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ten

When it came to fight or flight, I had always been a flight kind of person.

And when that option wasn’t available, I would freeze instead.

That was exactly what I did now, as I watched Sebastian walk toward us in what seemed like slow motion.

Thomas, of course, was completely oblivious to what was going on in my mind.

He started going on about how he had just finished soccer practice and how lucky it was that he had run into us.

I made a couple of humming noises, pretending to be focused on what he was saying, but my thoughts were only on Sebastian and the way he was coming toward me.

Unlike Thomas, I was pretty sure Sebastian’s hair was actually wet, and he was dressed in a pair of jeans and a tight t-shirt that showed off every defined muscle on his upper body. I knew I should look away and focus on the boy in front of me, but my eyes felt glued to the boy further away.

Thomas fell silent and when I finally dragged my eyes over to him, he was looking at me expectantly. He probably asked me a question, but even as I sifted through my mind, I couldn’t remember what it was.

“Well, it was really nice to meet you, Thomas,” I said, hoping he wouldn’t mind me ignoring whatever his question was. Maybe I was lucky and he hadn’t asked me anything, just paused and was waiting for me to fill in the silence. “I’m sure I’ll see you around school, but it’s getting late now, so?—”

“Hey, Nellie!” Sebastian called across the parking lot. And of course, everyone turned to look.

Clementine grabbed my wrist and squeezed hard, hissing in my ear, “Oh my gosh, Sebastian Novak is coming our way!”

Ainsley glanced at her, clearly trying to hold back a laugh at Clementine’s reaction.

I wished I could laugh along with her, but unfortunately, my heart was currently pounding so hard that I felt a little nauseous.

Just a friend, just a friend , I reminded myself.

Barely even that—just your brother’s best friend.

Your brother’s best friend who had been treating you way too nicely while he was going through a hard time.

“Oh hey man,” Thomas said as Sebastian walked up, but then he immediately turned his attention back to me.

I probably should have been happy that he was so interested in me, but instead, I wished he would forget about me and go back to the time when we were just strangers who knew of each other.

He looked at me curiously, “Nellie? I thought your name was Nora?”

“It is,” I said quickly, not wanting him to get confused and think that he should have been calling me Nellie this whole time. “Sebastian is the only one who calls me Nellie anymore. It was a childhood nickname that I have,” I glared at Sebastian, “completely outgrown.”

“I think it suits you,” Sebastian said with a shrug. He leaned between me and Thomas curiously. “So, what’s going on over here?”

“Oh, these two lovebirds were just getting to know one another,” Clementine said. I tried not to groan at the word lovebirds . Even if I had been interested in Thomas, I wouldn’t want her to do this.

“And now I was headed off,” I said, smiling kindly at Thomas. “My brother’s gonna come pick me up and?—“

“I can wait with you,” Thomas interrupted. He smiled at me, and although he did look pretty cute like that, I couldn’t say it was winning me over at all. I held back my sigh, trying to think of a polite way to say please don’t .

Then Sebastian made it that much worse by adding, “I can give you a ride.”

I squeezed my eyes shut, hating this whole situation. “No, that’s okay. I’m sure Dean will be here any minute.”

“Dean hasn’t picked you up in days,” Sebastian pointed out. “And I’m pretty sure he’s out with a girl right now anyway.”

My eyes widened. “What?”

He shrugged. “I mean, I can’t say for certain, but I’m pretty sure he’s out with somebody right now. That’s what it seemed like anyway. So if you want to get home at any reasonable time, I should probably take you.”

All this time, I thought Dean had just been forgetting about me because it was so late after school and he didn’t want to have to drive back to get me. But if he was actually going out with a girl every afternoon, I was going to kill him.

“I can walk,” I said quickly. “I don’t mind.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Ainsley said. “We’re all going to the same place, we might as well give you a ride.”

I’d almost forgotten Ainsley was here. I guess her being in the car probably made the whole situation a little better.

It wouldn’t be Sebastian going out of his way to come get me, I would just be joining for a car ride that was already happening.

Maybe that was okay, especially if Ainsley was offering for me to come along.

“Wait, how do you all know each other?” Thomas asked, his eyes cutting between us.

“They live next door to me,” I said quickly, not wanting him to get the wrong idea about me and Sebastian.

Because even though Clementine’s idea for this had been very misguided, I also didn’t want to swear off the idea of Thomas altogether.

I’d already sworn off the idea of Sebastian, and if I wanted to have another kiss in my lifetime, maybe Thomas was the guy to go after.

Maybe that was what I should plan on doing anyway.

My kiss with Sebastian had been my first, so I had nothing to compare it to, and maybe that was the problem.

Maybe the kiss hadn’t been as magical as I thought—maybe that was what all kisses were like and I was just lacking experience.

I wouldn’t know until I tried again, so Thomas could be just the guy for that.

“And her brother’s my best friend,” Sebastian said. “So, I have a bit of a protective feeling over Nellie here. You know, in case you were planning on going out with her or something—just thought you should know. ”

Clementine’s grip on my wrist tightened.

When I looked over at her, she mouthed, “Oh my gosh.” She looked like she was about to keel over from shock.

I was pretty sure I felt the same way, but for different reasons.

She was excited about what was going on here, while I was wanting to get out of here as quickly as possible.

Because Sebastian had just threatened to kill this guy if he hurt me.

I was pretty sure he had, and if Tiffany heard that, she was going to kill me herself.

I glanced at Ainsley too, wondering how she felt about all of this but she just looked amused as she rolled her eyes at her brother.

I wondered if this was how Sebastian treated all her dates too and he was just slipping into a big brother role.

Thomas gaped at him a little and said, “We’re just talking for the first time here, man.

I’m not...” He glanced at me, probably realizing that he didn’t want to imply that there was nothing going on here.

I was no help to him as I just stared back, waiting for him to finish the sentence.

I wasn’t sure what I was hoping for him to say—that there wasn’t anything going on between us because we’d just met and he wasn’t interested?

Or did I want him to say that he was interested but that we hadn’t been going out for long enough to be threatened by my brother’s best friend?

That did seem like something that was supposed to happen when you actually started dating instead of this early on.

“I guess I’ll see you around, Nora,” Thomas stammered out, starting to back away.

“Wait!” Clementine said. “Why don’t you give Nora your number, and that way you guys can chat a little bit more later?” She glanced at Sebastian and grinned wickedly before continuing, “You know, in private .”

She was trying to rile Sebastian up—I was absolutely positive from the look on her face.

I just couldn’t tell why she would want to do that.

And from the look on Sebastian’s face, she had been very successful.

He looked downright murderous. Was she trying to make him jealous?

Or trying to make me seem more desirable to Thomas somehow? I had no idea.

“Uh, sure,” Thomas said, also looking uncomfortable. “Do you have your phone?”

I quickly pulled it out and handed it to him, just wanting to get this embarrassment over with as soon as possible. But I didn’t realize that it was locked until he held it up to me and said, “I can’t…”

“0212,” Sebastian recited immediately. We all stared at him. “Her passcode. It’s 0212.”

While Thomas typed it in, I kept looking at Sebastian. “How do you know that?”

He grinned. “What, you think you’re the only one who can get somebody else’s passcode? I figured it out months ago.”

I guess I probably should have expected that.

I did figure out his passcode, so it made sense that he would retaliate.

Then I wondered if there was anything embarrassing on my phone that he could have found.

I was never really without my phone for a long period, so I couldn’t imagine that he snooped through it much.

But maybe there was something—like some secret diary entry about how much I loved him that I somehow didn’t know I wrote.

Thomas looked at me warily, unsure if he should put the number in. I waved at him to do it. He found my contacts app easily, put his number in, and handed it back to me.

“I guess I should go shower,” he said. He backed away slowly. “It was nice meeting you, Nora.”

And then he was off, and I was positive there was no chance I was ever going to see him again, even if he had just given me his number. And when I looked at Sebastian, he didn’t seem even remotely sorry for causing the issue.