Interim(99)

“No.”

She grinned. “So Regan and I had a huge argument a few weeks ago and sort of cleared the air. I guess she’s all right now, but I still don’t know how I feel about hanging out with her. It’s weird.”

He nodded.

“I mean, don’t get me wrong. I’m not jealous of you or anything. I’m so over Regan Walters. But I guess I just feel like you two have your own thing going, and I don’t really fit into it.”

“You and I were friends first,” Jeremy reminded her.

“Jeremy, what the f*ck are you talking about? Sure, we talked to each other at school, but that’s because we really didn’t have any other options. Bullshit circumstances are the only things that brought us together. I mean, how can we really be friends? We don’t know anything about each other except that we’re victims. And we rarely even talk about that!”

“Okay, then, what do you wanna know?” Jeremy asked. “I’ll tell you anything.”

“That’s just it, loser. I don’t wanna know. I liked it the way it was. We talked when we needed to. We didn’t talk when we didn’t need to.”

“So then why can’t we still do that?” Jeremy asked.

“Because we can’t, okay? It wouldn’t work. You’ve got your thing going on—”

“Stop saying that!” he cried.

Silence. Hannah traced the steering wheel with her finger, clockwise all the way around. Then counterclockwise. Clockwise again. Jeremy slapped his hand over hers, forcing her to stop.

“No,” he said.

“No, what?”

“You were and still are my friend,” he said.

“It’s weird.”

“I don’t care.”

“I do.”

“Well, too bad. We’re making this work.”

“How?”

“I don’t know. But we’ll think of something.” He pulled his hand away and turned his face. “You were always there,” he whispered. “You were my friend.” He swallowed. “Just . . . don’t go anywhere, okay? Is that so hard?”

Hannah swallowed, too.

He didn’t wait for a reply. He climbed out of the car and slammed the door. No goodbye. No second glance her way. He walked into the garage, chin tucked into his jacket, thinking hard about a way to make Hannah feel less like an outsider. He wouldn’t give up his girlfriend. That’s for damn sure. But there had to be a way to make it work among the three of them. They were his girls, after all, and he wouldn’t lose either.

***

“There’s no way your parents let you come over here,” Jeremy said, moving aside to let Regan through the front door.

“I’m practicing at the park,” she replied, kissing his cheek.

She carried four grocery bags to the kitchen and dumped them on the counter.

“But the season’s over,” Jeremy pointed out.

“And? I have an official visit at Berkshire in a month,” Regan said.

“An official visit? What the hell’s that?”

“Sort of like an interview but not really,” Regan replied. “Anyway, I’ve gotta keep my skills fresh. They may invite me to scrimmage with some of their girls—” She grinned, eyes sparkling. “—which would be completely insane and awesome, by the way.”

“Completely,” Jeremy agreed. “But it’s so damn cold.”

“Eh. These are the things you’ve gotta do when you need a scholarship.”

He nodded. “And what if your parents check on you?”

“They never check on me. They know it’s my time, and they respect that,” she said. “Now, if I don’t come home when I’m supposed to, that’s another story.”

He nodded. “How much time?”

“A lot,” she replied, grinning.

He pointed to the groceries. “What do you have going on in there?”

“A bunch of baking supplies. I figured you didn’t have Crisco or baking powder.”

He shook his head. “How can you bake but not cook? Isn’t it just following the directions?”

“That’s the weird thing about it. I can follow a cookie recipe all day long, but making a dinner dish? Forget about it. I served undercooked chicken one time. God, Caroline got soooo sick. And that was the end of that. So, now I’m in charge of desserts only.”