Good Grades & Mystery Games (North University Series Book 2)

Sometimes, your best friends can help you so much. They can give you insane advice and make you realise you’ve done something stupid. They can tell you over and over, potentially lying to you to convince you you’re a fantastic person. Or they’re like my friends, who go back on their word every two seconds as well as changing the topic.

I came to them for advice on the Evan situation. They don’t know that we kissed. Three times. They also don’t know that I let him eat me out in the library and how much I fucking loved it. Those are the kind of memories I like to keep to myself for a late night and a battery-powered friend. If I told them, their advice would definitely change, and they’d be gloating about how right they were. They said that breaching that sexual barrier would smooth things out, but it hasn’t. It only makes me want him more. I itch to be near him again. To touch him again. To have him whisper dirty things in my hair. To tell me I’m his good girl. It wasn’t like kicking a habit. It’s just like starting one.

I explained to them how we got closer and how he was in it for his family. Still, saying those words aloud did not make me feel any more resentment towards him. In fact, it helped me understand him.

His family is a mess and he wanted to fix it. Was the way he did it unconventional? Yes. But it also brought us together in a new way. Sometimes I could see right through him, and I never saw an evil bone in his body, and I just have to trust that. I just have to trust him.

As soon as I started crying when I went back to them at the burial, Wren called her dad and booked us a flight to Vegas so we could spend a week away escaping. Since Wren’s dad is a hotelier, he would take me and Wren on trips to his new hotels across the country where we’d spend the whole time at spas and feeling older than we actually were. As soon as Kennedy joined the group, she came along too and then we started to get into cheesy rom-coms, eating room service and staying up past our bedtime, talking about everything and nothing.

That’s why it feels so natural to be sitting in a California king sized bed, all in our robes, our hair tied into a towel, The Proposal playing on the flatscreen while we eat a pizza. We’ve been going in circles for the last hour and I’m not sure we’re getting anywhere with my current situation.

“I mean, it’s not like you guys made out or anything. That would be a lot worse. The physical stuff is always harder,” Kennedy says through a mouthful, wiping the grease away with her palm.

“Yeah, that would be insane,” I say, trying to laugh a little. Wren studies me curiously, but I drop my gaze from her, not letting her figure it out. I take another bite of the pizza. “But.” I add, before swallowing. “I can see where he’s coming from and why he did what he did, but I also know that he would never want to intentionally hurt me. He’s proved that to me more than once.”

I think back to the number of times he’s helped me without asking. How he doesn’t complain. How he does things willingly. Just because. He’s never asked anything of me. He doesn’t invalidate my feelings when I feel like doing it. He encourages me and makes me feel capable even when sometimes I don’t.

“You like him, don’t you?” Ken says, easily as if she’s got me all figured out. Maybe she has. When I don’t respond as I feel my face crowd with heat, she starts giggling. “Oh my god. You liiikkkeee hiiimm.”

I push her playfully in the shoulder and she breaks our little circle by toppling over onto the bed. She’s been rooting for us to sort out our frenemy relationship and now she’s getting what she wanted. She’s still laughing like an evil genius as she leans up on her elbows.

“So what?” I try to say it casually, but it’s hard to do when it feels like my whole body is on fire. Every time I think about him, everything he’s done for me, everything he’s said to me, it’s impossible to feel cool, calm, and collected. I feel the opposite. I most certainly have the hots for Evan Branson.

What is life?

“So what?!” Wren repeats, basically shrieking. She holds my stare. “I’m not saying to over analyse it. But babe… You always tell us not to invalidate our feelings, but you’re about to do that, so don’t.”

I sigh, knowing she’s right. When she tried to deny her feelings for Miles, I told her not to. I didn’t tell her to confess her love for him, but to let herself feel how she’s feeling. Maybe I need to do that too. But God, that’s terrifying. Being attracted to someone is one thing. But caring about them, wanting to see them happy, wanting them all the time… That’s a new one for me and weirdly exactly how I feel about Evan.

“Okay,” I say, sighing and they both smile wide, grinning ear-to-ear so I continue. “He’s kind to me, he listens, he brings me food, he’s not bad looking, he-”

“How long is this list?” Kennedy asks, cutting me off as she narrows her eyes at me, smirking. I twist my lips, pulling them into my mouth as I shake my head.

I shrug. “I don’t know.”

“There’s your answer,” she says with finality, her elbows buckling as she lies back down, her towel coming undone, unleashing her wild hair.

Wren twists the belt loop of her robe between her fingers as she says quietly, “What he did was messed up, Scar. We know that. I’m trying to be optimistic here and isn’t it kind of a blessing in disguise? If he never approached you for the project, you wouldn’t have come up with such a cool idea. The app is amazing so far and it could honestly make you famous if you two continued it. You wouldn’t have been able to find out what happened to your dad, and you wouldn’t have broken that barrier that was keeping you two apart. You just needed a shove.”

She ends her explanation with a shrug, almost scared of what I’m going to say next. I tilt my head back, taking in a breath to mull over her idea.

“I don’t like the way he did it. Out of every way he could have made a move to be my friend, to let him in, he chose the one that hurt the most,” I reply.

Technically, nobody got hurt as bad as it could’ve been, but it still stings. His family has nothing on mine, so it’s not like we’ll go down for anything. Reporters are taking the situation with Gio into their own hands, but since he’s gone it’s easy for them to dismiss him as a traitor. Weighing the pros and cons like I’ve been taught, only puts him more and more in a better position, making me want to give him a chance.

“You don’t have to like the process to enjoy the outcome. If you like him now, if you want him, in whatever way, lead with that. What happened is in the past. Believe me, I could have prevented mine and Miles’s break up if I just spoke to him. If I trusted him.”

I nod, remembering how hard her breakup with Miles was. Their communication wasn’t the greatest, but as they started to figure it out, they came back stronger than ever. Now they’re basically attached at the hip. Sometimes I think Miles doesn’t breathe when she’s not around him. They’re always holding hands, he’s always touching her waist, her hair, basically anything he can get his hands on when she’s next to him.

“Do you trust Evan?” Kennedy asks, leaning back up now.

“I did. I was learning to and then this happened,” I respond.

“He’s telling you the truth now, though, isn’t he?” I nod. He has to be. He knows how badly this has affected me and I could see in his eyes, in his voice, that he wants me to trust him for real. But sometimes those things take time. “Is that not enough?”

“It can be,” I whisper. “I don’t want to be in my head all the time. It’s fucking exhausting. I know that everything that happened in high school made that hard, but I don’t want to go back to that place. I know deep down that Evan’s a good person.”

Wren’s face lights up as if I’ve told her the greatest news ever. Another Scarevan supporter as she likes to call us. She pokes me in the leg.

“He always has been. You’ve just been too stubborn to notice it.”

“I know,” I sigh, feeling ridiculous and hopeful at the same time.

“Okay,” Kennedy exclaims, standing up from the bed. “Pool time!”

*  *  *

♫ What Was I Made For? By Billie Eilish

We get down to the infinity pool and it’s empty for once. It’s pretty late into the night and the glow coming from the lights in the pool is the only thing keeping it bright. Bright stars shine in the sky, making everything that has happened feel so small and insignificant.

After timing Kennedy’s laps in the pool, we all sit in the jacuzzi.

Timing her laps has been a requirement for our friendship. If there’s a body of water she can swim in, we have to see if she can beat her personal record that she had back home.

We all lean our heads against the sides, breathing in the chilly air whilst also feeling the warmth of the tub. We’re well into the middle of December now and it’s freezing, but there’s still that warmth coming from the jacuzzi that I hardly notice.

“Can I ask you guys something? And you’ve got to be honest with me,” Kennedy whispers. I keep my head back, not wanting to break the spell of this moment, here with my girls.

“Always,” Wren says. I hear Ken take in a deep breath, the exhale sort of shaky.

“In five years from now, when we’re done with school, we’ll hopefully all have a job, do you think we’ll still be friends? And I mean friends like this. Friends who complain about my stress induced pee breaks, friends who cry over edits together, friends who take last minute trips to Las Vegas because one of us is going through a hard time. Friends like that.”

The weight of her words hit me like a punch to the stomach. I try not to think about the after period of our lives. Living together has brought us closer in so many ways and I always wonder what’s going to happen after. Miles and Wren will most likely move in together and maybe me and Ken will be left on our own.

What then? Will we still use The Whiteboard for emergency meetings? Will I still pick her up from Florentino’s, even though it’s only a fifteen minute walk from our apartment. Will it even still be our apartment? Will Kennedy move out and go back home to South Carolina? Will I be on my own?

There’s a time, like now, where our bond feels like it transcends above space and time. As if we would exist even if we weren’t the entities we are now. Even if we were rocks, or stars, or pieces of dirt, it would always be us three. Wren Hackerly, Kennedy Wynter and Scarlett Voss. My girls. My sisters.

“Of course, we will, Ken,” I say, needing so desperately to believe it. As the words leave my mouth, I cling onto it, knowing that we all need it. “Why would you ask that?”

She sighs. “I don’t know. Sometimes when we have these great moments, I can’t help but think they won’t last. Like we’ll burn each other out.”

“I could never get sick of you guys,” Wren says, laughing a little. “I’ll be honest. I thought I would want to kill you all by the second week of living together, but I didn’t. I think it’s because I know that even when things get hard, these are the kind of moments I’m going to cherish forever. No matter what happens.”

“See,” Kennedy says, almost angrily. “That. The ‘no matter what happens’ bullshit. We can’t do that. We can’t accept the idea that we’ll eventually drift apart. I need you girls. If you’re going through it, we’re all going to go through it. Together. I want us to grow old together, and have our kids grow old together.”

“I want that too,” I say.

“Me too,” Wren adds. I lean my head up, looking between them both and my heart just feels so…full. So complete. “You guys are my forever friends.”

“Forever friends?” Ken asks.

“Until my teeth rot and my boobs sag,” I say in a grandma voice.

“Until my backs crackin’ and my toenails are scraping against the floor,” Kennedy adds, making it seem like she’s gonna be a hobo when she’s older. Odd, but great.

“Until I’m dead and gone and buried,” Wren says.

“You just had to bring Taylor into it, didn’t you?” Kennedy says laughing.

“It was instinct. She’ll never go out of style.”

Then we’re all laughing again at the reference. Kennedy’s gripping onto the tub, laughing hysterically. Wrens wheezing and I’m just grinning ear to ear because I know what they mean. We will always have each other. I had always wanted a sister growing up, someone I could turn to for advice, but I know I don’t need one. I’ve always had two of them.

Forever friends.