“You’re back early,” she said, looking up from her screen. “I thought you had the practice room reserved for another hour.”
“Couldn’t concentrate,” I admitted, dropping my violin case by the stairs.
Rachel’s eyebrows rose. It wasn’t like me to give up practice time, especially when the Montana Philharmonic audition was coming up in a few weeks.
“Everything okay?” she asked, closing her laptop and giving me her full attention.
I flopped down in the armchair across from her, suddenly feeling exhausted.
“Is it Drew?”
Rachel knew all about my rivalry with Drew. She’d been my roommate since freshman year and had witnessed every escalation, every prank, every moment of frustration and anger. She’d helped me plot revenge schemes and had listened to me rant about the injustice of being forced to work with him on our psychology project.
“No,” I lied, because how was I supposed to explain that seeing Drew as a father was messing with my head in ways I didn’t want to acknowledge? How could I tell her that yesterday, for twenty whole minutes, I’d forgotten we were supposed to hate each other?
Rachel studied my face with the kind of intuitive understanding that came from two years of friendship. “I call bullshit.”
My phone buzzed with a text before I could respond, and I grabbed it like a lifeline. Drew’s name appeared onmy screen, and my stomach did a weird and fluttery swoop that I absolutely did not want to analyze.
Andy
Found some good research articles for our project. Still on for tomorrow?
I stared at the message for a full minute, my thumb hovering over the keyboard. This was just academic stuff. Just two students working on an assignment together. It didn’t mean anything that my pulse had picked up when I saw his name, or that I was already thinking about what I should wear tomorrow.
Hockey season was still in full swing—the end of the season was coming up fast—which meant Drew’s schedule was packed with practices and games, so we’d already planned out our meeting times for the next two weeks.
Me
Yes
Simple and professional.
I ignored the fact that I stared at his message for at least a solid minute before my brain came up with that ridiculously simple response.
“Was that him?” Rachel asked.
“Why would you think it was?”
Why was I even getting defensive right now? This was Rachel. For fuck’s sake, would Drew ever stop messing with my head?
“Because your cheeks got all flushed and you got that weird look in your eyes you get whenever you’re talking about him.”
“I do not get a weird look in my eyes when I talk about Drew Dumontier.”
She pinched her lips like she was fighting back a smile. “Oh, my dear sweet bestie, you one thousand percent do. It’s like you can’t decide if you want to fight him or fuck him.”
My jaw dropped. Never in the two years of our friendship had she ever said something so outrageous.
“Did you accidentally ingest one of Brody’s weed brownies?”
She threw one of the throw pillows from the couch at me.
“So, was it him?”
I huffed. “Fine. If you must know, yes, it was. He was just confirming our project meeting for tomorrow.”
“Mm-hmm.” Rachel was still watching me with that knowing look. “You know, it’s okay to change your mind about him, Harper. Things don’t always have to be black and white.”
