“Good to know,” I sighed. Though if Hartley were in love with a nice person, I might be able to bear it. But she was a monster, and he didn’t seem to mind. It drove me half insane.
“She snubs women generally,” Daniel added. “With a particular focus on the pretty ones.” I wondered if that was a compliment. “Most men aren’t good enough for her, either. She’s nice to me because I’m European. Her knowledge of British accents is not fine enough for her to hear that I’m from the wrong end of London.”
“You are full of interesting theories, Daniel.”
“It’s what I do,” he replied. We came to a stop outside of Beaumont House. “Promise me I’ll see you on Friday?”
I held up a hand for a high five. “I’ll be there. And thanks for the ice cream.”
“My pleasure.” He smacked my hand.
An hour later I turned in early, feeling truly victorious. It had been my Bravest Day Ever since coming to Harkness. It wasn’t as special as my Weirdest Night Ever, but for the first time, I felt that it was possible to move on.
I closed my eyes. But before I could fall asleep, a tiny fairy voice whispered in my ear. Hartley didn’t like to see that you were hanging out with Daniel.
In my mind’s eye, I took a tiny piece of duct tape and slapped it over her tiny lips. And then I went to sleep.
Chapter Seventeen: It's Not a Sex Toy
— Corey
The text came in about ten minutes after my first Shakespeare lecture got underway. Everything OK, Callahan?
It was rather rude to text during class, but after Hartley sent a second one asking after me, I hid my phone in my lap to answer him.
Fine! Sorry! I owe you a call. Switched classes. See you later?
Directly at noon, just as Dana and I were discussing which dining hall to favor with our business, my phone rang with Hartley’s number. “Callahan!” he bellowed into my ear. “What do you mean you switched classes?”
“Sorry, Hartley.” I went with a little white lie. “When I went to buy the textbook, it was just like you said. Exchange rates and monetary policy. The book should have come with a semester’s supply of espresso drinks. I just couldn’t do it.”
There was a silence on the other end of the line. “So you just ditched?”
“What, you’ve never dropped a class?”
Another pause. “So, are you coming to lunch, at least?”
Then I heard the garbled through-the-phone sound of someone calling him in the distance. Someone with a shrill voice. “Hartley!”
“I think you have company for lunch, no?” I said.
“Well, sure, but…” I’d never heard him at a loss for words before.
“I’ll see you at dinner, maybe,” I said. “Or swing by later. We’ll play some hockey.”
When I hung up, Dana’s eyes danced. “You really cut him loose, didn’t you?”
“I guess so.”
“Playing hard to get?” she asked.
I shook my head. “It’s just pure survival,” I told her. “And it’s really not as hard as I thought it would be.”
— Hartley
Houston, we have a problem.
I lay on my bed, staring at the steadily darkening ceiling. Classes were done for the day, and it was still that blissful early part of the term when only the overachievers had begun to do any homework. So I had plenty of time to overanalyze my friend’s behavior.
See, I didn’t think it was all that weird that Corey didn’t call me once over break. Ours was not a phone-based friendship. But when she got back, she didn’t stop by. And then the ditched lunch, and the dropped class? It couldn’t all be coincidence.
Corey was avoiding me.
Why would you complicate our friendship? She’d asked me that question, and I’d given her some smartass answer. But, hell. If I knew she was going to drop me like a puck, I wouldn’t have gone there.
I should never have gone there.
As I lay there worrying about this, the dusk turned to pitch black. My phone lit the bed with a text message from Stacia.
Dinner?
It was five-thirty, and my stomach growled its approval. But I didn’t text her back because there was something I had to figure out. I got up and put on a jacket. Then I crossed the hall and opened the door. Dana and Corey were sitting hip to hip on the sofa, a laptop in front of them. So far as I could tell, they were watching cat videos on YouTube. “Dinner time, girls,” I said. “Shake a leg, it’s pasta bar night.”
“Shake a leg?” Corey asked. “Did you really just say that to me?”
“I was being ironical, Callahan. Seriously, now. That line gets long. It’s hard on a gimp.”
Dana and Corey shared a glance that I could not interpret. Corey shrugged. Then Dana snapped her laptop shut. “Okay. I’m in.” She tossed Corey her coat and put on her own.
Together, we headed into the crisp January night. Maybe she wasn’t avoiding me after all.
“I heard we’re getting snow,” Corey said.
“That ought to make the morning commute fun,” I complained. It was nice to be out of a cast, but I still wasn’t one hundred percent.
“Oh, it will be worth it,” Corey said. “I love snow.”