Page 73 of Don't Puck His Best Friend
Maddie takes a step back, giving us space but staying close enough that I know she’s listening. Fine. Maybe it’s better with a witness.
“You keep showing up,” I say, keeping my voice low but letting the edge show through. “Coffee, the croissant and sandwich, the root beer, now my game.”
Harper shakes her head quickly. “I’m––I’m sorry.”
“You’re sorry?” The words come out harder than I intended, but I don’t soften them.
She opens her mouth, closes it, looks down at her feet. When she finally speaks, her voice is smaller than usual.
“Yes, I’m sorry. I came to see you. To really talk this time. But I…” She trails off, and I can see her searching for the right words. Then she looks beyond my shoulder and her face turns white.
I turn around and see Liam. He meets my eye and then looks away. I turn back to Harper and shake my head.
“I’m not doing this,” I say.
“Cole––” Her voice goes tight.
“Playing in the middle of whatever’s going on between you and him. I’m not your safety net. I’m not your plan B while you figureout whether you want to keep running back to Liam every time he snaps his fingers.”
I clench my jaw. My words were harsh, but I don’t take them back. They’re true, and we both know it.
Before I can walk away, she blurts, “I don’t want him, Cole. I ended things the moment you asked me to be your girlfriend.”
I stare at her, clenching my jaw.
She quickly blurts to defend herself, “I hadn’t seen him in a while. You know the night of the party where he hooked up with that girl? The last time I hooked up with him was like a week or so before that, okay? I haven’t been playing both sides. With him, it was supposed to be a one-time thing that turned into three. I met you, and yeah, there was some overlap, but the blind date threw me off. I wasn’t expecting… this…” She gestures, breathless, no longer concerned what’s going on behind me.
She steps closer. “What I’m trying to say is that I will tell you every detail, everything you need to know. I really like you, Cole. I wasn’t lying about that.”
“And you really like him?”
She shakes her head. “No… To be honest with you, I barely know him. It was a typical cliché party hookup. We weren’t…” She closes her eyes. “We weren’t doing anything serious. It’s so stupid, Cole.”
“It didn’t seem stupid to him.”
She shakes her head. “Not once did he tell me how he felt, so that’s not fair. He can’t put that on me. Out of nowhere, he invited me to the team dinner––”
“He invited you to the team dinner?”
She nods, not understanding the significance of Liam asking a girl to the team dinner.
Fucking Liam.
“What did you say?”
She laughs but there’s no humor in it. “Are you joking, Cole? He texts me out of nowhere to ask me to something I already agreed to go with you. I had no idea––I mean no idea––that he was your best friend. I swear, Cole. I didn’t know it would––”
I step closer, close enough that Harper can’t finish her sentence and has to tilt her chin up to maintain eye contact. Close enough that I can see the way her pupils dilate slightly under the tears in her eyes, the way her breath catches.
“Okay,” I say, letting the silence draw out. That’s when Maddie decides to get in the car, but I don’t pull my eyes away from Harper’s.
I swallow the lump in my throat and say, “Liam’s like a brother to me. I’ve known him for four years, and I’ve never seen him hung up over someone before.”
She searches my face. “What… what are you saying?”
“Have you talked to him?”
She inhales, which isn’t a good sign. I wait patiently.
