Page 135 of On His Team

“Mara.”

She gets in front of me and starts walking backward, so I have to look at her. “What happened?”

“Nothing you need a diagram of.”

Her mouth falls open. I laugh and try to get around her. She catches my sleeve.

“You gave him head.”

I glance around and warn her, “Mara.”

“You did!”

We are fifteen feet from the student center doors.

I lower my voice. “Can you please stop announcing my sex life to the entire state of Michigan?”

Her eyes are enormous. I grab the front of her coat and pull her closer.

“And before you congratulate yourself, your theory did not work.”

“What theory?”

“The stupid one where I was supposed to hook up with him and magically stop liking him.”

Mara stares at me.

Then her smile starts. “You like him more.”

My face heats. “I hate you.”

“You like him more.”

She wraps both arms around me.

I stand there holding my coffee away from her shoulder so she doesn’t crush it between us.

“This is not a celebration.”

“It is for me.”

“You have contributed nothing useful.”

“I told you to get under somebody to get over them.”

I roll my eyes. “I wasn’t trying to get over Rowan.”

“You were trying to stop being weird about him.”

I point at her and sip my coffee. “That also failed.”

Mara pulls back and looks delighted.

I hate that she’s right. The problem is that nothing about last night gave me distance. If anything, Rowan feels closer now. Not because of what happened in the kitchen, although my brain has certainly replayed enough of that to be considered medically unhelpful. It’s everything around it that keeps getting me. He wanted me there. He gave Blue movie tickets because he wanted the house empty. He cooked enough for me before I arrived. He remembered I needed a charger before I remembered I had left my own in my bag, even if he made me fight him for his first. And then after all of it, when I told him he was a problem and he could have made another joke, he looked at me and said he liked me. Just like that. There was no speech, no buildup, no tortured pause, and no awkwardness. Just I like you.

I have replayed those three words more than anything else that happened on the kitchen counter, which seems like an embarrassing misuse of my priorities.

Mara studies me. Her expression softens slightly.