She gives me a once-over before she pops her gum again and smiles. “Yeah. Get in, loser. We’re gonna get some photos.”

Imogen

TO GET OUT OF THE RAIN, VANCE AND I dip into a small diner a few blocks away from the convention and slide into a booth. We’re only moderately wet, and we’re laughing from our mad dash into the restaurant. The is the second time in twenty-four hours I’ve been within touching distance of Vance Reigns. My heart should be about ready to explode, but I can’t stop thinking about the glare Ethan gave Jasper at the meet-and-greet.

He looked about ready to kill him.

I shouldn’t have snapped at Ethan like that. He was only trying to help.

Yeah, but he’s a burnt Hufflepuff, I try to reason with myself, and you’re getting food with a Gryffindor.

A clap of thunder rumbles overhead, and lightning reflects off the skyscrapers around us. We made it to the diner just before the storm hit in full swing, and I shake off errant water droplets on my arms.

The diner is red-and-white checkered, with neon signs glowing in the windows and the smell of greasy fries and sweet ice cream hanging in the air. I sit on one side of the booth, assuming Vance would go for the other, but instead he slides in next to me, stretching his arm across the back of the booth behind me.

He smells like a mixture of motorcycle exhaust and some sort of expensive cologne, and sitting this close I can see stubble on his cheek. This feels really, really cliché, straight out of a ’90s rom-com starring a rough leathery bad boy and a chaste good girl.

Oh, if he knew me—the real me—he’d realize I am not that good at all.

“You looked upset earlier. Is everything okay?” he asks softly, as a preppy waitress comes over and hands us two menus.

“I’m fine. A strawberry shake, please,” I say before I can think of what Jessica would order. I’m too tired to play that game.

“Um, yeah, chocolate malt. Thanks,” he adds, giving the waitress a dashing smile before turning his gaze back to me. She stares at him, blinking, for another moment, realizing that yes, it is Vance Reigns, before she hurries off to tell the other waitstaff.

“Are you sure you’re fine?” he asks. “Is there anything I can do?”

I toy with my words, arranging them in my head, before I say, “Do you ever have a little voice in your head that tells you that you aren’t good enough? And you’ve never done anything in your life, so you begin to think that maybe that little voice in your head is right? That maybe you aren’t smart or talented or pretty enough—”