Page 116 of The Statistically Unlikely Reunion

Lucas shrugs, pulling me in for a hug, not noticing when I sniff him, trying to store this as a core memory I can access later. “It wasn’t that bad.”

“You say that because Lorelai practically sat in your lap the entire time.”

“We sat several inches apart,” I protest as Lucas presses a kiss to my temple.

“Get your own girlfriend.”

“So can we? Kick some ass? Show we’re better as a trio than, you know, Lucas competing on his own?”

“Toe pick on three.”

Brody and I laugh; it’s not usually Lucas who quotes from what’s clearly my movie.

“Fine.” Brody puts his hand in the middle, and yeah, we get a few odd looks, but we’re grinning too hard to really care.

Professor Miller is the first to approach us afterward.

It doesn’t seem real until he congratulates us. He shakes Lucas’s hand first. “I knew you could do it,” he says before approaching me. He slaps a heavy hand on my shoulder. “And I hear this is a double congratulations for you.”

He angles his head back and raises bushy eyebrows, his entire face twisted into a caricature of Now, now. He turns his smartphone toward me, where, because he must have the display text set to the largest possible size, the headline practically screams at all three of us:

Romeo and Juliet for the Ages: Tatum Huang and Lorelai Zhao Engaged!

Formerly famous for their feuds, the CEO of Huang Enterprises and the CEO of Zhaovestments likely never predicted that their children, Tatum Huang, Stanford Olympic swimmer, and . . .

My father agreed to give me a week. Brody’s mother insisted it be written into the contract. But who knows who’s seen the contract in the intervening days: It could be a disgruntled employee retaliating against my father. It could be my father, knowing I can’t trace it back to him.

Lucas is staring at me intently, his breathing ragged. The longer I’m silent, the more apparent my guilt, and yet I just cannot connect my tongue to my brain, cannot verbalize any of the half lies I’ve been working on since I signed.

“You don’t seem to be denying this.”

Brody clears his throat, and there is a stricken, almost panicked flash of guilt that crosses our friend’s face. It would have been a dead giveaway if Lucas had been looking. But thankfully, Lucas isn’t looking, because I’d hate for Lucas to lose me and Brody at the same time.

I lick my lips and grasp at the first stall I can think of. “The awards ceremony⁠—”

“Doesn’t start for another hour.”

“Professor Miller⁠—”

“Has just drifted away to accept congratulations from all the other coaches.” Lucas’s voice is eerily calm as he gestures toward the exit, and I could try to wiggle out of this, to delay the inevitable, but I won’t.

I was promised another week.

Days of waking up in Lucas’s warm arms.

Nights of breathing next to him, feeling loved and⁠—

I shake my head, because now is not the time to think about any of that. There will be plenty of time to cry and scream later.

Later, I’ll have a lifetime to grieve the hours and days and weeks I’ve lost with Lucas.

I’ll have only the next few minutes to convince Lucas this is what I want. One chance to fool the smartest man I’ve ever met. Because if Lucas suspects—worse, if Lucas figures out the truth of this farce—he will talk me out of it. Because he can talk me into anything, often without even trying.

And that would be disastrous.

I square my shoulders as we wait, in tacit silence, for the elevator.

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