Baited by Love novel · Chapter 17 of 24

Chapter 17: Scored

At six o'clock Preston Aldane walked into the dining hall carrying his phone in both hands and came straight to our table.

Lars had pulled out the chair on my right.

Otto sat on my left, eating a bowl of cereal for dinner and refusing to look interested.

I had my notebook open to the last page, the one with every insult dated and scored out of ten.

Preston stopped at the end of the table.

The whole dining hall had stopped with him, forks in the air.

"Betsy," he said. "My father says I owe you an apology."

"Does he."

"I wrote it down."

He looked at his phone, cleared his throat, and read aloud.

"I regret that a private remark was misunderstood by a person who was not meant to hear it."

Otto put down his spoon.

I uncapped my pen.

"One," I said.

"Out of ten?"

"I'm being generous. There's no apology in it, but you did say 'regret.'"

Preston scowled and scrolled.

"I'm sorry that you were hurt. In my defense, you never said it hurt."

"Three," I said.

"That was better."

"You got a point for the word sorry and two for the structure. It reads like a legal statement."

Somebody at the next table made a noise into a napkin.

"You're scoring me?" Preston said, his voice rising. "In public?"

"You said I was never serious in public."

I wrote it in the margin.

"That's insult number two hundred and seven. Keep going."

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