She swallows. “No.”
“Uh huh.” I hold her gaze for a few more beats before backing down and leaning back in my chair. She opens her laptop finally, but before the silence gets too loud I say, “I meant what I said earlier. I can help you with your list. I know you want to do it alone, but if you’re struggling . . .”
I trail off at the end and I don’t know what else to say without begging her to let me help. We’ve never done this. Never willingly helped each other with something that isn’t related to academics. But over the last few weeks, something has settled between us. Some sort of stalemate has been reached, and I want to see what a friendship might look like between us.
Scarlett’s brown eyes finally meet mine, and there’s a hesitancy in them. A warm glow shines in her irises, something both bright and sad. “I can’t accept your help, Branson,” she says quietly. “My parents said I can’t ask them or my brothers for help.”
“Well, last time I checked, we’re not related.”
She frowns. “Still, it’s a loophole. It feels like cheating.”
“But it’s not.”
“Cheating adjacent.”
“Tomato tomahto,” I say, and the crease between her eyebrows deepens. I sigh, leaning back in my chair and loosening the tie around my neck. “Look, when I wanted to get more involved with B&Co, I didn’t have anyone in my corner. I managed it, but it took me twice as long to do everything on my own. I can tell you want this. Just let me help you.”
She lets out an agitated breath, running her hands through the ends of her hair. “Butwhy? Why do you want to help me so much?”
“I think you’re annoying and a bit of a brat.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“ButI don’t . . . not like you.”
A weight falls off my chest with the words.
She has to know I don’t hate her as much as she thinks I do. I only play by her rules, push her as far as she pushes me. It’s always been like that with us.
“Right,” she mumbles.
Her mouth opens and closes again like she’s not sure how much to reveal, looking between me and her bag. After the internal struggle she’s clearly going through, she eventually opens her bag and pulls out a purple wallet.
She mutters something under her breath about how she can’t believe she’s showing me this, before pulling out the list. It’s nothing too crazy—a few random tasks mixed in with activities related to Voss. I smile at the way she’s annotated it with different-colored lines and squiggles, and Post-it notes with ideas.
“You think it’s stupid.” She pulls the list from my hands, but I don’t let her take it yet.
“I don’t. You’ve already got ideas for most of them, and completed one of them.” Her eyes narrow at me, but I ignore her,looking down at the other papers that fell out of the folder. A sketch of a gown catches my attention. It’s elegant and beautiful, a long flowy skirt shaded in with colored pencil. “This is good, Scarlett. Really fucking good.”
She snatches the paper from my hand, rolling her eyes as she tucks it behind the list. “It’s still a work in progress.”
I bite my tongue, wanting to tell her how it looks perfect as it is, but something tells me that isn’t what she wants to hear. Seeing her nervous like this makesmenervous. Scarlett doesn’t care what I think. I know that. But there’s also that slight hesitation in her voice, that glint in her eye like she needs someone to validate her in some way.
As she shoves the wallet back into her bag, she asks so quietly that I almost miss it, “Do you really want to help me?”
“For the millionth time, yes,” I say with a sigh.
“Okay,” she says, sitting up a little straighter. She can hardly look me in the eye, but it’s an answer, nonetheless.
I raise an eyebrow. “Okay?”
“Yeah, okay.”
I can’t help the smile that splits across my face. “Oh my God. Scarlett Voss is accepting my help.”
“Shut up,” she says, but her words don’t hold any bite. Not when I can see the way she bites her bottom lip to stop herself from smiling. She’s fucking adorable. “Okay, enough of that, where should we start with this presentation?”
I almost forgot that’s the real reason we’re here, and I snap right into study mode.
