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“Don’t lie to me,” she says. “You pretended you had no idea who Rafe Waleska was at the hockey game, and then at the party.”

My face starts to heat.

“I’m not trying to put you on the spot.” She shrugs. “It’s just us. I’ve been dying to know.”

I look down at my cinnamon roll and admit, “I thought if I ignored him, he would leave me alone.”

She leans in. “Why in the world would you want him to leave you alone? You guys are so fucking cute together.”

She says it sincerely, and she isn’t wrong, but it still makes me uncomfortable.

She covers her mouth and laughs at herself. She whispers, “I’m so scared his mom is going to come around the corner and be like language, girls! Get off of my counter!”

I cover my mouth and laugh.

She says quietly, “She’s scary.” Then she forgets all about it and says, “Are you going to tell me the story, Tess?”

“It’s a long story,” I say. “We have a lot of history.”

“Then sum it up,” she says, licking her fingers.

I pull a piece off the cinnamon roll and don’t eat it.

How can I sum up my life for the past four and a half years of knowing Rafferty Waleska?

“He wasn’t really nice to me,” I say, and hearing that makes me realize how untrue that statement is now.

I plop the piece in my mouth and don’t say anything else.

She thinks about that for a moment, and then she says, “I can’t imagine him being nice to anyone.” She starts to laugh and leans in. “Seriously, Tess. Can you imagine Rafe being nice to anyone? I’ve been around him enough to know that he isn’t. Well, until you’re in his circle.”

And that makes me think about something he said the other day. You crossed my line, Tessa.

I’ve been thinking about that since he said it, mostly because I don’t know when I crossed anything. I spent four years trying to stay as far away from him as possible.

I saw him, though. Even when I hated him. I knew when he was pissed off before anybody else did. I knew what color his eyes went when he was looking for a fight. I knew how he stood when somebody had already gotten under his skin.

Maybe he knew I was looking.

Maybe that bothered him.

Maybe the line meant something completely different.

I still don’t know.

She tilts her head and thinks. “You know, after all that stuff that happened with Greeley, it was Rafe who gave Nash good advice.”

“Really?” I ask.

She nods. “And I’ve also been around enough to know that there’s only one person that is more hot-headed than my boyfriend.”

“It better be me,” Koda says, walking into the kitchen.

He looks at us on the counter and looks down at the cinnamon rolls. He walks over and helps himself to one.

“So, who are you talking about?” Koda says.

Kylie looks at me and raises her eyebrows like watch this.