Chapter 3

That day, Becca came back to the dorm all excited. She called out to me while I was doing laundry, "I'm meeting someone new. He's picking me up downstairs for dinner. Want to come?"

I asked her, "What about Tyler?"

She waved dismissively. "Haven't talked to him in forever. He's probably dead for all I care."

Seeing my thoughtful expression, she suddenly smiled strangely. "Don't tell me you're into him? I'll be honest, he's got money, but everything else? Total disappointment. After a couple times, the novelty wore off."

She smacked her lips in summary. "Not great. Honeymoon phase too short. Plus he's not into your type anyway."

A moment later, her phone kept buzzing with messages. She glanced at them and told me, "He's downstairs. Let him wait. Men are always so impatient."

But this guy didn't seem patient at all. He sent a voice message, and that familiar voice said, "Aria, what game are you playing now?"

Both Becca and I froze.

I reacted faster. I immediately got up and snatched her phone. "You're catfishing with my photos again?"

But she turned it around on me instantly. "You're flirting with my boyfriend?"

Right then, someone knocked on the dorm door. It was Tyler. "Aria, open up. I'm not getting played twice."

I shoved the phone back into Becca's hands and walked over to open the door.

When Tyler saw us both there, he didn't look embarrassed. He just winked at me. "I didn't want to make a scene like this, but you forced my hand."

I said coldly, "How did I force you?"

He showed me the chat history. "You blocked me on your main account, but kept sending me sexy photos from your burner. I played along for fun. I've sent you five figures in cash gifts. You think I'm stupid? Your hard-to-get game is pretty pathetic."

I didn't answer him. I turned to look at Becca without saying a word.

She was gripping her phone tightly, head down, completely silent.

Tyler added from the side, "Why are you looking at her? We broke up. I told her back then-if we don't talk for three days, we're done by default."

Finally, he picked up on the weird tension in this silent standoff. He asked Becca, "What's going on?"

Becca still didn't speak. He turned to me. "If she won't talk, you tell me."

I shrugged, took his phone, deleted all the photos from the chat history, and said, "No idea what's going on. Maybe after you guys broke up, you ran into each other again while surfing the net. One of those beautiful love story coincidences."

I heard Tyler curse under his breath.

Then he got angry and defensive. "Are you two running a scam together?"

Maybe because falling for the same trick twice was too humiliating to keep arguing about, Tyler glared at us both before storming off.

Becca finally spoke her first words. "I had no choice."