Page 34 of The Ruse

“Well, it’s working,” I said. “I don’t think I’ve felt relaxed around you yet.”

We were quiet as we walked past a few classrooms, and I worried that I might have said the wrong thing. But since it was true that I’d been on edge ever since meeting Asher, I couldn’t exactly take it back and have it sound believable.

We walked past the glass displays outside of the auditorium where there were various trophies and photos from the academy’s past, and I tried to think of something else to say. There was a framed newspaper clipping of my dad at age eighteen holding a state basketball trophy, and he was standing between Mr. Hastings and another guy. I had to do a double take, because the guy with slicked black hair looked surprisingly similar to Asher.

Asher said, “You can see where I got all my good looks from, can’t you?”

“What?” I stumbled.

He nodded toward the photo I’d been looking at. “That’s my dad.”

“Your dad went to school with my dad and Mr. Hastings?” My mom, too, since she was in their graduating class as well.

“Yep. They were all friends when I was younger. My dad even worked for Mr. Hastings’ company.”

“Really?” I asked, surprised by this new information.

“Yeah, our families go way back.” He glanced sideways at me. “Nash and I were actually best friends back in the day.”

“What?” I asked, my jaw dropping.

“Surprising after what you’ve seen from us, huh?”

“You might say that…”

“I can’t believe Cambrielle left out those details when she was filling you in.” He chuckled, and we started walking toward the library again. He adjusted his backpack strap on his shoulder. “I actually grew up just down the street from their family. And before Mack’s family built their house next door, and before the Hastings found Carter in Guatemala, it was just Nash and me terrorizing the neighborhood with our water guns all summer long.”

“Really?” I asked, trying to imagine an elementary-aged Asher running around the Hastings’ backyard with a cute, sun-bleached and blond-haired Nash as they soaked a younger Cambrielle and her friends with oversized water guns in the way little boys always did.

“Yeah.” He ran a hand through his curly locks. “We called ourselves the water bandits. Cambrielle and Callie hated us back then.”

“I bet they did.”

I didn’t know who Callie was, but I assumed she must have been one of Cambrielle’s childhood friends.

The library came into view, and I found myself wishing it was farther away because I wanted to hear more about this past that I had no idea existed between the two guys. I’d assumed they’d always been enemies.

“So, what happened with you and Nash?” I asked before I lost the chance. “Why do you guys seem to hate each other so much?”

“Well, the first thing that divided us was when the girl we both liked asked me to be her valentine in second grade. Nash couldn’t take the rejection.”

“This rivalry is all because of a girl in second grade?” I didn’t even try to hide the skepticism in my voice.

“She gave me areallygood gift,” Asher said, a wry smile on his lips. “I mean, you won’t believe how many wars have been started over a box of chocolates.”

“Okay, you have to be joking.”

“So maybe that was only part of it.” He sighed and ran a hand through his hair again, the sleeve of his T-shirt rising with the movement and showing off his muscular bicep.

Daaang. That is averynice-looking arm.

He must have noticed me checking out his bicep, because he gave me a slightly cocky grin before he dropped his arm back down to his side.

“So, besides having an eight-year-old girl pick you over Nash, what else turned you against each other?”

“It wasn’t just one thing,” he said, a faraway look coming into his eyes. “But I think the first real issues started when Mack moved into the neighborhood, and I kind of ditched Nash for a while to be friends with him.”

“Why’d you do that?”

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