While Reece closed his eyes—probably waiting for my father to yell at him or something—Dad walked around the table and stood behind me. His lips pressed to the top of my head just after he said, “I’m happy for you. Congratulations.”
19
REECE
“You guys are making it really hard for anyone else to find love,” Ming said as he took a seat on the opposite side of Brooke and me.
I hadn’t seen my best friend outside of hockey practice for a couple of days since I was too busy showing Brooke around the school. It wasn’t really necessary since we shared the same classes so she wasn’t going to get lost either way, but I still wanted to show her the place.
She wouldn’t always be around me so she had to know her way around. Brooke needed to find her own crowd, make her own friends, and not rely on me or Ming too much. But for now, I was convinced I needed her around me more than she wanted to be.
Throughout our entire middle school and high school years, she barely made more than two friends and always just stuck around me. I loved it and I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way, but while the past two years had taught me that being separated from her sucked balls, it was good for her.
Brooke had Rina now, and other people she met at Juilliard all on her own. She needed her own people, some shecould go to and complain about me without fearing they’d tell me because they were also my friends.
“Why would Reece and I make it harder foryouto find love?” Brooke asked, setting her iced coffee down. We just got here from Claire’s because the cafeteria’s coffee was the worst, and so was the food.
Claire’s was a little coffee shop close to campus. It had been here for ages, but since the majority of St. Trewery students went there on a daily basis, it was no surprise it was still standing.
“Because every time I look at you two, I’m like ‘Aw, I want that too’ and suddenly, every single girl I meet just doesn’t measure up to you guys,” Ming replied before his breath rushed out on a sigh. “Also, so totally off-topic, but, Brooke, you haven’t even been here for a week and everyone’s already jealous of you.”
“Jealous?” She reached for my hand underneath the table. Brooke was getting anxious. “This, uh… this is a huge school, noteveryoneknows me.” Her fingers interlocked with mine, holding me tightly. “And there’s nothing to be jealous about.”
“Are you kidding me?” Ming’s eyes almost popped right out of his head. “The second one person saw and recognized you, you became the school’s most talked about topic. Your parents are kind of famous, Brooke. Everyone here knows Rêverie and if they hadn’t been there already, they’redreamingof going there. You could easily become the most popular student at St. Trewery.”
“Popular with fake friends,” I said, stroking my thumb back and forth over her smooth skin.
Our interlocked hands laid on Brooke’s thigh, and I did everything I could to press her leg down and stop her each time it began to shake.
If Brooke broke down in the middle of the cafeteria, she would’ve never shown her face here ever again. And if people took pictures and uploaded them online, Brooke would’ve fled the state altogether, if not the entire country.
She had enough eyes on her already.
Ming was right though, Rêverie was very popular, and not just in the state of New York. However, not everyone who knew the restaurant knew who Miles was or cared enough to find out who his kids were. Still, that already put Brooke in the spotlight in some way.
In addition to that, Emory was a famous illustrator, working with Sofia—the wife of my sister-in-law’s twin brother who was also playing for the Rangers—on turning her novels into comics. Three of their comics got turned into TV shows, one of which was still very popular and got a new season just two months ago.
The coolest part about that was the fact that my sister-in-law directed those shows.
Anyway, even if Miles and Emory weren’t known, Brooke’s figure skating competitions were televised.
There were fan accounts for Brooke online; some of which were talking about how she should date Erik since they had oh-so-much chemistry. Luckily, there were a bunch of people out there who knew Brooke was dating me so they made sure to enlighten as many people who shipped Brooke and Erik on that.
I mean, honestly, it wasn’t that hard to figure out. If Brooke ever posted a picture online, I was usually in the frame as well, if only in the background.
“She literally couldn’t have a single fake friend with you by her side. I feel like you can smell them from a mile away and would just scare them off,” Ming said, propping his elbows onto the table to hold his head up with both ofhis hands. “See, you’re like a German Shepherd when it comes to Brooke. The German Shepherd to Brooke’s Great Dane.” He sighed dreamingly, looking at my fiancée. “You’re so lucky. I want to be someone’s German Shepherd to their Great Dane. But unless I ever find someone who wants to spend as much time with me as you guys spend with each other, I’ll never be that. So, yes, you guys are making it disgustingly difficult for me to fall in love because I’m always like ‘Damn, but that’s not what Brooke and Reece would do’ and ‘Brooke would never say this to Reece’.”
Brooke leaned her head against my shoulder, chuckling softly. She was still tense, but it got better with every moment we steered farther away from the eyes-on-her talk.
“I say a lot of things to Reece that you’ll never know about.”
“Nope. In my head, your relationship is as perfect as ice hockey, so don’t ruin it.” He reached for his phone, rolling his eyes as he read a text. “Sorry, I gotta go. Fynn wants to tell me about some stupid plan. I don’t think he wants you to know, but I’ll tell you about it later.” He nodded at me, then said goodbye and rushed off, leaving me alone with Brooke once again.
Ming running off because someone asked for his attention wasn’t strange for him, but it was concerning that Fynn wanted to talk to Ming without me being there as well. But whatever, recently, I didn’t feel like wanting to be Fynn’s friend any longer anyway.
“Did you tell Pike you didn’t want him as your agent anymore yet?” Brooke asked, suddenly finding her confident voice again. She always spoke in an unsure tone with other people. I knew she wasn’t the best at socializing, but that didn’t mean her voice changing was less funny to me.
I shook my head. “I’ll do that just before skating practice later today.”
