Paige thought the only good thing about the nineteen-fifties was the greaser fashion that made boys her age look undeniably sexier. Everything else--the rise of the suburban lifestyle, the racial segregation, and the more blatant sexism--was pure shit.
As she looked through Google images of the time period’s outfits, she discovered she didn’t even like the women’s fashion, which made her think of the typical dumb-housewife look. After going through various vintage pictures of women, she remembered she was only supposed to look up makeup examples.
Women were clearly big on pink and red lipsticks and mascara, while eye makeup overall was pretty light. Having a good sense of the makeup, she realized she had minimal work to do for Grease.
She moved on to the hairstyles, though, which definitely required more work. Suddenly her phone next to her keyboard buzzed. It was a Facebook message from Sasha Kiely that said, Hey.
Groaning, Paige remembered all the gossip that bitch spread about Paige’s dating life for the past three years. Sasha was the second person, behind Carter, that built Paige’s school reputation for her.
What do you want? Paige asked, not bothering to say hi back. Ten times out of ten Sasha messaged her just for dirt.
I was jw if ur close friends with Mark Vargas? W/ all the Christy drama n stuff?
Paige rolled her eyes as she imagined reading the words in Sasha’s valley-girl voice. Yeah we’re friends but not that close.
Oh I thought u were
Why do you ask?
I feel like he has a thing w/ Colette. I saw them together at Mila’s party and they don’t look like JUST friends…
Paige scoffed. Isn’t she with Andrew?
Ikr?? I think she’s cheating on him
Paige flared up as she pictured Mark with that ABG that was way too pretty for her own good. Maybe.
Mark is such a dick for stealing Andrew’s gf like that
The fact that he was into Colette made Paige see red, but as for calling him a dick, Paige had to vehemently disagree with that. She didn’t feel like arguing with Sasha, though, and when she looked at the time, she remembered the Grease auditions were starting in ten minutes.
Sorry I gotta go
K bye!
Sighing with the relief that her conversation with Sasha ended, Paige checked her appearance in the mirror on her dresser. Her pink lipstick had worn out during the day. In a hurry, she rummaged through her makeup bag dedicated to just lip glosses and lipsticks and took out a red lipstick. She might as well start practicing fifties’ makeup.
As she set aside the makeup bag a bit too aggressively, a few things on her dresser toppled to the floor. At first she figured she could pick them up later, but also figured it would take a few seconds. Leaving the lipstick next to her makeup bags, she went down on her knees to pick up the fallen items under the dresser.
One thing she knew hadn’t fallen was a purple STD test kit box against the crack between the wall and carpet. She picked up the box--which turned out to be empty--and stood up as she studied the familiar front cover with a picture of a bacterium. Then she flipped to the back side.
The instructions were pretty simple. She had to pee into a cup and send it to a lab to get it tested. Taking a deep breath, she opened the box and pulled out the cup.
There was a single knock on the bedroom door and the doorknob turned as Mom said, “Paige--”
Paige squealed as she lifted the blankets and threw the box and cup underneath. “Mom! What the hell?” Paige thought she had the entire house to herself for the next hour, hence why she hadn’t locked her door. But apparently Mom was home from the therapist meeting earlier than expected.
Mom, with her hand still on the doorknob, stared at the lump in the blankets, then looked at Paige. “What is that?”
Paige’s heart thumped a fast rhythm as her face grew so hot that she started sweating. “It’s none of your business.”
Mom looked behind her, with Paige remembering Jerry was home too. Closing and locking the door behind her, Mom walked to the bed and reached underneath. Paige decided it was useless stopping her, instead just watching her examine the box and cup. Paige’s face might’ve been a tomato red at this point.
The long silence was deafening to Paige’s ears.
Then Mom said, “Honey, how are you feeling?”
With eyes that burned even more than her entire face, Paige released warm tears. “I’m not okay, Mom.”
“Come here.” She pulled Paige into a tight hug. “Tell me everything.”
Paige held onto her mom as if she were the one person that could rescue her from her problems. “My last ex just told me he has gonorrhea and chlamydia. And I think I--” The lump in her throat had gotten too big for her to say any more, so she weeped on her mom’s shoulder, feeling like a little girl again.
They stayed in their embrace without another word, and the tears finally stopped.
Mom asked, “You’re talking about Jack, right?”
For some reason Paige burst out laughing.
Mom laughed too as she pulled away and tucked a few strands of Paige’s red hair behind her ear.
Calmed down, Paige wiped away the tears on her cheeks with her hands and said, “No, the guy after. His name’s Ethan.”
“Oh my. I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.”
Paige shrugged and laughed again. “It’s okay. Even I lose track of who I’m dating, and who I have sex with.” Paige’s eyes burned again. “I guess people are right about me. I really am a dirty slut.”
Mom held her hands. “No you’re not.”
Paige knew that false statement was just to comfort her. It was old news between them that Paige had lost her pureness when Mom dated Brandon, but Paige felt that bringing it up right now wasn’t ideal. She sniffled and picked up the cup from the bed. “Can I have a moment alone? I wanna get this over with.”
“Right. I was going to wash the dishes anyway.” Mom slowly stood up.
“Wait, what did you need to tell me? Was it about the meeting?”
“Err, yes. But I can tell you later,” Mom said as she walked toward the door.
“Tell me.”
After pausing, Mom turned back to her. “Jerry’s officially changing therapists for his writing and drawing.”
“Oh, okay.” Other than his need to practice using his hands more often, Jerry could walk, run, jog, dance, and everything else Paige could do with her legs. She smiled, glad to be reminded that he was getting better.
She, however, had a high chance of getting two fucking STDs.
“Can you not tell Jerry yet? And Nolan?”
“Of course. You can tell them whenever you want.”
“Thanks.” Paige smiled.
“Okay,” Mom said and unlocked the door. “So...whatever happens, happens. We’ll go through this together.”
Paige nodded.
“If you need anything, I’ll be in the kitchen.”
“Okay.”
After Mom closed the door, Paige studied the cup in her hands and walked toward the bathroom.
If Ethan gave her both of his STDs, she was going to shun him for the rest of her life. She wouldn’t even acknowledge the name “Ethan.”
She’d take the shade to the highest level if her junior year had to fucking end that way.
Paige crumpled the box in her hands, then proceeded to fling it into the trashcan.
Thank God it was just gonorrhea from Ethan Fucking Peterson, and it was easily treatable with a few doses of antibiotics she took at her only doctor’s appointment.
As for Ethan, her luck was in her favor when he moved to a different school before senior year. It was in a neighboring city, but at least she was no longer forced to see his acne-covered face every day.
Only Mom, Nolan, Jerry, and Selah knew. Unless the first two had been talking to kids at her school, or the last two were more gossipy than their introverted, pushover asses let on, there was no way Carter could’ve known about Paige’s STD. It was probably just another of his bullshit rumors.
And when Jack met with her in the art building, it hurt to hear him say the exact reason why she stopped dating, which was in fact the STD nightmare. She spent the last month of her junior year and the following summer as a single-pringle, until Andrew Chen asked her out at the start of senior year. It’d been a pretty long time, so she thought, Why not? It was his first time dating since breaking up with Colette in the middle of junior year. He even had prior dating experience, when he constantly went from girl to girl for all of sophomore year.
Contrary to what Paige expected, Colette didn’t change him for the better in their six-month relationship during junior year. He proved to still be a fuckboy during the shit show--or shit date--at Cucina Mia.
The only thing she was grateful for from that shit date was her delicious waiter, who didn’t need to know how well she fit her trashy, STD-prone image.
Her phone’s screen lit up to show a message from Izzy, a triply talented actress and the only friend aside from Mark that knew Paige was auditioning. Auditions are starting wya???
“Fuck,” Paige said as she turned back to the dresser to apply the red lipstick. Then she grabbed her small purse and left the room.
[A/N: I present to you once again the gorgeous and talented Vanessa Hudgens as Betty Rizzo! Keep in mind her dad passed away just hours before the show, so she channeled her pain in this performance. It clearly shows, in my opinion.960Please respect copyright.PENANADi0gaJ2h17
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This song is just mentioned in the story too, but I'd like to point out that the song and character are both related to Paige in a lot of ways. :)]
960Please respect copyright.PENANA3euqmhMvBz
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960Please respect copyright.PENANAPcJihKZeKg
“Next, Betty Rizzo played by...Paige Connelly?” After reading the name, Mr. Helmick looked around the theater in surprise. As his eyes and several other pairs were on Paige, she gave her application, with shaking hands, to Mr. Helmick sitting at the large judging table. “You finally decided to audition, eh?” he asked with his dark brown eyebrows raised.
Paige nodded. She hadn’t started her senior year expecting to audition for a school musical either. Of course she was mainly doing it for the free food from Mark, but another part of her wanted to at least try. Maybe she always had that urge but figured she was best backstage as a makeup artist ever since freshman year. She didn’t even give any fucks about being the theater department’s only makeup artist except the fact that it took up a lot of her free time.
She picked up the script with Betty Rizzo’s lines from the judging table and took her time going onstage. Really, she was stalling before she would throw up mid-song like the Pitch Perfect character Aubrey did in the first scene.
Paige didn’t even have prior drama experience except for one drama class. And she used to be a YouTube personality, which counted if she were playing an immature twelve-year-old that kind of knew makeup.
And whenever she did karaoke at parties or sang in the shower, she was off-key half of the time.
Basically, she was an amateur at best.
Her feet came to a stop at the two pieces of tape on the floor. It might’ve been both her anxiety and the giant spotlights making her sweat profusely.
“First read the highlighted lines,” Mr. Helmick directed. “Then you can perform your chosen song. Is it from the Grease soundtrack?”
“Yeah,” Paige said, but her voice came out as a garble. She cleared her throat, her face heating up. “It’s Rizzo’s song, ‘There Are Worse Things I Could Do.’”
After murmuring something to a lanky boy, Mr. Helmick rolled up the sleeves of his plaid shirt, picked up a pen, and gave her a thumbs up. “Whenever you’re ready.”
She skimmed the lines, took a deep breath, and then read them out loud, with a teacher she didn’t know reading the other characters’ lines. The first scene involved Rizzo making fun of Sandy for being a goody two-shoes, and the next scene was Rizzo revealing that she was pregnant. Though the words weren’t Paige’s, she read them out loud as if they were her own. This wasn’t as hard as she’d thought.
When she finished reading, she felt less nervous than when she started out.
As the lanky guy next to the stage started putting on the song, Paige put the script on the floor and cleared her throat. Closing her eyes, she emptied her mind of everything except the lyrics. It would be like singing in the shower. It would be like singing with a karaoke machine in front of drunk teens that by the next day wouldn’t remember there being karaoke.
When the music started playing, she opened her eyes and sang.
It was a slow-moving song carrying a lot of Rizzo’s pain, including her reputation as a trashy whore. But what all the other characters didn’t understand were Rizzo’s secret insecurities. As Paige sang the last word, she felt a lump in her throat. The backs of her eyes burned with tears, but she kept them in.
“Thank you, Paige,” Mr. Helmick said as he smiled.
Pretty sure that the smile was for the fact that she tried, she said, “Thank you,” picked up the script, and left the stage. As the next person went up, Paige sped toward the auditorium entrance.
She was a good few yards away from the auditorium when she stopped and leaned her back against the wall. Her shoulders heaved as she breathed hard.
Much to her surprise, she didn’t get nauseous at all during the audition. She could’ve sung a few parts of the song better, especially the last word when she teared up a bit, but everything else was truly the best she could do.
Mark was right. She could’ve done this a long time ago, yet now she did it.
Planning to tell him right away, she pulled out her phone. But then she realized she could tell him in person at the country club in an hour.
She felt like crap when she had left Nolan alone while getting worked up over Christy and Carter’s framing prank. To make it up to Nolan, she promised she’d go with him again, and this time Mom and Jerry were coming. And Mark was likely going to meet her entire family for the first time, not that it should’ve been a big deal with Mark being a friend.
It was just going to be interesting, to say the least.
Paige kinda wished she had Selah coming with her to the country club, just because she felt awkward being with only her family in this rich-people place. Selah also would’ve provided great entertainment with athletic skills that made Paige’s look better than they actually were.
Families and old people surrounded Paige as she lounged on a chair by the pool. She already spotted Mark in the tennis courts, but Mom wanted to tan by the pool first. Nolan waded in the pool and threw a frisbee to Jerry also in the pool. Paige and Mom were cautious about him swimming and catching and throwing frisbees, but his thin legs, which were gradually thickening the more he walked, and his thin arms were perfectly fine.
“Hailey, wanna play now?” Nolan called from across the pool.
Mom shook her head. “Keep playing!”
His lips downturned, Nolan swam the breaststroke toward Paige and Mom’s side of the pool. Then he lowered himself until the waterline reached the bridge of his nose, and for some reason Mom laughed. An inside joke?
Nolan hoisted himself onto the poolside and said, “Please, babe?”
Mom sighed and stood up from the chair to stretch. Nolan was staring with hunger in his eyes as she showed some underboob below her bikini, making Paige want to gag. Then Mom sat on the poolside with her legs dangling in the water. “I’ll play frisbee from here,” she said.
Nolan crossed his arms. “You have to come into the water.”
“Later!”
“But you can’t play when you’re sitting.”
“It’s true,” Paige said, smiling. “You should go into the water.”
Nolan took Mom’s hand. “See?”
“Thanks.” Mom rolled her eyes at her, and Paige still smiled.
“Come on, Mom!” Jerry said behind Nolan.
Just when Mom opened her mouth to respond, Nolan pulled her straight into the water, followed by a giant splash that reached Paige’s legs. She gasped and lowered her sunglasses to see Mom now completely soaked. All four of them burst out laughing.
Mom slapped Nolan’s tan shoulder, but he just pulled her into an embrace and kissed her on the lips. She kissed him back, long enough to make Paige and Jerry look away.
The phone sitting on Paige’s abdomen vibrated. Giggling at the tickling feeling, she picked up the phone and squinted at the dark screen in contrast to the sunlight rays surrounding it.
YOU’RE THE UNDERSTUDY FOR RIZZO!!!! Izzy said.
Paige leaped onto her feet and yelled, “Yes!” But then the ground nearly burned the bottoms of her feet, so she fell back onto her chair.
“What happened?” Jerry said as he waded toward her with a frisbee in his hands.
“I’m the understudy for Rizzo!” Paige exclaimed. Jumping up and down, she needed to tell Mark right away, so she headed to the tennis courts, swimsuit and all.
Past the catering area and the restrooms, she found him in the tennis courts, standing around and looking bored. His white uniform did wonders to his tan, slightly built body as sweat dripped down his neck, likely from the sun beating down on the courts. And when his brown eyes spotted her, he gave her his typical crooked smile. His face was the kind of sexy that she wanted to sit her pussy on, yet also the kind of cute that she’d bite the cheeks off of. But she was too excited about her casting to think more about his delectable face.
“Mark!” she called as she approached him with her phone. “I auditioned and I got casted as the understudy for Rizzo!”
He gaped as his brown eyes widened. “Holy crap, that’s amazing!” He pulled her into a bear hug that lifted her from the ground. She couldn’t hug him back when his strong hold disabled her from moving much, but she didn’t mind. This was the closest she could ever get with him, so she savored his warm, comforting touch and the smell of soap, detergent, and sweat.
After he released her, he said, “Who got the actual role?”
“Oh, I don’t know. I’m gonna ask my friend.” Paige Facebook-messaged Izzy asking who did, but Izzy was offline.
“Well, congrats. I’ll get you free food ASAP.”
Smiling, she said, “You don’t have to. I kinda wanted to audition anyway.”
He winked. “Come on, it’s on me.” His wink either sent her into heat, or it was her imagination with being in the sun for a while.
“You already got me that bathing suit. And that reminds me, I was gonna return that to you.” She turned away to get it, but he caught her wrist. The touch sent an electric shock throughout her body, and she knew for a fact that it was not her imagination that time.
“You can keep it. Really.”
She swallowed. The serious look in his eyes alone convinced her she should keep whatever the hell he gave her. She glanced down at his hand holding her wrist, and he immediately let go. She did catch him glancing at her two-piece before looking at the ground.
Why did their relationship have to be so complicated?
Some footsteps approached behind her. She turned to see Jerry wrapped in a towel.
“Are you coming back to the pool?” he asked, his green eyes turning to Mark.
“Um…” Paige said. She kind of wanted to talk to Mark some more.
“Hey, I’m Mark.” He shook hands with Jerry. “And you’re…?”
“Jerry. I’m her brother.”
“You guys wanna play?” Mark walked to the equipment and picked up two rackets.
Jerry shook his head. “No thanks.”
“Have you played before?” Mark asked.
“Yeah, but I’m just not good at sports.” Jerry glanced down at his body.
Mark shrugged. “Okay, if you wanna miss out.” He turned to Paige. “You?”
“Sure,” she said on reflex. She didn’t care about how awkwardly fast her reply was when Mark didn’t even stare at Jerry rudely like most people did.
“I’ll just watch,” Jerry said as he headed toward a bench. He was going to watch Paige act like an awkward doofus around Mark. She’d have to explain how bad she had it for Mark later.
Mark handed her a racket. “Do you remember your strokes?”
The first thing she imagined was stroking him everywhere during some hot, sweaty sex. But the pained sounds of a nearby tennis match between two old people jolted her to the bitter real world. She turned to Mark, who was often the subject of her steamy daydreams, still waiting for her answer. By “strokes” he meant tennis strokes. Obviously.
“Um, yeah,” she managed to say, though she forgot everything he’d taught her the last time she was there. Every time he was near her she couldn’t fucking think straight.
After she gave him her phone to hold, they assembled themselves in the court for a singles match. As he brought a basket of balls to the court, she realized she still had on her two-piece swimsuit. But then she thought, Fuck it, since she was just planning to play for a few minutes. And she semi-wanted Mark to check her out, for reasons she hadn’t fully understood yet.
Soon he started serving balls to her--and that expression alone distracted her, especially when she missed most of the shots. A few ended up hitting her shoulders, stomach, and boobs.
He finally stopped and jogged to her side of the court. She was just as bad as Selah, so of course he’d be coming over to help her suck less.
“You okay?” he called.
“Yeah, except my pride.” She sighed.
“I think it’s your backhand.” He proceeded to wrap his arms around hers, reminding her of his last mini-lesson feeling so sinfully good yet painfully tense. Her skin heated up not only because of the sun beating down on them.
Remember what Sasha said. He likes Colette Nguyen, not you.
But as the combination of his scent and his half-embrace almost made her eyes roll back in pleasure, a louder, less reasonable voice in her head said, You can’t just pass up a guy like this.
He moved her racket in a U-shaped movement, his words inaudible to her. When he stepped away, she missed his warmth even in the late-afternoon heat. “Any questions?” he asked.
A bit dizzy, she replied, “Nope.”
“You okay?”
No, because her sexual fantasies rendered her stupid, and because she felt a throbbing in her shoulder where she got hit hard. She rubbed that area. “Those hits were like that Bridesmaids scene,” she muttered out loud.
“Oh yeah! The tennis scene where Annie and Helen hit tennis balls at each other?” He laughed. “That was hilarious.”
Paige stared at him. “I honestly didn’t think you saw Bridesmaids.” Most of the guys she knew hadn’t.
“Yeah, I like some chick flicks. Mostly the romcoms.” Mark paused and looked down. “Nevermind. Pretend I didn’t say that.”
“There’s nothing wrong with that.”
His shoulders relaxed. “Oh, okay. It’s just that I get shit about that sometimes.”
She smiled. It was a nice change to see a guy confessing he liked romcoms.
“Wanna get back to it?” he asked, twirling the racket with his hand.
She figured that was enough embarrassment for one day, so she said, “Nah, I wanna sit down.”
They took a bench in the shade far away from Jerry, who stood up and walked past them. He covered his mouth with his towel and whispered harshly to her, “Hey, you suck.”
“Hey, fuck you,” she said as she gave him the finger and smiled. She watched as he headed back to the pool.
Mark draped his arms on the back of the bench. “Is he older than you?”
“Yeah, by two years. Sometimes I feel like I’m the older one.” She rolled her eyes as she remembered plenty of times when he didn’t do certain chores or threw fits for the stupidest reasons.
“I feel like I’m older than Christy sometimes too.” He stared up at the sky.
“Aren’t you guys only a year apart?”
“I think she forgets that when her excuse for everything is, ‘I’m older than you.’”
“I can relate.” She shook her head.
He sighed. “Like yesterday she said she’d have the bigger room in the new house just because she’s older.” He made a show of shrugging. “She always gets the bigger room.”
“Oh yeah, how’s the whole moving thing going?”
“Moving day is tomorrow so I’m stressed as hell, and on top of that school and work.” He paused, seeming to think. “I feel like the only real break I’ve had was playing tennis with you just now.”
“You call that playing?” she scoffed. “I didn’t hit any of the balls.”
“It’s okay. At least I wasn’t playing with the balls by myself.” Paige cracked up at the same time he slapped a hand over his mouth. Starting to laugh with her, he said, “Sorry, that joke just came out of nowhere.”
She wiped away a tear, glad that he got dirtier the more she talked to him. “At least you didn’t do a ‘That’s what she said’ joke.”
He stared up at the sky again. “That joke is my guilty pleasure. Christy always tells me it’s sexist, and I completely get that. I just can’t help it.”
“Well yes, it’s sexist and it forgets that gay sex exists. But I still think it’s funny. It reminds me of The Office.”
“Yeah! I love that show.”
“Oh.” She folded her hands. “I’ve only seen a few episodes.”
He widened his eyes and sat up. “You need to see all of it. It’s pretty good except for the last season when Steve Carell left.”
A familiar vibrating sound came from his back pocket, and Paige remembered she’d given him her phone. Mark pulled it out and gave it to her.
Christy Vargas, Izzy’s message said.
Paige’s heart stopped. At first she didn’t know why Izzy brought up her name, but then she remembered she’d asked who had Rizzo’s role. A shiver crept up her spine and shoulders.
“Holy. Shit.” She dropped the phone on her lap and buried her face in her hands.
“What is it?” Mark asked with alarm in his voice.
“Christy took Rizzo’s role. Holy shit,” she repeated. “I didn’t even know she was auditioning. Did you know?”
He shook his head. “Crap. She definitely did that on purpose.”
Paige’s phone vibrated twice, so she picked it up and saw two messages from Sadie in the group chat consisting of Sadie, Paige, and Mark.
OMG
Christy just tattled on me!!!!
“Fuck, look at this.”
Paige showed the screen to Mark and he gaped. He felt his pockets and said, “Oh yeah, I left my phone in my locker.”
The phone vibrated again. She told my mom that I was drinking with the team but we were just at the beach after the win!! That fucking liar!!!! She knows my mom hates drugs, omfg!!!! The next message was a series of red angry emojis that got Paige feeling just as upset. Christy not too long ago called the fucking cops on Paige for weed.
Paige typed, omg I’m so sorry!!! She’s such a bitch, she literally took the Grease role that I wanted!!!
After she gave the phone to Mark for him to read the messages, she laid her forehead on her palms, trying to make sense of what just happened. She was legitimately having a pretty good day, but with every good thing, there was always a Christy that followed up.
“Holy crap,” Mark muttered, then he texted a bit. “I said, ‘This is Mark. How the fuck are we related to this bitch?’” he said as he showed the phone screen to Paige.
She laughed. At least he gave comic relief in the midst of all this.
“She actually set me up with my ex the other day,” he said as he handed the phone back to Paige. “This was not just any other ex, by the way. And Christy just invited her to the restaurant without telling me.”
Paige widened her eyes. Whenever she thought Christy couldn’t do anything worse, she went ahead and proved Paige wrong.
“That must’ve been hella awkward,” she said, fighting off the voice in the back of her mind that screamed, Do you still have feelings for your ex?
“It wasn’t as awkward as I thought, so it was actually good that we met up. Completely over her now,” he said to Paige’s immense relief. “But still. Christy was trying to get on my nerves.”
“Oh God.” With her elbows on her knees, Paige pinched the bridge of her nose. “She’s trying to get all of us.”
The phone vibrated again. Sadie said, Idk either. But we need to get back at her. She went WAAAYYYY too far
Paige sighed. “This is my fault. You guys didn’t need to be a part of this.”
“Hey, we chose to be,” Mark said with his hand on her shoulder. “Plus, we already knew she’s a psycho. So don’t worry, I’m not gonna back out of this.” He smiled.
Paige gave him a nervous smile back. He was sticking to his word, and that was more than what she could ask for.
What if he was staying because he still thought they could be more than friends?
She immediately rejected that idea. She knew he was into Colette, and the short amount of time he spent with Paige was all a just-friends thing. Paige was looking into this too much once again. She had to keep reminding herself that she had feelings for him only because he was off-limits.
It was just her “luck” that he had to be better than any other guy she’d ever met.
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