I’m relieved. Maybe that will save me from a more permanent spot on Cassia’s shit list, which would surely be earned by knowing I showed up here with the knowledge she would be too. To set her sister up on a date, no less.

“Hey, Holden.” Maggie greets me as an afterthought, her focus on the gangly, sandy-haired teenager next to me.

“Hey,” I respond, when it seems evident no one else is going to say anything. Ben is wearing a shy smile, and Cassia…well, I haven’t looked at Cassia yet.

Awkward silence ensues.

I shove my hands in my pockets. “Funny seeing you guys here.”

Okay, so Maggie’s a better actor than I am.

Luckily, neither she nor Ben seem to notice. The kid finally got over his surprise and is now talking animatedly. They’re slowly drifting away down the counter, leaving Cassia and me standing here.

I take a deep breath and finally look at her. She’s standing with her arms crossed, her expression suspicious. “You set this up.”

“Shhh.” I grab her hand and pull her away, toward one of the empty booths.

“Stop manhandling me,” she hisses.

“You didn’t seem to mind it last weekend.”

Pink spreads across her cheeks. “I told you not to bring that up again.”

“Fine. I won’t. Just take a seat. Let me buy you a burger.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“Then just sit while I eat.”

Cassia scoffs but sits. “I can’t believe Maggie talked you into this.” Her gaze is on the couple now sitting on stools. I follow it, relieved to see that Ben is grinning, appearing as taken with Maggie as she is with him. One potential crisis averted.

“All I had to do was get the guy here. It was no big deal.” I grab one of the laminated menus, even though I always get the same thing here.

Studying the list of options sounds like a more appealing option than meeting Cassia’s accusing gaze.

“Still. There was nothing in it for you.”

“Sounds like you and my paper.” I glance up in time to see her lips purse.

“A teacher asked me to.”

Resisting a crack about being a teacher’s pet is difficult, but I manage. “Maggie asked me to.”

“And you care that much about her feelings?”

There’s accusation layered in the question, along with something worse—hurt.

“Don’t think much of me anymore, do you?”

“Which should impress me more, Holden? The fact you don’t bother to do your work to the point of almost failing? Or the way you come home in the middle of the night on the weekends, drunk and bruised?”

My jaw flexes and works. Before I can decide how to respond, a waitress appears. She beams at us, failing to sense the tension sparking between us like a live wire in a lightning storm.