Page 87 of Rivals

Nina flushed. “Jeff, it’s okay—I didn’t—”

“Sam told me not to, you know.”

“She…what?”

“She said if I wanted to date you again, I had to be careful or she would pummel me into a thousand pieces. And Sam throws a mean punch.” The words came out thick and slow. It dawned on Nina that Jeff might be drunker than she’d realized. She scooted a little farther away, her mind spinning.

Was Jeff saying what she thought he was saying?

“Jeff, you’re with Daphne,” she reminded him.

His face scrunched up in an adorably confused way. “Things with Daphne have been weird,” he admitted, then shook his head. “Sorry, I shouldn’t be talking about this withyou.”

The rush of excitement that had flooded through Nina quickly dissipated. “If this is about that fight at the End of Session party, I think there’s more to the story,” she said guiltily.

“Maybe, but it’s not just that. Daphne is different, lately.” Jeff looked up at Nina. “I get this feeling that she’s hiding something from me.”

Of course she is,Nina thought. Daphne had spent years hiding secrets from Jeff, including the biggest secret of all: what she was really like.

For so long Nina had dreamed of the moment when she could tell Jeff about his girlfriend’s manipulations. Yet now, when that moment had finally arrived, the words died in her throat.

If Daphne was different lately, it was because the facade she’d shown Jeff for years was starting to erode, and he was catching glimpses of the real Daphne underneath it all. A Daphne that Nina might actuallylike.

Because underneath the manipulating and scheming and double-dealing, Daphne was…well, she was Daphne. There was no simple way to describe her. She was complicated, determined, brilliant. She protected the people she cared about with her own twisted but fierce brand of loyalty.

Daphne and Jeff didn’t belong together, but it wasn’t Nina’s place to say so. Their relationship would come to a head without her interference. Better to let them reach that conclusion on their own.

Especially now that she and Daphne were allies, or almost-friends, or whatever they were.

“This is between you and Daphne,” she told Jeff. “I know better than to get in the middle of my friends’ relationships.”

That word,friend,hung in the air between them like a challenge. It seemed to sober Jeff up a little. He held Nina’s gaze, then nodded slowly.

“Okay,” he said.

“Okay,” she repeated awkwardly.

Jeff was still staring at her. “Nina—as my friend, you would tell me if something was going on with you, right?”

Nina feigned ignorance. “What do you mean?”

“If you were dealing with a problem, you’d let me know?”

Jeff had clearly sensed that she was troubled about something. For a moment, Nina was tempted to tell him everything—about her financial aid, and Daphne’s plan, and Gabriella.

“Everything is great, I promise,” she assured him. “Now, are you going to put the game on or what?”

Jeff relented with a smile. “You have no idea what game it is, do you?”

“Not a clue,” Nina agreed. “Baseball? Wrestling?”

He closed his eyes and groaned. “All the years we’ve been friends, and you still don’t know that wrestling is a match, not a game?”

Friends.Now he’d said it, too. Hopefully it would get easier and easier to say.

Nina leaned on the pillow between them, relieved that they’d retreated to their usual safe banter. This she could handle. There was nothing wrong or illicit about this.

“Fair enough. Why don’t you tell me about the game.”