Teddy flipped his hand beneath her palm, his fingers warm as they laced through hers. Beatrice’s head was suddenly full of a dizzying tangle of thoughts. Her entire awareness seemed to center there, where their hands touched.
“For the record, I think this is a terrible idea and will only come back to hurt you,” Teddy stated. “But, yes, I’ll help.”
“Thank you,” she breathed.
They sat there together, hands clasped, as the last rays of the sun disappeared behind the city’s skyline.
Nina laced her hands above her head and stretched, soaking in the quiet of the library. She’d been working on her application to the Oxford program all morning, and couldn’t shake the sense that it was missing something.
She looked back at the second question on the application: Describe the coursework you have done at King’s College which will prepare you for the rigorous academics at Oxford. Nina had answered, My coursework in British literature is extensive. Most recently, I wrote a final paper for ENG531: Gothic Literature on the paradox of multiple narrators, and how untrustworthy narrators could articulate the unspeakable….
Forget it. There was no way she could revise on her computer screen; she needed to work the old-fashioned way, by writing in the margins with red pen. Nina sent her application to the nearest printer bank, then began scrolling through her phone while she waited.
Jamie had texted: Are you finished with your application yet, because I found an arcade in the bottom of Samuelson Hall. Come race me in the go-cart game?
Nina replied, amused: You just now discovered the arcade? That was a rite of passage for freshmen.
Last night in rehearsal, she and Jamie had kissed for so long that they’d gotten wolf whistles from the rest of the cast. A part of Nina worried about the attention—she, of all people, knew the downsides of dating a prince—but something about Jamie kept pulling her in. When she was with him, the world seemed brighter somehow, dense with adventure and with possibility.
And she knew where she stood with him. Jamie was direct about his feelings, which hadn’t always been the case with Jeff.
So far, no one at school had sold them out, and Jamie had been right when he’d promised that no one at the Maple Leaf would alert the tabloids. Perhaps the type of people who frequented Canadian-themed bars in Midtown simply had no interest in photographing the Canadian prince. More likely they’d been too invested in the hockey game to even notice.
Nina started toward the printer bank, walking past long tables of students finishing up their final papers. When she turned toward the room that housed the two printers on the B level, Nina almost didn’t believe who she saw inside.
“Nina. Hey.” Somehow, Jeff didn’t seem surprised to see her—but the library was her home turf, after all.
“What are you doing here?”
“I go to school here too, remember?”
Was he teasing her? 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? Why me?
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 doing A Midsummer Night’s Dream together. 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. “You don’t get to be angry with me.”
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 me again, 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.”