Page 118 of All These Beautiful Strangers

Suddenly, there was a knock at the door.

“I know, I know,” Greyson said, holding up his hands. “Into the closet I go.”

I smiled at him. “Thank you,” I said.

When Greyson was safely hidden in Drew’s closet, I opened my door.

It was Leo. He was holding a small box and some sort of playing board was tucked under his other arm.

I almost shut the door in his face, but he reached out and held it open before I could stop him.

“What do you want?” I asked.

I hadn’t spoken to Leo since the incident outside the dining hall, and I really didn’t care to ever speak to him again. His betrayal stung even more than Dalton’s.

“I’m sorry,” Leo said. “Let’s start there.”

I had never heard Leo apologize for anything before, and it sort of caught me off guard.

“I only put you in the game because I knew you were too good for any of the guys here, and you’d never go for them,” Leo said. “When you started to go for Dalton, I tried to warn you about him. I didn’t see things playing out this way, or I would have never done it in the first place.”

“I thought you had my back,” I said.

“Listen, Charlie, I would never let anyone hurt you,” Leo said. “The only reason I didn’t step in again was because Dalton convinced me he actually liked you and him being with you wasn’t about the game at all. He’s still really into you. He only brought up the game the other day because he was upset.”

“That’s great,” I said. “But I don’t really believe anything either of you have to say anymore.”

“Just hear him out,” Leo said. “Hear him out, and then you can decide if you want to believe him or not. I’m supposed to give you this first.”

He handed me a board.

I took it and unfolded it. It had a bunch of blank boxes on it.

“It’s a puzzle,” Leo said. “You’re supposed to put all the letters together and figure out what it says.”

“What letters?” I asked.

“Here,” Leo said, handing me the box. I opened it. There was a cupcake from the gourmet cupcake shop in Falls Church. On the top of the cupcake was a little tile with a letter on it: “Y.”

“Just one letter?” I asked.

“No, there’ll be other letters,” he said.

“I think I’ve had enough of your little games to last me a lifetime,” I said.

“Trust me,” Leo said. “You’ll like this game. Listen, I’ve got to get to practice, but we’ll talk later, okay?”

“Fine,” I said.

When he left, I set the playing board and the tile down on my desk.

“You’re not really doing this, are you?” Greyson asked. He had come out of the closet, and he had his arms crossed over his chest, looking all disappointed.

“Doing what?” I asked.

“That thing some girls do, where the guy is horrible and then makes some gesture, and the girl forgets how horrible the guy is, just in time for the guy to do something else horrible.”

“No,” I said. “I’m not doing that.”