“I’m on about the fact that sometimes people hide friendships from their girlfriends because they’re worried, and I’ve never seen that end well. So, does she know?”

“Okay, leaving the obvious problem with that question aside for a second, do you reckon people shouldn’t be allowed to hang out with the gender they’re into when they’re in a relationship?”

I huffed. “Of course not. I mean, I’m bi. If I couldn’t, that’d be pretty damn limiting for me.”

“You made it sound like there’s something wrong with it.”

“No, it’s about openness and honesty.”

“But why would people hide something that isn’t wrong in the first place?”

“They just do. And I don’t wanna interfere with your relationship, but—”

“But interfering in relationships is literally how you made a living,” Brougham finished for me helpfully. “Though I don’t know what relationship you’re talking about.”

I smacked my hand on the concrete, frustrated. “You and Winona!”

“What?” Brougham looked briefly amused, then the laughter in his eyes faded to something more quizzical. “Wait, did you really not know we broke up?”

“You what? When? Why didn’t you tell me?”

Hope sparked in my chest, while my brain scrambled for clarity. None of this made any sense. I would know if they’d broken up, wouldn’t I? Brougham would share that with me, right?

Brougham wrenched his stare away from me, eyebrows furrowed. He looked about as baffled as I felt. “Honestly, Darcy, I thought you knew. I figured Finn told you. I thought you said he had. I broke up with her after prom.”

I stared at him, totally lost for words, as I tried to reshuffle the last week in my head.

He’d ended things with Winona at the party.

Gotten into a fight over me.

Gotten drunk.

Slept on my couch, and stared up at me with that aching in his eyes (which I was now certain I didn’t imagine) and yet didn’t initiate anything. Didn’t ask me to stay behind when I left to go to sleep. Didn’t reject my offer of platonic friendship. Even when he thought I knew.

“Why?” I asked.

Luckily for me, he didn’t pretend to misunderstand the question, for once. He raised his hands, then let them fall in his lap helplessly. “Don’t you … don’t you know?”

I was too scared to believe I knew anything right now. But somehow, something within me got brave enough to take his hand.

He really was beautiful. And despite what I’d thought of him when I met him, now that I knew him, I was quite sure he might be the most beautiful person I’d ever met in my life.