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“No comment.”
Juno squeals. “I knew it. I knew it was over a girl.”
“What happened? Did you end up having a duel or something to decide who gets the girl?” Eli asks.
I roll my eyes. “I saw her three times. It went nowhere. Clearly Will is interested – has been interested. End of story.”
I glance over at Maggie again. She’s holding her face perfectly still – unreadable.
Later that evening, I see Maggie sitting out front on the porch swing after dinner. I step outside and sit beside her.
“Hey.”
She doesn’t look my direction. “Hey.”
“You okay?”
She turns to me. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
I hold her gaze for a moment and say, “You seemed quiet at dinner.”
She moves her eyes back to the snowy landscape in front of us. “So was Olivia why you pulled away from me this Fall?”
I consider lying but instead I say, “Yes.”
She’s still not looking at me. “Why not just tell me?”
I sigh. “I don’t know. It was nothing.”
The truth is I felt guilty. I felt guilty dating another woman even though that’s exactly what our arrangement is about. How can explain that without sounding like a creep?
“You broke a rule,” she says. “You ghosted me.”
“I know. You’re breaking a rule right now asking me about another woman.”
She snorts. “True, but I think it’s warranted. I think I deserve an explanation to why you moved in with me for over a month and then could barely be in the same room with me all Fall.”
I bristle not because she’s offended me, but because she’s right.
“What happened anyway?” she asks.
“Will is interested. Isn’t that obvious? Have you seen the way they look at each other?”
She chuckles. “I have. He’s fallen hard.”
“He has.”
She turns to me. “Did you get hurt? That she chose him and not you?”
I give her a sad smile and then say, “No, Mags, I didn’t. We saw each other three times. It was all very platonic, and both of us realized that we had no attraction to each other. That’s it. Honestly.”
She studies my face for a moment and then says, “Okay.”
“Don’t worry about me, Buttercup. My heart doesn’t get broken that easily.”
She laughs. “I don’t doubt it. You’ve always struck me as the heartbreaker.”
“I don’t think that’s a compliment.”
