“It’s fine,” she says flatly.
“No, it’s not fine,” I refute. “It was a really dick move to make you worry like that. I’m so sorry.”
She shrugs. “It’s over and done with now.”
Oh boy. She’s definitely pissed at me.
“Did you…uh…help me get inside last night?” I ask, desperate to piece last night’s drunken puzzle together so I can find the right words to explain to her what happened.
She finally meets my gaze. “Yeah.”
Fuck.“Again, I’m so sorry.” I grimace. “How bad was I?”
“Not the worst I’ve seen,” she says with another shrug, then adds, “but you weren’t exactly holding a press conference either.”
I wince. “Thanks for helping me.”
“Of course,” she says, too quickly. “That’s what friends do, right?”
Right. Friends. My favorite prison.
“I wanted to tell you where I was last night. I really did. It’s kind of complicated. I—”
“You don’t have to tell me anything,” she cuts me off as she leans down to clip Yoko’s leash. She’s avoiding my eyes completely now. “Is that all you wanted to chat about?” she asks quickly. “Because I really should get him outside. Pretty sure he has to pee.”
“No, actually, it’s not…” I pause, trying to find the right words. Trying to figure out how to explain it all. Trying to figure out if I can let the whole pact-of-secrecy thing go and tell Julia everything.
I mean, I want to tell her I got inducted as the new president of Double C. I want to tell her that Lexi passed me a cursed phone full of ridiculous last-minute event notes and that my mom made me do tequila shots while my dad challenged a bartender to a push-up contest. I want her to know I wasn’t out with someone else.
Yoko whines before I can even open my mouth again, and that urges Julia to step into the hall with him and shut her door. “I’d better get a move on it,” she says, stepping around me with Yoko’s leash wrapped around her wrist. He’s bouncing around now, whining and trying to tug her toward the elevators. “Do you want to come?”
It’s a lifeline, but it’s a fucking lifeline I can’t take because of all the shit I have to make sure gets confirmed before tonight’s event. There are no fucking baby steps with taking over as Double C’s newest president. Lexi has quite literally tossed me into the deep end of the shark-infested pool.
Last night, she handed me the President Phone—yes, that’s a real thing—and said,“Good Luck, Mr. President.”
Inside that phone, there’s a long, bullet-pointed and color-coded fucking list of all the crap I need to do and become familiar with. Calls and texts I need to make for tonight. Names and phone numbers of Dickson University campus security officers I need to reach out to and pay off to let us in places we most certainly shouldn’t be.
It’s a lot of fucking to-dos. All of which I’m completely responsible for now, and I have exactly eight hours to make sure a secret society event, complete with a custom scavenger hunt, goes off without a hitch.
No pressure.
“Or I guess you don’t have to come…” Julia adds, her voice quiet in a way that makes my chest ache. “You probably have more important stuff to do.”
I want to tell her that there’s nothing more important than her.
I want to tell her the truth. I want to tell her everything.
But she doesn’t even give me the chance.
“Julia, I—”
“Ace, can we catch up later?” she cuts me off. “Yoko is getting antsy.”
“Uh…yeah, but—”
“I’ll see you later, okay?”
She doesn’t wait for an answer. She turns and heads down the hall with Yoko all but tugging her toward the elevator.
