Page 205 of On His Team

Benson shakes his head. “You two really aren’t subtle.”

“Thank you,” Stanley shouts from the kitchen.

I twist toward him. “We were incredibly subtle.”

“No,” several people say at once.

My mouth falls open. “That is bullshit.”

Mara starts laughing.

Lucy crosses her arms. “You’ve been smiling at your phone for weeks.”

“I smile at my phone all the time.”

“No, you don’t.”

“Yes, I do.”

“You literally walk into walls when he texts you.”

I chuckle. “That happened once.”

“Twice,” Mara adds.

I point at everybody now. “Can you all shut up?”

Nobody does.

“Everybody shut the fuck up for two seconds!”

That finally works. The room settles into laughter and muttering, and all at once every person is looking at me.

For one second, I feel nervous again. Then Rowan’s thumb moves over the side of my hand.

I look around Hawthorne at all the people who I love more than life itself. My brother. My best friend, Lucy. My other best friend, Mara. The pain in my ass but party partner, Stanley. Blue and Melly. Percy and Penelope. Aspen and Mila. My best friends. My favorite people in the world.

Then I look at Rowan. The nerves disappear.

I squeeze his hand. “So, Rowan’s my boyfriend.”

The room absolutely loses it. Mara screams loud enough to make me flinch. Lucy makes a sound somewhere between a laugh and an accusation and comes straight at me, while Melly jumps up right behind her. Aspen starts clapping. Even Percy is smiling.

Stanley points at Rowan as if he has personally betrayed him. “Boyfriend?”

Rowan nods. “Yeah.”

“Since when?”

“Today.”

Stanley’s face twists. “What do you mean, today?”

“Today.”

Blue starts laughing. “That is definitely not what he’s asking.”

By then Lucy has both arms around me, and Mara is trying to get in on the hug from the other side.