Page 84 of The Ruse

But the more time I spent with Asher—

Well, the more time I spent with Asher, the more torn I became.

“It’s okay, Elyse,” Asher murmured, seeming to sense that I didn’t know what to say. “I know you like Nash. I think we just got caught up in our characters tonight and forgot to get back to best-buddy mode.”

Was that what happened? Had that almost-kiss in his room only been a possibility because he’d still been in character?

It hadn’t felt like that.

It had felt like it was real, and all I’d wanted in that moment was for Asher to kiss me.

Me…not Christine Daaé.

But that was insane, right? It shouldn’t be possible to like two guys at once. Especially not two guys who were so different from each other.

I knew I should say something to Asher to explain why I was sending so many mixed signals, but just then, our dorm parents, Heather and Theo, came to tell all of us that there was no fire.

“It was a false alarm,” Heather said. “Triggered by a chemistry experiment gone wrong in a dorm room.” She sighed, like her job of taking care of thirty high school students was making her age faster than normal. “Anyway, everything should be fine now, and you can all head back inside.”

Excited chatter started as soon as she finished, and our classmates all began pushing toward the doors to get back to the warmth inside the building.

The line up the fire escape was long, so Asher and I opted to go through the main doors under the colonnade to get back inside, the silence thick between us as we walked side by side.

I tried to think of something to say that would get us back to the laughing and joking around that we’d been doing when we’d first gone outside. But I couldn’t come up with anything.

Asher opened one of the large doors that led to the common room, and I stepped inside.

What was I supposed to do now?

Were we done rehearsing the scene? Should I just go to my room and hide?

Asher glanced around the large living area filling with students before turning his brown-eyed gaze on me. “Well, I think I’m going to call it a night. It’s been a long week and I’m more tired than I thought.”

“No jaywalking or doorbell-ditching for you then?” I asked, hoping to bring back the lightness from earlier.

“No,” he said flatly. “I don’t think I’ll be doing any of that.”

Okay, I really must have messed things up somehow because he was not in his usual playful mood.

Not knowing what else to say, I muttered, “I’ll probably just head to bed, too.”

“You do have a big date tomorrow,” he said.

And I hated how that one sentence from him made me feel like I was somehow betraying him by having plans to go on a date with Nash.

Why did I feel that way?

It wasn’t like Asher and I were dating. We were just friends. Co-actors.

Co-actors who had insane chemistry, sure. But he’d said so himself that he was just interested in being friends. That his flirting was harmless because he was still getting over Bailee and not ready to even think about putting himself out there again.

That was what he’d said, right?

Unless that has somehow changed in the past week…

He stood there for a moment, as if waiting for me to say or do something more, and then I realized I was still wearing his coat. So I quickly pulled it off.

“Thanks for letting me use this,” I said, offering it back to him.

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