His brown eyes darkened and his jaw tightened. “I remember,” he replied coolly.
Haddie shrugged. “This time it’s not in a good way.”
She hit Play on her music app, and even though she saw Levi’s mouth open to respond, she didn’t give him a chance. She’d let him in, just the tiniest bit, and already she felt blindsided by how easily this new friendship could turn into hurt.
So she shook her head, swallowed the lump in her throat, and headed out the door.
She’d expected to be alone on the track, all the faculty having gone home for the night and no practices scheduled until tomorrow afternoon. But a lone figure circled the football field, and on the team bench she could see that lone figure’s sole spectator.
“Emma!” she called out, hitting Pause on her playlist, and herbest friend looked up from her laptop, her face splitting into a grin when she saw Haddie.
“Hads!” Emma tossed her laptop to the bench and sprang to her feet, jogging across the field to meet Haddie where she stood in the end zone.
The two women embraced, and though Haddie was disappointed not to have some quiet time to process the recent events of the evening, she realized maybe this was better because the knot in her stomach was already starting to loosen just from Emma’s presence.
“I’m sorry we keep missing each other,” Haddie told her friend.
Emma—dressed in a pair of ripped jeans and a gray T-shirt that read,I’m not short. I’m just more down to earth than other people—waved her off.
“I know what back-to-school week is like,” Emma told her. “Plus, we’re swamped at the inn with the end-of-summer rush, which is why I’m out here doing myrealday job on my laptop while Matteo does his thing.” She waved as Matteo came around their end of the field but kept running, his T-shirt—whatever it might have said—slung around his neck like a towel. “Also,” she called to him, “you’re superhot, and I’m totally objectifying you every time you pass by! I hope that’s okay!”
He pointed to his earbuds and mouthed something along the lines ofI can’t hear youand then waved back as he went on his merry way.
Haddie and Emma burst out laughing.
“Wow. How is it possible that I miss you when you live only,like, two minutes away?” Haddie asked.
Emma shrugged. “Because I’m so very missable. Duh.”
Haddie snorted. “This whole being-an-adult-and-working-for-a-living thing sucks sometimes.”
The corners of Emma’s mouth turned down. “Bad day at the office before the office even opens?”
Haddie sighed. “Kind of?”
Emma held out her arms and spun slowly. “Well, you’ve got this whole track almost to yourself to blow off some steam. Or…we can go hide out in the press box, and I can listen or try to play therapist. Whatever you need.”
Haddie nodded toward the bench where Emma’s laptop still lay. “Don’t you need to get back to your day job?”
“Day job, schmay job!” Emma exclaimed. “My favorite girl is here, and she needs me. Right?” She pressed her palms to Haddie’s cheeks and used her thumb and forefingers to move Haddie’s lips up and down. “Yes, I totally need my best friend and don’t have to solve all of my problems on my own,” Emma added in a caricatured version of what Haddie guessed was meant to be Haddie’s voice.
Haddie gingerly grabbed her friend’s wrists and lowered her hands with only a tiny bit of an eye roll.
“Fine,” Emma said. “I will take your acquiescence to join me in the press box as your way of telling me you need me.”
Haddie groaned. “You know you’re the only person I’ll admit I need, right?”
Emma raised her brows. “And yet, you still haven’t actuallyadmitted it.”
“I think I did,” Haddie replied. “Go get your laptop just in case a mosquito or praying mantis tries to run off with it. I’ll take one lap and meet you up there.”
Emma smiled and bounced on her toes. “Acquiescence is reading between the lines, and those blank spaces say You. Need. Me. Meet you up there in five.”
Emma jogged back to the bench while Haddie took to the track for one quick quarter of a mile to clear her head before meeting her best friend—the one who’d be there for her even if she never admitted how much she needed her—at the top of the Muskies bleachers.
“Okay, first of all…why are we even allowed in here?” Haddie asked as she climbed into the press box and sat down next to Emma in front of the window that looked out onto the field. “Wait. Let me guess,” she continued. “No one locks doors in this quaint little town because nothing bad ever happens here.”
Emma laughed. “Or…Tommy stole Coach Crawford’s key back in high school and made a couple of copies, and Matteo swiped Levi’s when we were sophomores and never returned it.”
