"Uh-uh, sister. Don't even think about it."

Maddie's words hit me before I even realized what she was talking about.

"I'm sorry, what?"

"Eli. Eli Shepherd. Eli 'fuck 'em and dump 'em' Shepherd. The most he'll ever do is look your way at a frat, try to get in your pants, and once he does because trust me, he will, he'll dump you like yesterday's trash. Too many of my friends have had it happen to them, and I think you're really sweet from what I've seen of you so far, and I don't want you falling into that trap. So, I repeat- don't even think about it."

My eyes widened into saucers as I registered that Eli Shepherd must've been Mr. Green eyes, tanned muscles, most beautiful guy I'd ever seen in my entire life- and I immediately wanted to disintegrate into a puddle of mortification.

"Was it that obvious?"

"Oh honey, I think we'll have to mop up your drool along with the player's sweat."

My cheeks would've been bright red if my skin was light enough to show a blush.

My raven black hair fell in a curtain in front of my face as I palmed my cheeks to dissipate said blush, and said, "I was just looking."

Maddie shot me a knowing smirk just as she threw her head back and laughed at the meek and faux shy way I had worded what I'd said, but after our moment, it was back to business.

Fluorescent lighting stinging my eyes, we focused on using the large paddle mops to make sure the court was clean, using disinfectant on all of the chairs, picking up their discarded Gatorade bottles, and straightening up the clean pile of towels on a table next to the chairs lining the court, all the while the Olivia O'Brien song 'Love Myself' was playing in a loop in my brain.

"So after we finish up on the courts, I go into the office and do invoices for members who don't have their card information linked to their account, the people who pay with cash or check monthly, and then check the list of members who's cards have been declined for the month. The rest of the job kind of revolves around signing up new members, and signing people in with their guests, things like that, but we have to do the upkeep of the gym as well since there's not really a designated 'janitor' that comes in until the night shift."

I wished I'd brought a pen and paper to take notes. Maddie was meticulous with her job, which was likely why she was the manager of the gym despite her young age.

"And do you work the night shift any?"

"Sometimes. You're the newest employee so they'll probably stick you on that shift the most, but the gym is usually dead after ten and your shift ends at midnight anyway, so you really just get to chill at the desk and watch videos on your phone to pass the time, or you know, do homework if you're behind."

I knew exactly what I'd be doing during the dead hours, and it had nothing to do with watching videos aimlessly on my phone or doing latent homework. This gym had the best acoustics I'd come across in the entire school, and I was going to make the most of it.

A basketball whizzed by my head just as we finished up collecting all of the dirty towels from the player's seats.

"Patrick! I swear to god if you do that again-"

"You'll what? You can't threaten to break up with me, you love me too much."

Watching the interaction between Maddie and her apparent boyfriend, Patrick, who was at least six and a half feet tall in contrast to her average height frame, I noted that she was dwarfed compared to him, but I could hold my own with the taller guys.

My father used to be a professional basketball player after all, and had he not been wheelchair ridden, would stand at a solid six feet seven inches, and I was tall for a girl in my family, coming in around five feet and nine inches.

"Ew! Go shower, you smell awful! Patrick!"

Maddie was giggling like a little school girl and her cheeks were pinched with redness as Patrick swung her around up and across his shoulders, swinging her around and around and-okay, now I'm dizzy.

Patrick's mop of curly red hair matched the pigment of his short stubble pushing through his pale, nearly translucent skin, with bright green-ish hazel eyes alight with happiness.

"Put. Me. Down!"

"Okay, your wish is my command," he said with faux chivalry while placing her gently on her feet, but the damage was already done. She spun in a circle until she tripped on her two feet and landed graciously on her ass.

"You're an asshole."

"You love me. Hey, who's this?"

Rubbing her butt while standing back up thanks to an outstretched hand by her boyfriend, Maddie threw me a side smirk before speaking.

"This is Virginia, she's our new hire. She's cool and I like her, so don't make her hate us."

A genuine smile graced my features while I took in how lovingly the two stood beside each other, Patrick's arm coming around her waist and hers following suit around him. The sight reminded me of how I used to stand with Jared...

And that's why I didn't need to spend time with couples, because then I was reminded of how hopeless and completely miserable my romantic life was.

"Well in that case, I'm Patrick Morgan, and this is my beautiful girlfriend Maddie Reed, soon to be Maddie Morgan, just gotta get her to say yes to marrying me first."

Wow. If I didn't feel like a loveless wretch before that, then I definitely did after Patrick's declaration of love, which didn't even seem to phase Maddie, so they'd definitely talked about marriage before.

"Nice to meet you. Hope I get an invite to this wedding," I joked, happy that I'd seemingly made a 'friend' out of Maddie. Friends, I needed. Friends were good. Boyfriends? Nope. Not a chance in hell.

"Hell yeah, the more the merrier! I like this new girl, maybe freshman aren't too bad," Patrick said, and I wondered what grade the two of them were in before he answered me almost immediately.

"Oh, we're sophomores. We were the hated freshman last year so it's only our job to do the same to the incoming freshies."

"Ah, well, if my birthday fell a few months earlier, I'd probably be a sophomore along with you, but I missed the cut off. I was the eighteen year old senior at my school," I told them.

"Oh thank god you're not one of those seventeen year old freshman that we get, too. Wait, when's your birthday? That means you're almost nineteen like us!"

"September twenty-ninth," I told Maddie, who was seemingly already planning a birthday party as we stood.

"We totally have to have a party for you, then!"

At least I loved birthdays.

"I could hire a DJ, and we could have it at the frat, and-"

"Um, actually...I kind of have a band that would love to play, if that would be okay?"

"Oh really? You know a band? Are they good?"

I laughed a little to myself.

"Well, I hope they're good. They're my band."

"What? You're in a band! What do you play? What's it called?"

I was starting to realize that Maddie was a bit more enthusiastic when we weren't focused on doing our mundane tasks for work, and I wasn't mad about it at all.

"We're called 'Younger'. I actually play pretty much anything besides the drums, I'm still working on that one, but I'm the lead singer."

"No way. Are you guys popular?"

"We're decent. We're in the smaller Indie-folk and pop realm, but we can play pretty much anything so we've been doing a ton of covers lately," I said in response to Patrick's answer, who seemed just as enthused as his girlfriend (fiancee?) did about the topic.

"Well, you can't work at your own party, is there someone else who can sing and maybe you can do one or two so that way you can enjoy yourself?"

"I mean, yeah, we have a few singers actually. It's basically the entire theater department," I told her, glad that I had so many options in case I got sick before one of our shows.

"Perfect! I'll start planning right away, its already middle of September, so we'll have to start now."

I had just met Maddie but she was acting like we were long lost friends, and it sent a blast of warmth running through my chest, but that warmth was quickly eradicated as a fire replaced it in its wake.

The entire basketball team, freshly showered and hair wet with tight workout clothes clinging to their bodies, grey sweatpants (Sweet Jesus) slung low on their hips, all made their way out of the locker room and towards us.

I must've made a strangled noise in the back of my throat because Maddie started cracking up right beside me.

"Its not right," I sighed out.

"What's not right?"

"That they're all so gorgeous. Why can't some of them be...I don't know, bad looking?"

"Maddie doesn't have that problem. She's only got eyes for me, right babe?"

But Maddie was salivating right along with me, to the annoyance of her boyfriend.

"Hey, a girl can look. You get to look at the cheerleaders and I don't complain."

Patrick was thoughtful for a moment, though I couldn't tell if it was real or contrived.

"Yeah yeah, I guess you're right." His gaze turned to liquid desire and teasing. "Maybe we could even invite-"

She elbowed him in the ribs before he could finish his sentence.

"What? Damn, woman, no need to be so violent."

She shot him a look that gave him no room for arguments and he threw his hands up in surrender, backing away from us like he was about to make a break for the locker room.

And then he walked in, and then I couldn't breathe.