Chapter 26
“How does homecoming week feel?”
I looked over at where Logan sat in the driver’s seat of his car, one hand on the steering wheel, the other stretched over and in mine. The sun shone into his eyes, but he didn’t let go to flip his visor down.
Since homecoming was on Friday, every day, Brentwood had themes for the students to dress up to. “Today’s spirit day was fun,” I told him. “Pajama day.”
Logan glanced down at my dress. “Those are pajamas?”
“You think I’d wear pajamas on a date?”
Then again, a dress might’ve been a little much for a Monday night out.
It was a causal date—Logan had to stop by Expresso’s to fix one of the espresso machines for a new hire, and then after that, we were off to his favorite record store over in Chesterville.
Casual, lowkey, but perfect for quality time.
He’d offered to let me pick the date tonight— “We said last time, you’d get to choose”—but I’d still given him the reins.
I’d never, ever admit it, but I secretly liked seeing what dorky thing he came up with next.
I thought about the rest of spirit week. “Tomorrow’s twin day. Jade and I normally would’ve done something, but…” She hadn’t reached out to plan anything, and I hadn’t either. In fact, I had almost been dreading her saying something about it. “It feels different this year.”
It was the understatement of the century. It more than just felt different; it was different. Example? Today, I’d done something unheard of.
I sat in the library during lunch. Not with the Top Tier.
The thought of sitting with them after this weekend, after learning about what they did to Noah, made my stomach twist. Or what they might’ve done to Noah.
Or, well—they definitely did it, but not knowing if it was on purpose or not was what complicated things.
If it was accidental, well. Accidents happened, especially in a physical sport like football.
If it was purposeful… That was another story. And it wasn’t like I could just ask, either, not without giving everything away.
But it still felt like choosing sides. Like by sitting with them, I was saying I was okay with what might or might not have happened.
And I wasn’t.
But then the guilt set in. Still, they were my friends—not Noah. Shouldn’t my loyalty be to them?
I kept looping through it, again and again, until the only thing I was sure of was how wrong the whole situation felt.
“Does that upset you?” Logan asked me now, bringing my focus back. “That things feel different?”
“No,” I answered slowly, but honestly. “It’s just different. Not bad, not good, just…”
“Different.” Logan looked over at me, scanning me as quickly as he could before he had to turn back to the road. He pressed his lips together. “You’d tell me if anything was going on, right?”
“What do you mean?”
“Like, if you and Jade had a fight or something. You wouldn’t bottle it all up.”
In a split second, I thought about everything he didn’t exactly know. Like how Jade called my mom to check in on me, or the fact that Logan and I had gotten posted on Babble together, and I narrowly escaped that situation without confrontation.
But Logan didn’t need to know those things—they’d only stress him out.
“Like someone I know,” I teased, tracing the bumps of his knuckles. “Mr. I Can Handle It.”
“I don’t want you to be like me.”
“I want to be like you.” I tucked his hand closer to my chest. “You’re a good influence.”
Logan’s expression looked a little embarrassed, with his lips pursing a little. He had to know it was true. In the weeks since we’d met, I almost felt like a completely different person—a completely better person. Who ever said exposure therapy wasn’t successful?
Watching him, I added, “My mom is excited to meet you.”
“Your mom?” he asked, surprised. And then his lips pulled into the widest grin.
Seeing him smile made me smile. “What’s that look for?”
“You told your mom about me.”
“And?”
His boyish grin didn’t fade. “You’re chalant about me.”
“Horribly chalant about you,” I confirmed. “It’s a little embarrassing. Hopefully you don’t get annoyed, because you’re stuck with me.”
“Who’s the one with an anxious attachment style now?”
I swatted the back of his hand.
Logan found a spot on the street for Expresso’s, just a ways down from the door. He killed the engine before turning to me. “You don’t have to come in,” he said again, reaching for his seatbelt. “It should be a quick fix, and then we can go to the record store.”
“I could use a mocha, even though I’m sure it won’t taste nearly as good.”
“Probably not,” he agreed with a teasing grin. “The Coffee Lord isn’t on the clock today.”
“Oh my God, do not call yourself that. Coffee Lord.” I snorted, opening my door. “You’re such a dweeb.”
Logan grinned at me over the roof. “I know.”
We crossed the lot side by side, the air seeming to buzz as we approached the café. “Do you ever cringe at some of the things you say?”
He laid a hand dramatically over his heart. “You wound me with your candor.”
I scrunched my nose while he held the door open above my head. “You’re doing it again. But that’s the difference between you and me.” I turned to raise my eyebrows at him. “I’m more straightforward.”
“You couldn’t handle me being straightforward.”
I actually laughed aloud at that—and the fact that Logan couldn’t look me in the eye when he said it. “More like you couldn’t handle—”
I cut off as I faced forward, immediately locking onto a table straight from the door.
My eyes recognized them before my brain could put names to faces, and for a long moment, the world was a flutter of exclamation points and question marks.
A lot of question marks. Because what I was seeing so didn’t make any sense.
Maisie and Connor.
At the same table.
Holding hands.
Connor’s hand was stretched across the table, their fingertips brushing in a way that looked totally shy, but totally intentional. Maisie looked up at him through her lashes, lips parted in an almost state of wonder.
The same expression I’d worn on my face a time or two when I looked at Logan.
Why was she looking at Connor like that?
Maisie’s gaze pivoted to mine almost as if magnetized, and she jerked her hand back out from underneath Connor’s, mumbling something under her breath.
“Do you know them?” Logan asked me, but I barely heard it.
I found myself crossing the distance, everything else falling into the background except for the two at the table. “What is going on?” I demanded before I even arrived before them, glancing between the two. “Seriously. What is going on?”
Maisie straightened. “Madison—”
“Don’t Madison me,” I snapped, gesturing at the now empty spot on the table where their hands had been. “No, you’re going to explain what that was, while explaining what—oh, dear God.” I all but smacked my hand to my forehead. “Please just tell me you’re not here on a date.”
“No!” The word ripped out of Maisie, and she grabbed at a book that I only just realized was on the table. “Of course not. I’m tutoring him, see? Math.”
That was definitely a math book, all right.
And the notebook open on the table with Connor’s scrawl seemed legitimate, too.
Did I seriously imagine them holding hands?
Or was Maisie passing him an eraser or something?
Some of the heated rush in my head began to ebb.
“Tutoring,” I echoed, slow to believe. “Jade never said.”
“Jade doesn’t know,” Connor returned flatly. “No one does.”
I blinked at him and the calm way he sat there. Calm, like always. How could he be so calm? “You have a death wish, you know that?” I told him, voice low. “What if I was someone else, huh? Someone with a phone that’d send a pic to Babble?”
Maisie flinched—good, at least someone was aware of how disastrous that’d be—but Connor barely even blinked. I wanted to grip his shoulders and shake him. This wasn’t just his life he was messing around with. He was bringing Maisie into the fold by sneaking around—was he truly that careless?
Something else occurred to me then. “That’s what happened in the hookup closet, right?” I almost whispered, narrowing my eyes. “It was Maisie, right? You were tutoring in there? What the hell is wrong with the library?”
Maisie shot Connor a look at that, like told you.
Before I had a chance to carry on, a sudden, feather-light touch ran down the back of my arm. For the first time since walking through Expresso’s doors, I remembered the boy I’d come in with. “People are beginning to stare,” Logan whispered to me.
My stomach knotted at the sound of his voice, but I refused to let it show. If any ounce of weakness appeared on my face, I had a feeling Connor would latch onto it.
Connor stiffened, his gaze finally, finally swiveling up to latch onto mine. “Don’t tell Jade,” he said.
Don’t tell Jade. Don’t tell my best friend that her boyfriend was secretly meeting with another girl behind her back.
To add another secret to the list of things I kept from her.
“And why not?” I folded my arms across my chest to hide my shaking hands.
I wouldn’t have dreamed of confessing it to Jade, of course, but some part of me wanted to squeeze Connor.
“If you tell her about the tutoring, I can tell her about him.” Connor’s gaze went from me to Logan, who still stood over my shoulder. “I’m pretty sure I remember you telling Jade you’d stop seeing him.”
I tried to gauge his sincerity. “You wouldn’t,” I said finally. “I know you, Connor. You’re too much of a peacemaker to snitch.”
Maisie sat up. “I would.” She had a strong poker face as she stared me down, planting her elbows on the table. “I’ve done it before. My best friend runs Babble, after all. I could have her posting about it in minutes, just like last time.”
I almost, almost smiled. Maybe Maisie would’ve done better in the Top Tier than I thought.
Fear, though, was what had my lips settled into a flat line. Because I believed her.