“Mind if I come with you?”
“I’ve got it,” Ellie snaps.
“I didn’t say you didn’t.” I try to make my voice soft and nonconfrontational. “I said I wanted to come with you.”
“Mm-hmm.” She crouches down and latches Bo’s leash on to his collar, and I grab my coat and move between her and the door, trying to stand my ground despite the spin cycle starting in my stomach. Is she really this mad that I missed the thankful thing?
“Hey. Ellie. Seriously. Are you okay?”
“Yup,” she says, her voice pitched up in a way that feels untrustworthy, like she’s not even pretending to pretend she’s fine. It’s only when she realizes she can’t get out the door that she finally looks me in the eye. “Can you move? Please?”
I bite my cheek. “Only if you let me come with you.”
She stares at me defiantly, but I’m not backing down. “Fine,” she huffs. “That’s fine.”
fourteen
Less than twenty-four hours into a fake relationship seems a little early to be falling into a routine, and yet Ellie and I have found ourselves out in the cold in front of her house again. Unlike this morning, we have neither sun or a car to keep us warm. We both wince against the wind, bargaining frostbite for privacy as I tug the door closed behind me.
“What do you want?” Ellie snaps. She’s already shivering a little.
“You’re pissed,” I say, “and we should talk about why you’re pissed.”
“I’m not pissed.” Her eyes roll a lap toward the sky, and I can barely hold in my laugh. We’ve both told a lot of lies today, but this has to be the least convincing among them. Not even Bo, who can’t seem to sniff out the right place to pee, would fall for that. The wind picks up, whipping Ellie’s blonde hair in front of her face and pasting a few strands onto her lips. She turns a cheek against it, then stares down at Bo, who is sniffing a trail along the bushes. “C’mon.” She jostles his leash. “Go potty.”
“Listen,” I start, staring at Bo despite talking to Ellie, “I’msorry I had to leave during the thankful thing, but I was so freaked out—”
“Can we drop it? Please?”
I roll my lips over my teeth, burying my hands in my coat pockets. “I was just trying to apologize.”
“I just think it’s funny how you were so invested in our agreement when it was about you and your accounting grade,” Ellie says, decidedly not dropping it. “But the second I need you to support me on the grad school thing, you’ve got more important things to do.”
“I’m really sorry,” I say, putting my whole chest into each word. “If you hadn’t noticed, I was sort of going through a major transfer crisis.”
A tiny, unimpressed huff buzzes past her lips, but she won’t even look at me. Her eyes stay fixed on Bo. “Soyourproblems pull rank and you don’t have to hold up your end of the bargain. Got it.”
“I was trying,” I say, then dial my voice back a few decibels. If her parents overhear this, it’ll be over for both of us. “I set up that whole grad school conversation, didn’t I?”
Ellie’s laugh is more of an indignant puff. “Yeah, and that’s about all you did. You justhadto side with Mom on the whole cost of college thing, and then you completely jumped ship. I needed you.”
“I didn’t side with your mom. And I didn’tjump shipeither.I stepped away to take a breather.”
“You stepped away to call Kat,” she corrects me. “I heard you.”
“No, Kat calledmebecause she needed help with her own emergency.”
“And?” At long last, Ellie’s head snaps toward me, and I watch her jaw stiffen while her glossy blue eyes narrow an inch. “What was the emergency?”
“Family drama,” I grumble. Now that I have her direct eye contact, I no longer want it, so I slip into a staring contest with a stain on the hem of my coat. Coffee, probably. “She needed me.”
“So did I,” Ellie says. “Listen. I get that missing the transfer deadline is a huge blow. And I get that Kat is important, but you made a promise. We were supposed to help each other.”
“There’s nothing to help me with anymore,” I remind her. “I can’t transfer. My grade doesn’t matter.”
“It still matters, Murphy. You heard my mom. You can still transfer next fall.”
“Just in time for you to have already graduated and for Kat to have only a year left.”
