Page 62 of Dice & Dekes

I hang up and stuff my phone into the pocket of my leggings. Note to self: never, ever, ever fuck on the living room couch. This condo is beautiful, but there is zero privacy. I don’t know if it would be worse to have my brother living across the street or a stranger. It’s a choice of evils.

I pull on some sneakers, grab my purse, and head out into the street. Knight is already waiting on the sidewalk.

“Is the cafe down the street okay?”

“The one with those amazing croissants? Hell, yes. I’m getting two.”

“I’ll get you whatever you want, on one condition. We’re talking about what happened last night.”

I roll my head back and groan. “Must we?”

“Those are my terms.”

I’m tempted to turn on my heel and head back upstairs, but Viktor’s upstairs, and I’m not ready to talk to him, either.

“I’m sorry for being an ass,” I say as I stomp down the street after him.

“Seems like an understatement, but okay.” Knight elbows me. “I forgive you, but it wouldn’t hurt if you wanted to apologize to Sofia, too.”

Wantis a strong word, but I certainly should apologize. “I’ll say something the next time I see her.”

I owe her more than that. I owe Viktor more, too. But saying sorry to him means admitting I’ve been wrong. And that’s always been my weakest muscle. I’d rather carry fifty pounds of guilt in my chest than lift one damn apology with my mouth.

“Good.” Knight leads me up to the cafe door and holds it open for me. “Now, let’s get some caffeine in you, and then we’ll get serious.”

I order an extremely unserious coffee beverage—though it would be more honest to call it a sugar-beverage, given the caffeine-to-cane-syrup ratio. We pick out an assortment of the day’s best pastry offerings and take it all to a table in the corner, where instead of cutting the pastries in half, we proceed to fight over them like a couple of feral raccoons.

Knight wins the scuffle for the raspberry Danish. High on the success of his victory, he announces, “You need to chill with this deep simmering hatred of Viktor.”

I hunch over my almond croissant, prepared to defend it with my life. “You would say that,” I mutter, tearing a chunk off my croissant. “You weren’t the one who stood outside in the cold in a new dress while everyone whispered that he ditched me for someone hotter. You didn’t get laughed at in the hallway for weeks. I was stupid enough to like him, and he made me feel like a joke.”

Knight sighs. “There’s something you don’t know. Viktor didn’t stand you up to be with someone else.”

I take a fortifying sip of my drink and end up with a mouthful of cold-foam cream. It tastes like heaven. “Nice try. I heard all the rumors. I know about Nona.”

Instead of admitting that I’ve caught him in a lie, Knight cocks his head. “Who the hell is Nona?”

I throw my hands in the air. “The fuck if I know. But the night after the dance? You and Viktor were whispering in your room, and Sofia and I were eavesdropping outside your door. We heard him say something about 'Nona,' and we figured that was the girl he ditched me for. Some rando from another school, probably. We didn’t know her, but she had to exist, right? Because he didn’t show. What else were we supposed to think?”

For a long moment, Knight just stares. I can practically hear the dial-up noises as his brain boots up the memory. Then it clicks—and he bursts out laughing so hard he slaps the table, nearly launching his drink across the room.

I catch the cup just in time and scowl. “I see nothing funny about this.”

“Nona.” He gasps between wheezes. “Oh my God. We weren’t talking about some girl named Nona. We were whispering about a boner.”

I blink at him. “I beg your finest pardon?”

Knight dabs his face with a napkin to blot away the literal tears of hilarity he has shed at my expense. “What do you think happened that night?”

“It’s obvious, isn’t it? Viktor asked me to the eighth-grade dance, and then he never showed up because he got a better offer.”

“Close.” Knight wags a finger at me. “But what if I told you that he couldn’t go to the dance because he was in the ER with a perma-boner?”

I blink. Once. Twice. My jaw opens, but no words come out. My breath catches. Not because it’s funny—though it is—but because all this time, I thought he didn’t care. I built a whole wall between us based on a lie. And behind that wall? I let my anger grow wild like ivy. I let it shape the woman I became. Distrustful. Guarded. Like trusting anyone again was a setup for heartbreak.

For a moment, I just sit there, stunned, because the truth is so stupid it almost makes me mad all over again. But beneath the absurdity, there’s something worse:

We wasted years. Years of pretending we hated each other. Years of mistrust built on a myth. And it all could’ve been different.

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