Lorelei could still hear the cheering of Jace's bloc mates even at a far distance. 'What the hell are they cheering on?' She couldn't help but cringe at the thought of being teased by others and linking herself with Jace.
She was now on her way back to their department's building which was far away from Jace's building. Lorelei was wearing heels and it was such a struggle to walk briskly with those on. To make matters worse, her next class starts in ten minutes and it was nearly impossible to get there on time.
Lorelei arrived at the lecture hall three minutes late but luckily, their professor hasn't arrived yet. She managed to spot Amari quickly and sat beside her.
"Where were you? Goodness, you know the professor hates it when someone's late for her class!" Amari murmured.
Lorelei grabbed her notebook from her bag and put it on her desk. "May I remind you my dearest best friend that YOU asked ME to get Jacey's number," she said with irritation evident in her voice.
Amari chuckled at her friend's misfortune, "What the heck, you really did it?" she covered her mouth to suppress her laughter.
"As if I had a choice! You were too persistent in making me do it when you could've done yourself," Lorelei shot back.
Just as when Amari was about to reply, their professor suddenly entered the room. "Good afternoon, class. Sorry, I'm late. The dean had given me some errands to do."
The students straightened their backs on their seats, ready to listen to their professor's discussion. They just had a recap about last week's lesson and then proceeded to a new lesson right after.
While the professor was talking in front, Amari couldn't help but be intrigued about Lorelei and Jace. "Lei, did you get his digits?" she whispered to Lorelei.
Lorelei gave her a nod as an answer. Amari's mouth formed an 'O.' "How did you get it though? I thought you guys hate each other."
"I just walked up to him and asked for his number directly," Lorelei whispered back.
Amari was surprised by her friend's words, "And he gave it? Just like that?" Lorelei approaching people directly wasn't new to Amari but this time, she knew that Lorelei and Jace didn't have a good start and either of them would've reacted badly in that situation.
"Uh-huh. It wasn't hard getting it at all," Lorelei shrugged a shoulder.
The professor cut off their conversation when she stopped her presentation. "Alright, have you done the readings I gave you? Well, even if you haven't, please submit your outputs in here," she tapped the table with her hand.
The students stood up one by one, bringing their outputs in one hand and putting it on the professor's table. "Amy, give me yours. I'll submit it along with mine," Lorelei offered.
Amari's face lit up with her friend's offer, lowkey wanting to hear it because she doesn't want to leave her seat. "Aww. Thanks, Lei," she handed her folder to Lorelei.
"Look after my things, okay?" Lorelei said and left. The students were still flocking around the table. Surely, Lorelei won't be back anytime soon.
Lorelei's phone caught Amari's eyes and an ingenious idea just popped up in her head. She grabbed Lorelei's phone and searched Jace's name through her contacts. As soon as she found it, she typed in a message.
Lorelei: [hi ;)]
Amari was restraining herself to burst out laughing. She could already imagine Lorelei's reaction once she finds out about her little mischief. She immediately deleted the message and put Lorelei's phone back so that she wouldn't notice it. 'Jace won't probably reply anyways, but I hope he does," Amari chortled at the thought.
Amari was acting like she was browsing her phone when she noticed Lorelei was on her way back to her seat.
"Gosh, I can't believe it took me five minutes just to submit our works," Lorelei complained.
Amari just grinned at her friend, "No worries! At least all's good now."
---
At the same time, Jace's phone vibrated. Someone must've sent him a message. He opened his phone to check who it was and an unsaved number popped on his screen.
+00 XX XXXYYYY: [hi ;)]
'Who the heck is this? And what's with the wink? What a creep,' Jace thought to himself and grimaced. He didn't want to be rude so he sent a reply.
Jace: [who are you]
---
Lorelei and Amari's class just ended. As they left the lecture hall, Lorelei saw a few of her acquaintances. She approached and greeted them cheerfully. Of course, Amari was dragged by Lorelei and introduced to her friends.
"See you around the campus, Lei!" Lorelei's acquaintances waved their hands at her as they left. Lorelei just smiled and waved back. Suddenly, her phone dinged.
'Ah, this must be Sam again,' she thought. She opened her phone to read the message but much to her surprise it wasn't Sam. It was Jace who messaged her.
Jace: [who are you]
Lorelei had a puzzled look on her face as she read his message. She typed in her reply immediately.
Lorelei: [wdym, who am i. You obviously know already seeing how you sent me a message]
She tapped the send button and after a minute, she received a reply from Jace.
Jace: [no, I don't. and you got something wrong here. you sent me a message first, dummy]
'What the heck's wrong with him? I obviously asked for his digits earlier,' she thought. And there, it dawned on her that they didn't actually exchange numbers and that SHE was the only one who asked for his number.
Lorelei: [So you're saying that I really messaged you first? Show me proof then]
In less than a minute, Jace replied to her with a screenshot of Lorelei's message. She was really the first one who messaged him but she wasn't the one who typed it.
Lorelei turned to Amari, "Amari," she called her in a serious tone.
She got Amari's attention. She never calls Amari by her first name unless it's a serious matter. Amari realized that maybe Lorelei already found out about what she did earlier.
"Did you send Jacey a message using my phone?" Lorelei asked her.
Amari looked away, "Well, I," she paused to think about what to say, "I didn't expect that he'd reply okay!" She took a step back and put her tote bag in front to protect her from Lorelei. Amari could swear that she could see steam coming out from Lorelei's nose.
"Ugh! I swear I'm gonna--" Lorelei didn't finish her sentence as Amari ran away.
"I'm just helping you out!" Amari shouted while laughing and running away from her.
Lorelei ran after her and shouted back "I'M GONNA GET BACK AT YOU, JUST YOU WAIT!"