The Other Fish in the Sea by Jenn Cooksey Read Free Book Online

wasn’t paying attention to where I was going and walked right into someone and almost fell on my butt in the process.
    “Oh! Sorry!”  
    “No worries…oh, hey, aren’t you Derek Bailey’s cousin?” The guy asked and almost reluctantly, he let his hands drop from my arms after having steadied me.
    “Yeah.” I took a good-sized step away.  
    “I thought so. What’s your name again?”
    “Camie.” I almost said Not Interested in place of my name.
    “I’m Scott. I’m a friend of Derek’s.” I’m thinking, “Good for you.”
    Yeah I know, I’m being snarky again. I’m not really meaning to be a bitch and it’s not that he’s flirting with me at all; I think I’m just being overly sensitive. Besides, I’d hate for Tristan to see this and think I was doing it as revenge or something.
    “Oh, okay. I think it’s my turn to bowl, sorry again for running into you,” I told him more politely and continued my way back to the lanes where I could see Kate looking irritated but pleased.
    “Hey Camie, you just missed it!” Melissa said, still laughing and wiping at her running mascara. I think she should invest in some good quality waterproof stuff because she almost always ends up in tears when we’re all together like this.
    “Missed what?” I asked and allowed Tristan to pull me onto his lap.
      I got goose bumps when he kissed my neck and then completely amused with my obvious jealous reaction, he whispered in my ear, “Sucks, doesn’t it?”  
    “Katy just totally buried your hooker,” Jeff informed me with pride.
    I could tell Tristan was fighting to keep a straight face but when he caught me glaring at him, he lost the battle and started cracking up. I was then told that after Kate left me in the bathroom, she went straight up to Tristan and demanded to know what he’d done to make me so mad because she was “not going to allow another re-enactment of Halloween no matter how damned funny it was in hindsight.” Initially her butting into his business pissed him off, but she wouldn’t back down so he showed her the text. It made her so angry that she forced him to point out “my hooker,” then she marched over to her, snatched Samantha’s cell phone from her hand and proceeded to delete Tristan’s number from it with the added statement of, “Don’t ever even fucking think of texting or calling him again.” What makes it even funnier is that Samantha and her girl friends were too afraid of Kate to try to stop her, and the guys were more concerned with checking her out and laughing at her threats. Damn. I would’ve really liked to have seen that.
    Oh, and see? I told you, Kate’s that kind of friend.
    I was able to get over my irritation completely a couple minutes later when Kate’s eyes zeroed in on something behind me and she said, “Look at that, she has her tail between her legs… Yeah, you better leave, you bitch.”
      “‘That’ll do, Pig, that’ll do’.” I started cracking up at Jeff’s response to Kate’s aggression on my behalf, being that it was a quote from the movie Babe . For a guy his age and being someone who’s a little on the chauvinistic side, Jeff has a relatively surprising fondness for little kid movies and the like, so when he contradicts his stereotypical “big, strong guy” persona by saying things like that, I find it hard to not at least giggle.  
    I automatically turned to try to watch Samantha leave but Tristan clapped his hand over my eyes and folded me in on myself, preventing me from even getting a glimpse—for which I am actually grateful to him—while he laughed at me and said, “Oh no you don’t…it’ll just piss you off and while I think you’re kinda fun when you’re mad, Kate really isn’t so, do Jeff a favor and let it go. We can argue about it later.”  
    “I’m not gonna argue with you about this, so get over it.” I’m thinking he’d really like to pick a mild fight with me right now and I’m just not gonna