Page 22 of Enchanted to Meet You

“No promises,” he winked, grabbing his gym bag from the back and heading toward the sports block. I walked with Imogen and Nora up to the front double doors, stepping into the chaotic wash of fluorescent light, locker thuds, and morning chatter. I had precisely four seconds of calm before a blur of bright energy descended upon us.

“There you are!” Clementine appeared out of absolutely nowhere, the way she always did, like the universe kept her on retainer specifically to intercept people on the way to their lockers. She had one arm around my shoulders before I’d even fully processed she was there, her bubblegum pink hair twisted up into a bun that was both messy and clearly the result of at least ten minutes of careful effort.

“Good morning to you too,” I said.

“Where’s Reese?” Nora asked about Clementine’s best friend.

“Ugh, don’t remind me. She’s stuck finishing some group project thing before first period. Some boy in her group did literally nothing all weekend and now she’s single-handedly fixing a PowerPoint at eight-twenty in the morning like a hostage.”

Imogen snorted. “I’m not sure you have a good sense of what happens in hostage situations.”

Clementine released me just long enough for me to spin my locker combination, then immediately reclaimed her spot leaning between me and Nora, arms crossed, practically vibrating. “Okay. So. You know how Parkhurst’s doing that whole spring fundraiser thing? The one for the new pool renovations?”

“Vaguely,” I said, which was generous. I was pretty sure I’d seen a poster about it at some point, but I could also have been easily mixing it up with something else. I probably should have cared more since I was on the swim team and would be directly impacted by pool renovations, but I had far too much other stuff on my mind right now.

Imogen leaned around me to look at Clementine. “I heard about that! It’s a joint thing with Crofton, right?”

Clementine looked thrilled that somebody knew what she was talking about. “Yes! And apparently,” she paused for dramatic effect, “they’re sending a group from Crofton over today to do some kind of walkthrough with our student council. Which means Crofton boys. On our campus.”

My stomach dropped. Why today? Why now, of all days? If it had just been last week…

“So?” I said, aiming for casual and landing somewhere closer to strangled. My mind was moving a mile a minute. The school must have as big of a student population as Parkhurst did, which meant if it was a small group, then Rhys probably wouldn’t be included. But hadn’t he mentioned he was on the student council? This seemed like the exact type of thing he would have to do with that. But no, he would have told me if he was going to show up. And what about Kelcey? She went to Crofton and her boyfriend went here, there was no doubt in my mind that she would try to end up on this trip, and heaven only knew what comment she might make if she saw me here.

“So?” Clementine repeated, aghast, like I’d personally offended the entire concept of teenage romance. “Ainsley. Do you know what happens when you put a hundred girls in the same building as boys from a rival school for the first time in months? Chaos. Beautiful, delicious chaos.”

I was saved from having to answer by the warning bell. I shut my locker harder than necessary and swung my bag onto my shoulder, turning to start down the hall—only to be blocked by a crowd of students refusing to move at all. It took me a second to realize what was happening—heads turning, a ripple of whispers moving down the corridor like wind through a field, a couple of girls near the trophy case going up on their toes to see over the crowd.

I followed everyone else’s gaze toward the front entrance, and there they were—a cluster of maybe eight or nine students filing in through the main doors, unmistakable even from fifty feet away, because Parkhurst ran blue and silver down to the piping on our socks, and Crofton Academy apparently believed the loudest possible red and gold said prestigious rather than football mascot. They had that same easy, too-comfortable posture Rhys always had, like hallways belonged to them regardless of which building they were currently standing in.

And there, unmistakably, near the back of the group, hands shoved in his grey pants pockets, looking exactly as unbothered as he had looked cornering me against his bedroom door two nights ago, was Rhys.

My stomach dropped so hard I thought I might be sick.

“Oh my gosh,” Clementine breathed, grabbing my arm hard enough to leave a mark, her whole face lighting up like Christmas had arrived four months early and dressed in a blazer.

“I don’t think you’re supposed to be this excited about this when you have a boyfriend who is a world-famous superstar,” Nora told Clementine, but I didn’t miss the way her eyes were tracking the boys too. Even Imogen was watching them out of the corner of her eye as she gathered textbooks for her class.

“Okay, this is exactly what I’m talking about!” Clementine squealed, ignoring Nora’s words. “Look at them, just walking in here like they own the place⁠—”

“I have to go,” I interrupted. I pulled my arm out of her grip and turned the opposite way from the Crofton students.

“Your first class is the other way,” Imogen said.

I obviously couldn’t say yeah, but I can’t risk walking past Rhys Montgomery right now, so instead I blurted, “I forgot something I need for my first class.”

And then I practically booked it down the hallway, ignoring Imogen as she yelled after me, “You were literally standing in front of your locker!”

I was not ready, at eight o’clock on a Monday morning, to deal with the horror of Rhys Montgomery in my school hallway. I knew—with absolute, deep certainty—that the second he spotted me, he was not going to simply ignore me. He was going to find some way to make this my problem, in public, with an audience, and enjoy every second of doing it.

The rest of the morning was a fever dream of absolute paranoia. Every time a door opened, every time I caught a flash of maroon down a corridor, my chest seized up. I dodged Clementine at break, bypassed my usual route to French, and spent fourth period staring blankly at a whiteboard while my brain ran endless survival simulations.

It was a low-grade dread that made it almost impossible to focus on anything. Every time a door opened at the wrong angle, every time I caught a flash of red and gold at the far end of a hallway, my whole body went on high alert, bracing for the moment Rhys decided to make my life difficult in front of literally everyone I knew.

By the time lunch rolled around, I still hadn’t run into him directly, which felt like a small miracle right up until I turned a corner near the science wing and nearly walked face-first into his chest for the third time in exactly as many encounters that had started this entire disaster.

And then, the boy had the audacity to say, “Hey, girlfriend.”

Panic exploded behind my eyes. I grabbed him by the lapels of his stupid maroon blazer, hauled him sideways, and kicked open the nearest door, dragging him inside before the hallway could catch us.