
pedal.
    What did she care what Elliott thought,
anyhow? She wasn’t taking the class to ace it. She was there to
learn about an era from which she was building a business on.
Namely, what the memorabilia she sold meant to people. Context.
Besides, he didn’t even know she was in the class. She had said she
found the paper when she’d given it to him. So, it wasn’t as though
he’d rushed to his seat and read every last word, hands gripped in
ecstasy. Judging her the whole way through, laughing or nodding or
any of the other things she’d spent far too much time
picturing.
    Oh no. That was her turn back there. Yes?
Great.
    She banged a u-turn and shook her focus back
to Millie. Yes, her friend. And her friend’s make-it-up-to-her
surprise. Maybe she’d ask Millie about Elliott. She had told her
about him last week at dinner. Well, in part. Not the Blue Eyes
part, or the assistant part. Or the