Page 12 of Fraternizing with the Enemy
“The scores came out to 66-84.” Logan paused for dramatic effect. “And I won.”
“No way!” I snatched the scorecard from his fingertips. “No way. Your score was so high on that lumberjack one!”
Logan gave a languid shrug, and—annoyingly—his math was correct. “It was a one-off. It’s all about consistency, Madison.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “Are you saying I was consistently bad?”
He spread his hands with an inhale through his teeth, as if to sayyou said it, not me.
I swatted at him, but couldn’t stop the laugh that burst free. I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d laughed like that, the kind that just rushed out before I could think.
The ice cream shop shared the same parking lot as the mini golf course, so we were able to just walk next door for Logan’s victory cone. I still had the scorecard pinched between my fingertips. The midday sun was hot, and I was sure my makeup had smudged from the intense putt-putt competition, but I strangely couldn’t bring myself to care.
“Admit it,” Logan said as we stood in line, leaning down just enough that some of his golden hair fell into his eyes. “You had fun.”
I met his steady gaze, letting myself sink into the color. His eyes were very nearly the exact shade of Brentwood Blue, with tiny flecks of navy that caught in the sunlight. They were perfect, and focused solely on me. “I had fun.”
Logan’s grin curved slow, like he knew he’d just won something more important than a round of mini golf. “You’ll have to bring your friends next time.”
“They’d never come. They’d say this was dweeby.”Heck, I said it was dweeby an hour ago.
“Then I guess I need to stick around,” Logan murmured, his fingers brushing absently against the side of his neck. “Make sure you’re getting your daily dose of dweeb.”
His words set the butterflies in my stomach into a frenzy, darting and tumbling like they were doing their own cheer routine. I almost felt weightless, like I could float right out of my shoes. “I guess you do.”
For a second, we just watched each other, as if neither of us wanted to break whatever this was.
We both ordered ice cream cones, but Logan passed over a few bills before I had a chance to pull my wallet out of my bag. “You won,” I said as I looked up at him, surprised.
“I know.” Logan’s expression shifted, that strange flicker passing through it again. His gaze held mine a second too long, his voice dipping just enough to feel different. “I—I didn’t think I would.”
Realistically, I knew he was talking about mini golf, but the way he said it—low, almost hesitant—made my stomach tighten in a way that had nothing to do with the game.
We talked about small, everyday things while eatingour mint chip ice cream—how I’d become co-captain of the cheer squad, a little about my friends, a little about him working at Expresso’s. Nothing monumental, nothing over-the-top, just… easy.
And with every laugh, every glance, my heart kept skipping beats, caught somewhere between excitement and disbelief.
By the time we got back to his car for the drive home, I knew one thing for absolute certain:
Logan was perfect.
As he opened my car door, our hands brushed on the handle, and neither of us pulled away right away. Logan’s fingers lingered on mine for just a second, long enough for a spark to shoot through my veins. And when I glanced up, there was that flicker in his eyes again, like he was feeling it too. It reminded me of the moment in Brentwood’s hallway yesterday, where for a heartbeat, it was just the two of us suspended in that perfect, fleeting moment.
I knew another thing for absolute certain: I couldn’t wait to see him again.
ONE WEEK LATER
The Top Tier didn’t have any secrets from each other.
Really, most of our secrets were public, anyway. The girl who ran the school’s gossip site always seemed to snuff the truth out—whether on her own or from people sending in tips.
But each person in the Top Tier hadsomethingthat the other students at Brentwood High were totally oblivious about—a secret that would ruin them if found out.
For Connor and Jade, their secret wasn’t just small—it was that they’d actually broken up over the summer, yet still planned to show up as the It Couple when school started. I sometimes wondered what would’ve happened if they’d stayed broken up. Ifopticswasn’t a word in the Top Tier vocabulary.
But that was the thing about popularity—you did things you didn’t want to just to keep up the image.
Freshman year, Ashton, Kyle, and Landon beat up akid walking home—and then spun it so it looked likehe’djumpedthem. Everyone at school bought into their sob story, and the bruised boy was deemed a violent outcast from that day on. People even went as far to label himThe Grim Reaperfor being able to take on three guys at once.
