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Curiosity was going to be the death of me.

The instant my finger left the screen, names appeared on the screen. I watched as the scroll bar continued to shrink as the list grew. The panic was somewhat mollified when I realized that a lot of names on the visible list was repeating. There were only four names from what I could see. I recognized the one at the top of the list. James Harper, manager of the girl’s basketball team. The other three were Sean, Jackson, and Adam. Sean’s name was repeated. A lot. Jackson had been the guy she went into the Couples Room with, and Adam was the guy she’d been with when she asked me out.

I forced myself to relax. This was nothing more than I already knew. I could have scrolled down if I wanted to, but I figured I’d already tempted fate enough. It was better to quit while I was ahead.

As I moved to go back to her main page, my eyes froze in place. There at the top right of the screen, in little text were the unassuming words, ‘Total Unique Partners.’ Below that were two simple numbers. A seven and a four. In that order. Seventy-four. Seventy-four unique partners. A number that echoed around my mind for several seconds as I tried to comprehend that.

To the right of that was a small green statistic provided by the PPD. Kaylee was in the upper tenth percentile for eighteen-year-old females. Bless the PPD for their fucking useless stats. The longer I lingered on the page, the more of them I found. It was all right there under a Stats submenu. She averaged eighteen new partners a year, but it seemed like the number of times with each was low. I suppose that made sense thinking back to conversations I remembered. It always seemed like once she found someone she liked, she stuck with them until it was time to move on. If memory served, that was usually when they started getting clingy. I just never realized how many guys she’d been with in the time between.

And it wasn’t only guys. Besides Zoe, twenty-two other partners had been girls. That surprised me because I never had any idea she was into girls. I guess it made sense considering her and Zoe. Not knowing what to do with that information, I filed it away in my box of ‘Tomorrow problems’ to never get around to like everything else in there.

The last one I looked at before forcing myself to go back was how many times she had sex a week. Three times was her average. According to the PPD rating, that was merely ‘adequate.’ Typical. You could probably have sex three times a day and it wouldn’t be enough for them.

I wanted to leave, but there was one last thing I needed to check. Clicking on the search bar, I slowly typed out the name I prayed I wouldn’t find.

Liam.

There was a slight pause as it ran through the rather substantial list of names.

My breath froze in my lungs as the name appeared, only for me to let out a relieved breath a second later. There was a Liam, but the last name was different. Thank fuck. I don’t know what I would have done if she’d slept with Liam. We had all been friends the same amount of time. If she had slept with him, but never once made a move on me until now… I didn’t want to think about how that would hit me, especially since he had known about my crush on her from the beginning.

I closed the app down completely before I stumbled onto more information I didn’t want to know. Laying there in the dark, I slowly processed everything I had learned over the past fifteen minutes. It seemed like it had been longer.

I felt a sharp pain as I gnawed at my lower lip. Knowledge was a dangerous opium. It had a seductive draw and sometimes blurred the line between what you should and shouldn’t seek. I wasn’t devastated by what I knew now, but I think it was too early for this. We were still in the early stages of our relationship and I was already dangerously close to freaking myself out because of the impossible standards I was creating for myself. Already, I felt my desire to take things to the next level crumbling under the crushing pressure. The data had been quite clear. The guys that impressed Kaylee stayed. Those that failed never got a second chance. What if I fucked things up? If I disappointed her in bed? I was going up against guys like Sean. Guys who not only had the looks to attract girls but the skills to keep them coming back—and spreading the word to their friends.

Calm down. I felt like I was on the edge of a panic attack. All I was doing now was freaking myself out. Focus on tomorrow, not some abstract future.

Before I turned off my phone and put it back onto the desk, I took one last look at Kaylee’s restful face. I could see movement under her closed eyes and I wondered what she was dreaming about. Watching her, my breathing began to return to normal. The racing of my heart took a calmer beat. I’d forgotten the most important thing in my panic. I was here. Not Sean. Not James. Not Jackson or Adam. Me. That was more important than any star rating on a fucking app.

Phone back on the table and darkness swallowing me once more, I settled back onto the bed. Ignoring the heat radiating from Kaylee, I ran my arm under the covers to rest against her firm stomach. Scooting close, I took a deep breath, comforted by the feel and smell of the girl I liked.