Page 121 of The Play Maker

Because she is.

She’s mine. My Maisie.

Logan chuckles. “You should just tell the girl you like her,” he says, reaching for a bowl of peanuts. “Or better yet, write her a love poem. ‘Dear Maisie, I’m a reformed slut, done with the wits. Pretty please let me touch your?—’”

“Logan,” Nathan cuts in, raising his brow.

“What?” Logan grins, tossing a peanut in his mouth. “I’m rooting for the himbo. Let him have his fairy-tale ending.”

I shake my head and sip my drink, trying to focus on anything else, but then Isabella slides into the booth, parking herself right on Ryan’s lap.

“Congrats on the win,” I hear her say.

Ryan hums something back, but I don’t look at them. Can’t.

Because Maisie’s still standing across the room, laughing at something Aurora says, and those perfect blue eyes are shining like summer lives inside her.

How is she real?

How in the hell did I not notice her before this year?

Ryan scoffs under his breath. “I don’t think he’s listening, baby. He’s kinda distracted right now.”

Isabella twists around on his lap to glance at me, then laughs. “You know I’m rooting for you bud, but… I think you’ve got some competition.”

That gets my attention.

My eyes snap to hers. “What?”

She shrugs. “She’s been talking to someone.”

My stomach drops.

I blink at her, trying to make sense of what the hell she’s telling me. “What do you mean she’s been talking to someone?”

“She’s got a crush on some other guy,” she tells me, making my stomach sink to my ass. “She told Aurora and me when we were helping her get ready for your date.”

Ryan chokes on his drink. “Wait.Youwent on a date?”

Nathan leans in from across the table, brows raised. “An actual date?”

But I’m not listening to either of them. My brain’s stuck on rewind, replaying Isabella’s words over and over, each repetition punching deeper than the last.

Maisie’s been talking to someone.

I feel it like a bruise blooming behind my ribs. That hollow, slow-spreading ache.

The memory rushes back—her face going pink that day in the lecture hall when I asked if she had a crush. Her dodging the question. Me teasing her about it. I didn’t really care about it at the time.

But now?

Now I care.

A lot.

And now I feel like a goddamn idiot for sitting here thinking about her smile, and practically drooling over her, when she’s probably been thinking about some other guy the whole time.

I sit back slowly, my fingers tightening around my glass. “Do you know who it is?”