Page 410 of Bad Prince
You’re gasoline.
Then I sent it.
I’m still half dressed when Jade calls.
Not texts.
Calls.
Which means two things immediately: one, she watched the game, and two, she’s about to be insufferable.
I’m sitting on the edge of the locker room bench in gray sweats with a towel around my neck, shoulder still warm from the postgame shower, when Leo’s name flashes underneath hers on FaceTime.
I answer and get both of them at once.
Leo is stretched out against what looks like a leather headboard, clean white tee, expensive hair doing that effortless-rich-boy thing I’ve always wanted to punch on principle. Jade is folded into his side in some tiny black tank, barefaced, eyes sharp, looking exactly like the kind of girl who asks one question and somehow ends up with your entire soul on the table.
“Thirty-two?” Jade says by way of hello. “Who do you think you are?”
I smirk despite myself.
“Historically? Me.”
Leo laughs.
“There he is.”
His voice does something weird to my chest every time now. Familiar. Old life. Brotherhood I didn’t realize I’d miss until I was no longer living inside it.
Jade leans closer to the phone.
“We watched online. The stream was horrible. Your defense looked rude.”
“It was rude.”
“I know.” She points at the screen. “You looked happy, though. Which is disturbing.”
“You look good,” Leo agrees.
I shrug one shoulder.
“Road win.”
“No, can’t be just that,” Leo’s mouth curves.
“You look like you fit there.”
For a second I don’t say anything—Harvard had a certain kind of polish. Stanford has less ceremony and more sun and somehow feels less like wearing somebody else’s suit.
“I do.”
Leo nods like he already knew the answer.
“Yeah. I can tell.”
A beat passes.
Then he adds, quieter, “Miss having you here, though.”
