Page 78 of Reign
“I go to school here too, remember?”
Was heteasingher? Nina blinked, disoriented, and Jeff’s expression grew almost sheepish.
“I know I wasn’t at school for a while, but I’m back now,” he said, as if his return to campus hadn’t been national news. A document spat out of the printer, and Jeff grabbed it. “My econ final,” he explained. “Can you believe the professor is making us submit a hard copy to his faculty mailbox, instead of letting us email it in?”
“How old-school,” Nina managed, still dazed.
Silence stretched out between them. Jeff reached for a stack of papers on the counter, flushed, and held it toward Nina. “This one is yours. Sorry, I wasn’t trying to—I just got to the printer and it was right there.”
“Thanks.” Nina took the papers from him.
Jeff paused awkwardly. “So you’re applying to the Oxford program? I’m glad. You’ll love it there.”
It was the same thing Jamie had told her, and for some reason that bothered her. “I’m just applying, Jeff. There’s no guarantee I’ll get in.”
“Of course you will. You’re the smartest person I know.”
It felt surreal, talking to Jeff as if they were old friends—but that was what they were, weren’t they? Nina tried to focus on the present, yet a highlight reel of their history had begun playing in her mind.
She saw them as children, scooping the goldfish from Sam’s room and hiding it from her. They told her it had evaporated, when the entire time the goldfish was swimming blissfully in a gold-rimmed porcelain bowl they’d stolen from the butler’s pantry.
She saw the carefree teenage version of him: the Jeff who once showed up to a black-tie gala with a hundred helium balloons. He proceeded to tie a balloon to everyone in attendance—to Nina’s bracelet, to the back of his tails, to his grandmother’s tiara. (Nina would never forget the way it had lifted that tiara just half an inch above the pouf of Grandma Billie’s hairstyle.)
She saw her and Jeff in his bedroom at the Telluride house, their kisses soft and lingering and infinitely sweet.
And she saw the Jeff who had gotten engaged to Daphne before the whole world—even though he and Daphne were so fundamentally wrong for each other.
“Jeff, can I ask you something?”
He seemed startled but nodded. “Sure.”
A million questions burned on her lips.What changed your mind about us? Were you always going to choose Daphne, or was there ever a moment when we had a shot? Whyme?
Instead she asked, “Have you talked to Sam?”
“I…it’s complicated.”
“I think she deserves another chance,” Nina said quietly.
Instead of answering, Jeff looked up at her with an unreadable expression. “I heard you’ve been hanging out with Jamie.”
“We’re doingA Midsummer Night’s Dreamtogether. The school’s winter play,” Nina explained, since he obviously had no clue what she meant. “It’s this weekend, actually.”
“So you’re just costars in the show? You’re not dating?”
“Okay, stop right there,” Nina said hotly. “Youdon’t get to be angry withme.”
Jeff’s eyes widened. Quite possibly no one had ever spoken to him this way in his life.
“You kissed me, and then you went off and got engaged to Daphne the next day? What was I supposed to do—wait for you to change your mind and bounce back from Daphne to meagain,except this time you’ve given her a ring?”
Jeff’s face flushed. “You don’t know all the details.”
“Explain it, then!”
He opened his mouth as if to say something—then let out a breath, defeated. “Of course I’m not angry with you, Nina. If anything, I’m angry with myself for the way I handled things. You deserved better.”
I did,Nina thought, but she felt almost sorry for Jeff in that moment. Perhaps that was why she said, “Things between you and me were never going to work out.”
