Page 110 of Spearcrest Queen

On the way to the restaurant afterwards, we take separate cabs, and I hold Sophie’s hand in mine, squeezing her fingers to stop her from wringing her hands together.

“It’s going well, right?” she says, looking up at me.

I cradle her face to kiss her cheek. “It’s going great. Your parents couldn’t be more proud of you if they tried.”

“They seem to really like you,” she says, lips quirking.

“It’s my natural charisma.”

“Or the fact that their grandkids are going to be rich.”

My heart skips several beats. I blink, catch myself before my jaw drops.

“Grandkids, Sophie Sutton?”

She laughs, cheeks colouring. “Obviouslythat was a joke.”

We both look out of our respective windows. My chest fills suddenly impossibly full, and my head spins like I’m dizzy from standing at the top of a very tall mountain, and I can’t help but turn back towards her.

“If we have kids, I hope they’re all dark-haired and mean and smart like you.”

She doesn’t say anything, gazing out of the window for a long moment, and then she turns back to me, squeezing my fingers in hers.

“So long as they have your dimples.”

Dinner is pleasant buta little stilted, and I can tell Sophie’s knotted up tight with nerves. She’s picking at her food even though she’s hungry, sipping water like she’s trying to melt a lump in her throat. I squeeze her hand under the table, a small reassurance, and do my best to carry the conversation.

Luckily, her parents seem happy enough to listen to me talk about Spearcrest, my rugby and tennis, my parents, KMG, even Inkspill. They have the same inquisitive streak as Sophie, asking plenty of questions, and I answer them all, grateful for the distraction.

In return, they seem only too happy to answermyquestions, and since I want to know everything about Sophie, I have plenty to ask. I sit with my chin in my hand, grinning like an idiot as they tell me about her childhood.

“We used to worry she’d never make friends,” her mum says, smiling fondly. “She’d always sit all alone in school reading books. We even had to attend a meeting about it—her teachers were concerned about her social development.”

“I bet she was quite the teacher’s pet, though,” I say, grinning.

Sophie digs the point of her heel into my tibia, but my smile doesn’t falter even a little.

“Oh, the teachers adored her,” her mum agrees. “But she’d report the other kids when they did something wrong, and that probably didn’t help.”

I turn to Sophie, mock horror on my face. “So you’vealwaysbeen like this?”

Sheshrugs, lifting her glass to her lips. “If rules weren’t important, we wouldn’t have them, would we?”

“She was the same in Spearcrest,” I tell her mum, my grin widening. “When she was a prefect. Mad with power, clipboard in hand, terrifying everyone in the lower years.”

Sophie rolls her eyes, but her mum’s smile falters slightly.

“Yes, we were so afraid she’d struggle to make friends there too.” She looks at me warmly. “We were so happy when we heard she met you.”

A cold feeling sinks through me, and I drop my eyes to my plate.

They don’t know. They don’t know that for years, I wasn’t her friend at all. That I was just another face in the crowd of people who let her suffer, whomadeher suffer. There will never be a time in my life I don’t remember befriending Sophie at school—just like there will never be a time I forgive myself for turning my back on her.

The conversation shifts back to Harvard, but the tension lingers and grows. Sophie’s parents start asking about her plans after the bar exam, and I feel her fingers scrambling for mine under the table. She squeezes them so hard it almost hurts. I turn to look at her. She meets my eyes, and we hold gazes for a moment.

Then I nod and mouthyou’ve got this.

She gulps in a deep breath that feels as heavy as a rock, and forces herself to meet her parents’ expectant eyes.

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