She looks up from whatever she’s reading, her smile immediate. No one can put me in a better mood than Rian. Maybe because she always seems happy to see me.
“What are you doing here?”
“I could ask you the same thing.” I sit down in the seat across from her.
She shuts that math book, the same one I saw on the table this morning, and holds my note. “Thanks for the apology.”
“I shouldn’t have reacted that way,” I say.
“No. I shouldn’t have pushed the two of you. It’s none of my business.” Her smile dims.
I owe her an explanation. I get that everyone wants to know the story of me and Jax, but it’s embarrassing, which is the only reason I’m not open to share.
“Do you mind?” I nod at the empty space beside her.
She slides closer to the window. “No.”
I place my duffle bag between my feet on the floor. She’s wearing jeans and a jacket, her gray hat with the giant pom-pom on it still on her head. Spring will hopefully arrive soon.
“Where are you getting off?” I ask, losing the nerve to tell her about all the shit with Jax.
“The city. I have a brunch with”—she lifts the math book in her lap—“Johann Frederickson.”
“Sounds like quite the intellectual,” I say.
She giggles. “He’s the guy my parents constantly compare me to.” She rolls her eyes, looks out the window for a second, then sets her gaze on me. “Whose child is smarter? That’s all my parents and his parents talk about. They’re not obvious about it—that would be uncouth. It’s all done covertly with a comment here, a comment there. I feel bad because my parents got the short end of the stick—Johann is way smarter than me.”
I pat her thigh. “Not possible.”
She laughs, but it doesn’t make my heart warm. There’s something off. “Johann is a math professor at Columbia. He went to an Ivy League college while I was at NYU. He’s already working on his doctorate and I never even considered getting mine, much to my parents’ disappointment. He’s single, but I am too, so that doesn’t really hold weight in their arguments. That’s why my parents want me to win this contest, because it’ll prove something to them.”
One thing I’ve always liked about Rian is her way of laying out her cards like a treasure map. There’s no gold or jewels hidden layers deep in the sand. There’s no game with her.
“How come I’ve never heard of this guy?” I ask, wondering if Johann looks like his name suggests.
“Because he’s not my friend. I think he secretly likes that our parents banter back and forth about who’s better. I don’t much care for him. He’s egotistical and a jackass, truthfully.”
“Then why are you having brunch with him?”
A blush fills her cheeks. A clear sign there’s more to this little brunch. “I wanted to get into his condo and see if he has any notes.”
My mouth opens. “You’re going to cheat?”
She’s quick to shake her head. “No. I just want to see if I even stand a chance.”
I tilt my head. This is so not like her. Maybe I put Rian too high up on the morals platform, but I’m more likely than her to be a cheater. She’s pure. “Where’s your phone?”
She narrows her eyes but retrieves her phone from her bag. I grab it, and she allows me to thumb through her phone to retrieve his contact.
I hand the phone back to her. “Cancel the brunch.”
“What? No.” She holds the phone and glances at his name.
“Rian, you won’t be able to live with yourself if you go through with this plan. We both know it.”
She opens her mouth but quickly shuts it.
“You know I’m right. Plus, you’re the smartest person I know. You can solve this problem and grab that prize well before him.”
“The problem is impossible. I’ve tried and—”
“You wouldn’t even feel good about winning if you cheated to get the right answer.” I grip her thigh and shake her leg.
Her shoulders slump and she nods. “I’m just going to disappoint them.”
I’ve met Mr. and Mrs. Wright once. They came to the apartment on a surprise visit, so Rian wasn’t able to shuffle all of us away. They took one look at me, all four eyes slowly perusing me from head to toe, and it was clear—I wasn’t what they liked for their daughter, even as an acquaintance.
“Who the hell cares? You have a job, you’re self-sufficient. What do you still need from them?” My voice is angrier than normal, and Rian’s wide eyes say I’ve surprised her.
She glances out the window, watching the landscape breeze past. “I’ll never be enough.”
I fucking hate that she feels that way. It makes me want to dial up Mr. and Mrs. Wright and tell them how much they’ve fucked up their daughter and if they can’t see how damn perfect she is, then they’re the ones who need to have their IQ tested.
I put my arm around her shoulders, pulling her into my chest. The smell of her shampoo, which I’ve discovered since sharing a shower with her, hits my nostrils. I’m not sure if it’s because we share an apartment now, but it feels like home. “You are enough. You’re an amazing woman.”
I pluck her phone from her hand and hammer out a text to Johann.
She sits up, seeing I canceled on her behalf. “Dylan!”
“Time for a Dylan and Rian day out, don’t you think?”
Rian smiles as if I’m the keeper of her happiness. That look scares the shit out of me. I’m no one’s keeper of happiness. I may hate Mr. and Mrs. Wright, but they’re not wrong. I’m not who their daughter needs in her life. She can do much better than me.
Chapter Seven
Rian
I probably need a support group. Hello, I’m Rian, and I’m addicted to Dylan Phillips. I’d tell my story of falling in love with a boy who will surely break my heart without ever knowing he did. The problem is that just like any addiction, there’s only one thing you can do to keep clean—abstinence. The fact that I just agreed to spend the day with Dylan is the complete opposite of what I should do.
He takes me to a bagel place to kill time. It’s his favorite, and I see why—though I’d never admit that to Seth.
At eleven o’clock, we approach a tattoo parlor near NYU, my old stomping grounds.
“I remember this place,” I say, nostalgia hitting me. Sierra always had at least two reservations here that she canceled last minute.
“Yeah?”
“I’ve never been inside, but a lot of the students came here.” I glance down the street at some bars that I only went to when Sierra dragged me out. Rarely did I not have my mind solely on my grades.
“I worked here,” he says. “Too bad you never came in. We’d have been friends way before.”
Truth is, I remember seeing the artists and customers smoking outside. I’d put my head down and walk by, trying not to be seen. At the time, those people seemed so sure of themselves and comfortable in their own skin. That quality has always scared me. Probably because I never felt the same.