Page 55 of Perfect on Paper

“You’re far from a terrible person. But it sounds like you know in your gut you didn’t do it for Brooke’s sake.”

“Can’t you just tell me it’s okay to go a little overboard if you’re in love?”

Brougham’s eyes crinkled, and he gave a lazy, long shrug. “Is that what you’d tell someone if they wrote in to the locker?”

My head hurt, and I felt like someone had tied an anchor around my waist and let it drop in the middle of the ocean. Because Brougham was right, and he was often right, and I kind of hated him for that. Smug asshole.

It was so much easier to be angry at Brougham than at myself.

Brougham seemed unperturbed. “You’re not the first person to do something shit in the great, noble pursuit of love here.”

I caught his eye and cracked a reluctant smile. “You’ve never ruined anyone’s relationship, though.”

“Well, no, I’m not asupervillain,” he said lightly, but the glint in his eye told me he was teasing me. “But I’m not perfect, either. You should see how passive-aggressive I can get. I can be a massive—”

The next word that came out of his mouth was so unexpected I sucked my iced coffee down the wrong hole, and broke into a very graceful run of coughing and spluttering for air.

Brougham looked mildly alarmed as I got my breathingback under control. “Sorry,” he said. “I keep forgetting the effect that word has here.”

I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand to check for coffee splatter. “Goodgod,is there anywhere that worddoesn’thave that effect?”

“Does my entire country count as somewhere?”

“Depends who you ask.”

“Rude.”

“So, what, it’s not a bad word there?”

Brougham wrinkled his nose. The effect on his normally serious face was comical. “Um, I wouldn’t say it to anyone over, like, thirty, but outside of that it’s complicated. Like if it’s said, you know,fiercelyenough it could be offensive, but it can be a compliment, or something you call someone if you’re mucking around. It’s a multitasker.”

“I’ll allow it, then. Butneverin front of my mom, okay?”

“Don’t worry, already learned that one the hard way. I got a detention out of it.”

I cackled.“Really?”

“Yeah, it was my second week here. It didn’t have the desired effect, though, because it was just a novelty to be in a Real American Detention, like onRiverdaleor something.”

“Oh my god,don’t.”

“I’m dead serious. We all grew up with your movies and TV shows and books, but most of the things in real life were nothing like them. It wasso much funmoving here. Like, ‘Holy shit, all the car seats are swapped around, and there arecafeterias,andTwinkies!’”

I twirled my straw around and poked at the ice in the glass. “You don’t have cafeterias?”

“Nope. Most people bring lunch from home, or thereare a couple of things you can buy from the canteen, but they’re not full meals, and there are no trays or anything. And you usually eat outside.”

“Like, outdoor dining?”

“No, like, on your lap on the grass, or sitting on a brick wall or something.”

If my grin was nearly as big as I thought it was, I should probably restrain myself, but I didn’t quite care enough to. “Oh,I wanna go.”

“You should. Go to the Gold Coast or Adelaide.”

“Are you from one of those places?”

The very corner of his mouth curved up. “Adelaide. That’s why I have the accent.”

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