He Asked Me Out to Get Back at Her, I Gave Him a Rulebook Instead novel · Chapter 8 of 24

Chapter 8: Both Mean It

It lasted about two seconds.

It felt like a semester.

Then Linc put both hands on Ainslee's shoulders and moved her back, carefully.

He wiped his mouth with the back of his wrist.

Her friends' phones were still up.

One of them had a red dot in the corner.

Live.

"What are you doing?" Linc said.

Ainslee laughed softly.

"Finishing what you started on the quad. You wanted one more year. I'm giving you one."

"I don't want it."

The laugh slipped.

"Linc. Don't be dramatic. Your father talked to my father."

"I know he did." His voice was very calm and very clear. "So let me say it where your friends can get it on camera. We're done. We were done in April when you dumped me by text from Saint-Tropez. I'm not getting back together with you for your father, or mine, or a merger, or a building."

Somebody in the crowd going past said, "Ohhh."

People were stopping now, a whole cluster of them in the stripes of light under the bleachers.

"You're doing this for her?" Ainslee looked at me like I was a stain on her sleeve. "The roommate?"

"Her name is Frannie," he said. "You've lived with her for six weeks. Learn it."

He held out his hand to me.

I took it.

We walked out from under the bleachers into the cold.

Behind us, I heard one of the friends whisper, "Should I stop the live?"

And Ainslee hiss, "Obviously, you idiot."

Then the words came, smaller and confused, until we were too far away to read them.

[wait what]

[that's not supposed to happen yet]

[he's playing hard to get, right? RIGHT?]

We didn't talk all the way across campus.

His hand was hot around mine.

He was shaking a little, and I didn't think it was the cold.

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