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I focus back on the brownies to keep myself from looking at her again, but that doesn’t stop my ears from straining to catch every sound of her movements. She’s arranging finger sandwiches on a platter, and between the intervals of scraping as I drag my spatula around the rim of the brownie pan yet again, I can hear her clucking to herself and spinning the tray around to make an adjustment.

Neither of us speaks. Outside the kitchen, the hall is filled with the voices of other volunteers and dancers getting ready for their performances on the small raised stage. Some reedy squeaks let me know the bagpiper is getting warmed up.

A few of my students will be dancing today. I should head out and say hello, but even if these damn brownies weren’t holding me hostage, I know I wouldn’t be able to make it out of the kitchen.

Now that it’s only me and Moira, my feet feel glued to the floor, my body weighed down by everything we said—and didn’t say—that night in the park.

My heart hammers against my rib cage, and my muscles are tensed like I’m bracing for an attack.

I can’t take back what I said, but I also can’t take back what I saw—and what it made me feel. When she told me what Catherine did, when I saw her face pinch with pain at the memory, it was like stepping into an alternate reality where I’d do anything I possibly could to keep Moira Murray from ever getting hurt.

It’s the same thing I felt when I saw her laying flat on a stretcher in Scotland two years ago, her cheeks pale and her lips pressed tight together in a grimace. For a moment—before I heard one of the medics say she’d be fine—it felt like the girl who’d been snatching things out of my hands for years was finally making a grab for my heart, and I wasn’t even going to try to stop her.

I give the spatula a final thrust before flipping the pan over and banging on the bottom.

The brownies slide out in one solid piece and land with a thunk on the platter below them. The entire bottom of the batch seems to have stuck to the pan and left the chocolaty rectangle a bit haggard, but they’re out.

“Fucking finally,” I mutter.

I hear Moira shift on the other side of the kitchen, and my spine goes ramrod straight before I twist my neck to glance at her over my shoulder.

She’s looking at me over her shoulder too. Our eyes lock for half a second before I hear her pull a sharp inhale through her nose and go back to plating sandwiches like her life depends on it.

I should turn back around, but I don’t.

Instead, my eyes drop to the curves of her hips under the red and white spaghetti strap tartan dress she’s wearing. It’s tighter than anything I’ve seen her wear before, but with a black long sleeve t-shirt and tights underneath, it’s not going to shock any Tartan Tea attendees.

It shocked me when I saw her take her coat off this morning and reveal her curves are even more incredible than the highland dance costumes I usually see her in would lead one to believe. Highland apparel is not exactly designed for sex appeal, but in this dress, she’s a complete bombshell, and I can’t tell if the realization has me angry, terrified, or turned on. It sort of feels like a mix of all three.

Which is ridiculous. She’s Moira. The whole reason we’re in this kitchen is to beat each other. I shouldn’t be thinking about anything but winning that scholarship.

Rise above.

Rise above.

Rise above.

I whip my head around to face the wall before grabbing my spatula and heading to dump it in the sink. There’s already a pile of dishes and tools crowding the basin. I reach for the extendable faucet to give them a quick rinse, but as soon as I turn the tap on, a blast of cold water shoots out the side of the nozzle to soak my shirt.

I shriek and jump backwards, staring down at the wet patches blooming on the white blouse I have tucked into a red tartan skater skirt.

“Oh, yeah,” I hear Moira say from behind me. “The sink leaks. You have to hold the nozzle down when you turn it on.”

I whirl around to face her. She’s standing with her hip propped on the counter a few feet away.

“How come you know that, and I don’t?” I demand while the freezing water seeps all the way through my shirt to my skin.

It’s irrational, but her knowing some vital sink information I don’t just feels like the ten thousandth piece of proof that this is a world she seamlessly fits into, whereas I need to push and push and push for perfection just to call it my own.

To belong.

“You didn’t hear Margerie tell us?” she asks, one of her eyebrows jumping up at the bite in my tone. “Maybe you were too busy destroying those brownies.”

My skin burns so hot I half-expect to see steam rising off my soaked shirt.

She did not just bring the brownies into this.

“I did not destroy them. I’m cutting them.”