Page 86 of Rivals

“I’m not leaving!” Jeff said again.

All at once, Nina knew precisely what to do.

She leaned her hands on the pool table behind her, then jumped up to sit next to him. “Jeff, I need your help. We can’t win the race without you.”

He looked up sharply. “Race? What race?”

“The race to the car! We have to go now, or the other frat will win.”

Her lie worked almost too well. An instant later Jeff was hurtling toward the front door, ready to sprint to the car. Nina had to grab his arm and insist that the rules required them all to stay together. Which was how she and Matt managed to walk on either side of Jeff, acting as human shields.

In the photos, the figure in the middle would be an indistinguishable blur, unrecognizable as Prince Jefferson.

At the palace, Nina helped Matt get Jeff upstairs and into his sitting room. But when she started to turn toward the door, Jeff’s voice stopped her.

“Don’t go. It’s still early!”

Nina cast a pleading glance at Matt, but he’d alreadyretreated down the hall, probably just glad to have gotten Jeff home in one piece.

This isn’t a big deal,she told herself as she settled onto the couch.We’re just friends.

As if to prove that fact, she flicked on the TV and surfed the channels until she found one of her favorite old rom-coms.

“Wait.” Jeff reached across her for the remote. “Can we check the score of the game?”

“Nope. The second I let you start watching sports, you’ll never stop.”

“You’ve seen this movie a hundred times!”

“And it’s always good, every time,” Nina said firmly.

Jeff pretended to lunge across her and reach for the remote, but Nina scooted back, straining her arm as she held it out of reach. They were both laughing, the sort of bright, silly laugh that had defined their relationship when they were kids.

Then somehow Jeff had grabbed Nina and tumbled backward onto the couch, and she was falling onto his chest, and neither of them was laughing anymore.

Nina’s focus centered on her hips, her stomach, everywhere that her body was touching Jeff’s. She knew she should move, but her body felt liquid and heavy.

“You tricked me,” she whispered, and she wasn’t sure whether she was talking about this moment with the remote or something much bigger.

“Did I?”

Jeff’s arm had looped around the curve of her back. She’d taken off her sweatshirt during the car ride, and his hand just barely grazed the band of skin between her black tank top and her jeans. A shiver ran down her spine at his touch.

“Jeff.” She meant it as a warning, but it didn’t come out that way.

“Nina.”

Neither of them moved. They didn’t scoot back, but they didn’t draw closer, either. As if by staying utterly still, they could somehow maintain the fiction that this was a wholly friendly interaction.

Nina’s hand seemed to move of its own volition, reaching for the damp strands of his dark brown hair. “You smell like beer, you know.”

Jeff smiled drowsily. “That makes sense. It was chug-one-to-get-one tonight.”

She could feel the thud of his heartbeat beneath her chest; it picked up speed, and her own quickened to meet it. Everything felt hushed and still, as if they’d fallen inside a snow globe and there was nothing left in the world but the two of them.

Then somehow reality snapped back in. Nina pushed herself from Jeff’s chest and scooted a few feet along the couch. She had every intention of ignoring this whole thing, pretending it had never happened, but Jeff spoke up.

“I’m sorry,” he said huskily.