Page 4 of Perfect on Paper

“Are you sure?”

Oh, for god’s sake, was he going to make me beg him? It seemed unfair to expect me to accept his blackmail terms without any pushback or sass at all, and I was liking him less and less by the second, but I’d do it. Whatever he told me to do, I’d do it. I just needed to keep the situation contained. I nodded, firmly, and he took his phone out.

“Okay then. I’m at practice over at my swim club before school every day, and Monday, Wednesday, and Friday afternoons we do dryland training. Tuesdays and Thursdays I swim here at the pool. I’ll grab your number so we can organize this without me hunting you down at school, okay?”

“You forgot ‘please.’” Damn it, I shouldn’t have said that. But I couldn’t help myself. I snatched the phone from him and entered my number into it. “Here.”

“Excellent. What’s your name, by the way?”

I couldn’t evenbeginto stifle my laugh. “You know, usually people find out each other’s names prior to making ‘deals.’ Do you do it differently in England?”

“I’m from Australia, not England.”

“That’s not an Australian accent.”

“As an Australian, I can assure you it is. It’s just not one you’re used to hearing.”

“There’s more than one?”

“There’s more than one American accent, isn’t there? Your name?”

Oh for the love of… “Darcy Phillips.”

“I’ll message you tomorrow, Darcy. Have a wonderful night.” From the way he surveyed me, lips pressed together and chin raised as his eyes drifted down, he’d enjoyed our first conversation about as much as I had. I stiffened with annoyance at this realization. What right did he have to dislike me whenhewas the reason that exchange had gotten so tense?

He slid his phone into his damp pocket, electrical failure be damned, and turned on his heel to leave. I stared after him for a moment, then took my chance to rip the letters out of their extremely uncomfortable position by my underwear and shove them in my backpack. Just in time, too, because Mom emerged around the corner not ten seconds later. “There you are. Ready to go?” she asked me, already turning back down the hall, the clack of her low heels echoing in the empty space.

Like I was ever not ready to go. By the time she packed up her stuff, answered her emails, and got some sneaky paper marking in, I was the last student to leave this area of the school—everyone else was way down at the other end hanging around the art room or the track field.

Well, except for Alexander Brougham, apparently.

“Did you know students stay back this late to use the pool?” I asked Mom, hurrying to meet her stride.

“Well, we’re in the off-season for the school team so I daresay it wouldn’t be busy, but I know it’s open to students Vijay gives passes to until reception closes. Darc, could you text Ainsley and ask her to take the spaghetti sauce out of the freezer?”

By Vijay, Mom meant Coach Senguttuvan. One of the weirdest parts about having a parent work at school was that I knew the teachers by their firstandlast names, and had to make sure not to slip up in class or talking to my friends. Some of them I’d known practically as long as I’d been alive. It might sound easy, but having John around for dinner every month, and at my parents’ birthday parties, and hosting New Year’s Eve for fifteen years, then suddenly transitioning to calling him Mr. Hanson in math class was like playing Minesweeper with my reputation.

I texted my sister Mom’s instructions as I hopped in the passenger seat. To my delight, I found an unread message waiting from Brooke:

I don’t want to do this essay.

Please don’t make me do this

essay.

As usual, getting a message from Brooke made me feel like the law of gravity had declined to apply to me for a beat.

She was obviously thinking about me instead of doing her homework. How often did her mind wander to me when she started daydreaming? Did it wander to anyone else, or was I special?

It was so hard to know how much to hope.

I sent a quick reply:

You’ve got this! I believe in you. I’ll send you my notes later tonight, if it’ll help?

Mom hummed to herself as we pulled out of the parking lot, unbelievably slowly, so as to not bowl down any unexpected turtles. “How was your day?”

“Pretty uneventful,” I lied. Best to leave out the whole “I got hired and also blackmailed” thing. “I got into an argument about women’s rights in sociology with Mr. Reisling, but that’s normal. Mr. Reisling’s a dickhead.”

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