I enjoy the walk — two friends arm in arm, a win behind us, coffee ahead — because this is the picture I’ve been trying to paint since I got here, and it’s starting to feel real. It feels like the plan is working, and I’m fitting in without standing out.
“Are you listening to me?” Ivy says, when she realizes I’m daydreaming.
I shrug. “Absolutely not.”
“Wounded,” she says. “We’re here.”
The door to Maple & Main swings open, and I’m hit by the scent of espresso and the chatter of a post-game crowd crammed into too few booths. The front windows are fogged, and behind the counter a milk steamer is screaming.
“No tables,” I say, looking around. “Should we go somewhere?—”
“No,” Ivy says. “Hockey guys have a standing reservation.”
Ivy doesn’t leave room for questions. She’s already elbowing a path through the mass of students, so I follow her and see her wave at a long table in the corner, and my eyes follow her wave. Then my heart stumbles for three beats.
First beat: I see the same boy from the courtyard. Same dark hair that’s now damp from a shower, same blue eyes, and same shoulders I’ve thought about every day since the incident.
Second beat: I notice the well-worn navy Halden Hockey hoodie he’s sporting as he sits at the table reserved for the hockey guys.
Third beat: I realize those are the same shoulders I watched drive a Briarhaven forward into the plexiglass while I stood up and shouted for blood.
I’ve heard about him all week, and all along Ivy was talking about the boy I never thought I’d see again.He’sRowan.Everything snaps together, and I stand there flushed badly enough that I’m probably contributing to the window fog.
He’s looking at Ivy, his face softening around the eyes as he smiles at her.
But then his gaze moves to me, and his face goes careful. Not blank — I know blank — but a kind of chosen indifference. But hemustremember me, because you don’t forget the girl whose underwear you folded, even though he’s acting like I’m a stranger his sister brought along.
Ivy doesn’t notice the shared look and pulls me forward. “Rowan, Sloane. Sloane, Rowan. Sloane is my roommate. Rowan is the alphabetizer.”
Something shifts behind his eyes when Ivy says my name — a flicker of interest he’d been holding back — and then it’s gone, replaced by that same steady quiet he’d held since the moment he saw me. It’s almost like he’s choosing neutrality and letting me react — or not — to the realization about our first meeting.
“Hi.” I try the Halden Girl voice, and it comes out fine, even pleasant. “Nice to meet you.”
He looks at me, then his mouth inches up at one corner. “Ivy has told me absolutely nothing about you…”
I blink, not sure where to take it.
Ivy’s head snaps between us. “Why are you both being weird?”
“We’re not,” we both say at the same time.
“You are,” she says, looking at Rowan. “You don’t smirk at people you just met.”
He shrugs.
Ivy turns on me. “And you… I don’t know… but something’s not quite?—”
“Everything’s fine…” I try.
Her eyes shoot wide. “Wait, no!”
“Yes,” I say, immediately regretting it.
“Rowan is courtyard guy?” She scoffs. “My brother folded your panties?”
“Guilty,” Rowan confirms.
“Oh my God.” Ivy puts both hands over her face. “I don’t know who I’m more embarrassed for. Him, for touching his sister’s roommate’s panties on day one. Or you, for — Sloane, you told me that story and I comforted you and it was him the whole time?—”
