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That shadow passed over her expression again, but I didn’t push. If Harper wanted to open up to me, she would.
“How is it being on your own? Missing the guys yet?”
“It’s different,” I said.
“Good different? You seem a little quieter since you moved out.”
“Actually, Harper, I need to tell you something.” I inhaled a deep breath, shoving my trembling hands under my thighs.
“Okay.”
“So you know how you asked me if there was anything going on with Noah and me, and I said no?”
A knowing smile tugged at her lips. “I was wondering when you were going to fess up.”
“You knew?” My eyes widened.
“I didn’t know, but I suspected. There was a change in you. Subtle, but it was there. Not to mention you were always texting and you’d get this look.”
“I did not get a look,” I said.
“Did too.” She grinned, easing some of the guilt I felt.
“I’m so sorry I lied, Harper. But it was Noah, you know? He’s… and I’m…”
“You, Aurora Hart, need a serious dose of self-love. You’re smart and gorgeous, and you bagged yourself Noah freaking Holden.”
“Actually, he ended things. With a text.” I winced.
“He… what?”
“Yep.” I swallowed down the jagged ball of emotion, forcing myself not to get swept up in the pain and betrayal I felt every time I thought about how he’d left things. “We… uh, we had an amazing night together, and then he just… ended it.”
“Wow, what a jerk.”
“The funny thing is, I get it.”
She gawked at me like I’d lost my mind. “What do you mean, you get it?”
“He panicked. I have a lot of baggage, Harper. Stuff I haven’t really dealt with. Stuff I’m still dealing with. And he’s… a hockey star. I mean, he’s slept with half the female population at LU. I can’t compete with that.
“Things between us were real, and that freaked him out. To be honest, it kind of freaked me out. I’m not built to be in the spotlight and being Noah’s girlfriend…”
“Is a one-way ticket to campus infamy.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“Oh, hush,” she said. “I didn’t mean it like that. But any one girl who bags herself a Laker becomes puck bunny enemy number one. Those girls don’t mess around online.”
“Yeah.”
Of course, I knew what being with Noah would open myself up to. It’s one of the reasons I’d kept holding back.
I’d been the girl at the brunt of jokes for years. It hadn’t gotten better when I dated Ben. It had just become more passive-aggressive, more under the radar. Because while people had no problem hurting my feelings, they didn’t want to offend the popular hockey player.
God, people sucked.
“So you haven’t talked to him about it at all?”
