Page 7 of In the Net (Sin Bin Stories #5)

HARPER

“ A lright, Harper. I’ve waited long enough to get the real story out of you.”

Scarlett, the girl who I already consider my best friend even though we only met last semester, says those words to me with a pointed determination that makes me draw the wine glass away from my lips.

“Huh?” I ask, even though I have a feeling I know exactly what she’s talking about.

Scarlett narrows her eyes at me while she primly sips her wine. “Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about, Harper.”

Maddie gasps in excitement. “Are we finally going to get the Harper and Sebastian backstory?” She whips her gaze to Jasmine. “Jasmine, join in the peer pressure to make Harper spill it.”

Jasmine laughs and rolls her eyes as she pours herself more wine.

But when her eyes stop rolling, they settle on me expectantly.

With the attention and anticipation of my three roommates bearing down on me, and the wine I’ve consumed tonight loosening my lips, I let out a sigh that’s tantamount to surrender.

It’s Friday night, and the four of us decided to have a girls’ night in with a bottle or two (or more) of wine. One year ago, I didn’t know any of these girls, and now we’re roommates and good friends. It’s the best living arrangement I’ve ever had.

I met Scarlett on a random night out last semester.

We struck up a conversation at a pizza place and quickly became friends.

Her boyfriend is Lane Larsen, a Black Bears hockey player who graduated last year, and through her I met Maddie, who’s dating Lane’s best friend, Rhys. Jasmine is Maddie’s best friend.

When Scarlett saw that a cute little rowhouse close to campus was up for rent this semester, she had the idea of the four of us coming together to make it work, and I’m glad she did.

And now the three of them are staring at me like I’m on stage with a spotlight on me and they’re just waiting for the performance to start.

“Well, we grew up together. We’ve known each other since elementary school. We used to be friends.”

At that, the three girls gasp, their eyes going wider, and each of them inching closer like they’re already engrossed.

They’ve all seen plenty of spats between me and Sebastian, but until now I’ve always avoided going into the details of how we know each other—and how we came to not be able to stand each other.

“What happened?” Jasmine asks, her voice swelling with eagerness for the details she clearly assumes must be juicy.

I shrug. “He became an asshole, so we’re not friends anymore. The end.”

“Booo,” Scarlett blares her dissatisfaction. “You’re not getting out of telling the real story now that you’ve started it.”

“Besides, Sebastian isn’t an asshole,” Maddie says. Her brother Lane and boyfriend Rhys were on the hockey team, so she’s known most of the players for the three years she’s spent here at Brumehill College. Especially Sebastian, since he lived with them. “So you’re definitely holding back.”

“You must not have known him during his freshman year,” I say. The memories of meeting him again when we shared a class during our first year of college, after hardly seeing him for the last three years of high school, bring an unpleasant feeling to my chest.

“Is that when you stopped being friends?” Jasmine asks.

I shake my head. “No, not really. We were friends in middle school and freshman year of high school. Not like, close friends. He only really had one close friend, a guy named Bryce. But we were friendly with each other.”

“And?” Scarlett asks, urging me on.

“During sophomore year, he transferred to a prep school. He got a scholarship.” A sad feeling twists through me as I continue, “He was pretty eager to have a chance to transfer somewhere else. It might be hard to believe, but he wasn’t popular at our high school.”

“Why not?” Maddie asks, frowning with surprise.

I pause a moment. How much of Sebastian’s background and personal life should I really be sharing with other people?

But the girls want to know what the story is between us, and considering they see us interact so often—no doubt feeling sometimes amused and sometimes awkward at our frequent spats—I guess maybe they deserve to know it.

I take a bigger sip of wine to wear down my inhibitions.

“Almost all the kids who went to our school were from pretty well-off families. Sebastian was one of the few who wasn’t.

His family lived in an area that had basically the only affordable houses in the school district.

And back then, he was nerdy and shy. I mean, I guess he’s still nerdy now, but he isn’t shy like he was back then.

He also isn’t scrawny like he was back then, either.

All that together meant he got picked on a lot. ”

The three girls frown, surprise flickering in their eyes. The Sebastian who’s a hockey star here at college definitely doesn’t seem like the kind of guy who would get bullied.

But as I’m about to tell, not all the changes he’s undergone since then have been for the better.

“Anyway, he transferred, and I didn’t see him nearly as much.

But I knew he and Bryce had a falling out, and that surprised me.

They were such good friends. Sebastian started only hanging out with his prep school friends.

He made it onto their hockey team and became popular there.

When I talked to Bryce about it, I basically got the sense that Sebastian’s newfound popularity at St. Bart’s went to his head, and he started acting superior to everyone he used to know.

Like, the kids at our school used to act superior to him because he was poor, but now that he was popular at a school full of real mega-rich people, and the star player on their hockey team, he wanted to rub it in any chance he got. ”

Scarlett tilts her head with a thoughtful expression. “I guess I can understand that.”

“In a way, sure,” I say. ‘But dropping your best friend over it? Acting distant and condescending even to the people who were always nice to you when most people weren’t?”

“And what happened freshman year between you two?” Jasmine asks.

“We had English 101 together. At first, I was sort of excited to see him again. I thought maybe he’d be able to leave his whole high school experience behind him and get the chip off his shoulder now that he was at college.

But instead of losing that chip, it grew so big I’m surprised his arm didn’t fall off,” I say, my voice turning grumbly at the end.

“Suddenly, he was more than cocky,” I continue, dredging up the memories.

“He was arrogant. Not the same way he is now. I know some people find his confidence funny, or charming. But it was different then. In class discussions, he would suck all the air out of the room. He couldn’t stand not being the center of attention.

And if anyone disagreed with him, he’d launch a full-out verbal assault on them, not willing to give an inch.

And out of class, he was such a womanizer it made me sick.

Worse than he is now, worse than any of the Black Bears guys are now. ”

I take another sip of my wine, but the bitterness coating my mouth dulls the flavor.

“During freshman year, my closest friend was my roommate, Hailey. She went on a couple dates with him. Her and basically every other girl in our freshman class,” I add snidely.

“I wanted to warn her away from him, but I didn’t want her to think I was sabotaging something she was so into at the time, so I kept my mouth shut.

But, of course, she fell head over heels for him, and when he ghosted her, it broke her heart. ”

Scarlett frowns. Her eyebrows cinch in disapproval. “Were they, like, dating dating?”

I roll my lips. “No, they weren’t. As much as I hate to give Sebastian the benefit of the doubt, it’s not like he cheated on her.

Anyone should have realized that what they were doing was totally casual.

But still, he should have realized how into him she was, and been decent enough to let her down easy. ”

Maddie’s lips pout. “That’s true.”

“She spent the next week moping around, depressed. After that, I couldn’t take Sebastian’s new attitude anymore.

I started challenging everything he said in our class.

Criticizing him every chance I got and poking holes into every point he made during discussions.

If no one else was going to take on his bloated ego, I decided I would.

I kept doing the same thing the next semester, when we had a Philosophy class together.

Our professor really encouraged in-depth class discussions and debates, and most of the time it was just Sebastian and me butting heads. ”

“Now we’re getting to the part of the story that sounds familiar,” Jasmine says with a snarky smirk.

I shrug. “And that’s that, I guess. He’s less of a jerk now than he was freshman year, I have to admit.

But ever since I made it my mission to check his ego, whenever we see each other, antagonism has pretty much been our default setting.

” I finish the wine remaining in my glass. “Which is fine with me.”

“You don’t think you’ll ever be friends again?” Maddie asks. The optimistic note in her voice almost makes me laugh. Maddie’s a total sweetheart, who always wants everything to work out for the best. Too bad some things never will.

“Me and Sebastian? I’m pretty sure the last thing we’ll ever be again is friends .”