Page 28 of Enchanted to Meet You

“Prove what, exactly?”

He didn’t answer right away, and the silence stretched out long enough that I turned to look at him properly, at the muscle working in his jaw, the way his hands had tightened slightly on the wheel.

“Doesn’t matter,” he said finally.

“It clearly matters. You’ve been weird about her since the closet.”

“I have not been weird.”

“You have been extremely weird. Weirder than you are about literally anything else, and you’re weird about most things.”

That got the corner of his mouth to twitch, at least, some of the tension bleeding out of his shoulders. “Careful. Almost sounds like you’re paying attention to me.”

“I have to pay attention. It comes with the job of a fake girlfriend.”

“Sure,” he said, dragging the word out long.

I poked his (very muscular) arm. “You didn’t answer my question. What’s she trying to prove?”

“I told you it doesn’t matter.”

“I know we don’t know each other very well,” I told him matter-of-factly, “but I am not good at letting things go.”

He stayed silent. I sighed and leaned back in my seat, crossing my arms.

“Fine,” I said. “I’ll guess. She wants you back.”

He snorted. “She barely wanted me when she had me.”

His words made me think of Sebastian’s ex-girlfriend, Tiffany—I’d never hated anybody more than that girl. All she ever wanted was to control Sebastian, for him to practically fall at her feet while she went off and cheated on him every other day. If Sebastian had a brother, would she have gone after him just to annoy Seb? Probably. I thought of Kelcey as being like her, and all the pieces clicked into place.

“Of course,” I murmured to myself. I turned my head to look at him, though his eyes were still trained on the road. “She doesn’t want you, but she doesn’t want anyone else to have you either. She wants you to keep pining after her forever, even though she’s moved on.”

He didn’t answer, but he didn’t need to. The way his hands tightened even harder on the steering wheel, knuckles going white, was enough of an answer for me.

He pulled onto our street a minute later, pulling up in front of my neighbour’s house instead of mine and immediately cutting the engine so my siblings would be less likely to look out and notice him here.

“You did good in there, by the way,” he said, not looking at me, one hand still resting on the gearshift. “With Kelcey. Most people don’t hold their own against her that fast.”

I paused for a second, debating whether I should share my revelation with him. I had a feeling he wouldn’t like to be compared to Sebastian in any way, but maybe he would relax more if he knew that I knew how to handle a girl like Kelcey. “I’ve had practice. My brother used to date someone exactly like her.”

Rhys just nodded, still not looking at me. After a good ten seconds of silence, I unlocked my door. “Well, thanks for the ride.”

“You didn’t have to come tonight,” Rhys said, before I could get out. I froze, not sure what he meant. “I know I didn’t exactly give you a choice, but you could’ve made it a lot harder on me than you did.”

It was the closest thing to a compliment I could imagine getting from him. I wasn’t sure how to respond genuinely, so instead I said, “Don’t get used to it.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.” He almost looked like he was going to smile but the look passed so briefly I thought I must have imagined it. “You should go. Before your siblings see you getting out of my car and start asking questions neither of us wants to answer.”

“Right.” I fumbled for the door handle, my face hot for reasons that had nothing to do with the dumbbells. “See you around, Rhys.”

“See you around, girlfriend.”

His tone was just sarcastic enough for me not to blush. I didn’t look back until I was already at the front door, key in hand, and when I finally did, his car was still sitting at the curb, engine off, like he was waiting to make sure I was safely inside before he left.

nine

Ever since Imogen started dating Cole six months ago, she started spending most of her time hanging out with him at his aunt’s cafe while he was working. I was thrilled about this, because I was the one who’d started pushing her to come to The Corner Cafe in the first place and she’d argued with me about it for weeks, which I’d later learned was because she was trying to avoid him before they got together. Now that she was happy to be here, Cole started picking us up after school on the days that we didn’t have any extracurriculars so we could hang out at the shop while he was working.