Page 65 of Not in Love

“Not competitively.”

“What about for fun?”

“I do.”

“At Dave’s rink?”

“For the most part.”

“Wait.” Those Eli eyes of hers narrowed. “Rue Siebert. I know you! Didn’t you get a synchro scholarship for some place in Wisconsin?”

“Michigan. Adrian College.”

“Oh my god. I remember you! We only overlapped for a few months but you were so good.”

“I wasn’t that—”

“At mentoring, I mean. You taught me how to do a backward crossover, remember?” I didn’t, but she continued anyway, grinning. “I sucked. Four other people tried, and I could not figure it out. Come on, you have to remember—I’m the girl who burst out crying in the middle of the rink. You brought me to a bench, sat next to me, and neither of us said anything for, like, half an hour. Once I calmed down you asked me if I was ready to start again and then I got the crossover on the first try! It must have been in the spring of—”

A car honked right outside. I jolted, and Maya rolled her eyes. “That’ll be Jade.” She picked up her backpack and an oversized, over-stickered water bottle. “It was so nice to see you again, Rue! I’m going to spend the day at the library, so you two should feel free to have morning sex on the table.” She glanced at Eli from over her shoulder. “You know where the Clorox wipes are, right?” She was gone before he could reply, leaving us alone, looking at each other with something that felt a lot like understanding.

He knew that I was going to sneak out.

I knew that he knew.

And he knew that, too.

I lifted my chin with a hint of a challenge, and his lips widened into a grin, as though I was following a script he’d written in his head for me.

“Were you going to leave me a note?” he asked affably. “Or just text later?”

I kept my spine straight. “The latter.”

“Less time consuming.” He nodded, entertained, and opened a cupboard. Kibble tinkled into the dog’s metal bowl, and Tiny, who’d begun circling me looking for the kind of affection that other people seemed to give effortlessly to pets, instantly lost interest in me. On the table above him, I noticed a developed chess board.

“Is that your game?”

Eli nodded. “Against Maya.”

“You play a lot?”

“A fair bit. We’re not Nolan Sawyer level, or anything—”

“Mallory Greenleaf level, you mean?”

He just smiled. “Do you really not remember my sister?”

“I . . .” I did, actually, if only because of the way she’d sobbed silently next to me. It had felt heartbreaking and relatable, and I’d wished there was something I could say. But I was going through the exact same, and I knew that no words existed that would have helped. “Is it okay that she saw me?” I asked.

“Who?”

“Your sister.”

“Why wouldn’t it be?”

“Maybe you don’t want to share your hookups with your younger sister, who might very well be a minor.” She didn’t look it, but the older I got, the more every age under twenty-five blended together.

“She’s almost twenty-two. Or thirteen, I’m never sure.”

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