Loathe to Love You by Ali Hazelwood

            “It’s what he wants.” Things have been a little weird in the past week. Awkward. A bit of a step back for us, but . . . I’ll be fine. It’ll be fine. “I think it’ll go away. The crush.”

            “Right,” Sadie agrees, without looking much like she does agree.

            “Very soon,” I add.

            “I’m sure.”

            “I just need him to . . . never find out about the furniture fantasies,” I explain.

            “Hm.”

            “Because it would make things weird for us,” I explain. “For him.”

            “Yeah.”

            “And he doesn’t deserve it.”

            “No.”

            “He’s a good friend. Also, he’s in the middle of making lots of life changes. I want to be supportive. And I like hanging out with him.”

            “Yup.”

            “Basically, I don’t want him to feel uncomfortable around me.”

            “Nope.”

            “Anyway.” My cheeks feel warm. It must be all the wine. “We should talk about something else.”

            “Okay.”

            “Like. Literally anything else.”

            “Fine.”

            “One of you should propose a topic.”

            If they were here in person, Sadie and Hannah would exchange a long, loaded look. As it is, they are silent for a few moments. Then Hannah says, “Can I tell you a story?”

            “Sure.”

            “It’s about a friend of mine.”

            I frown. “Which friend?”

            “Ah . . . Sarah.”

            “Sarah?”

            “Sarah.”

            “I don’t think I know her. Since when do you have friends I don’t know about?”

            “Not important. So, a couple of years ago my friend Sarah moved in with this guy, um . . . Will. And initially they really hated each other, but then they figured out that they were more similar than they thought, and she started talking about him more and more, in increasingly positive terms. So Sadie and I—Sadie knows her, too—well, we were like, Jeez, is she falling for this dude? And then one night my friend confessed to me that she had very filthy, very elaborate-sounding fantasies about Will bending her over the kitchen table and—”

            “Bye, Hannah.”

            “Wait,” Sadie says, “we haven’t heard the ending!”

            “You guys are shit friends and I’m not sure why I love you so much.” I hang up on them, laughing despite myself. I toss my phone away and get up to refill my glass of wine, thinking that when Hannah and Sadie fall for someone I’ll tease them mercilessly and make up fake stories about fake people, and then they’ll know how it feels, to be—

            “Mara.”

            Liam is standing in the entrance of the living room, necktie in one hand, looking tired and handsome and tall and—

            Oh shit. “Liam?”

            “Hi.”

            “W-when did you get here?”

            “Just now.”

            “Oh.” Thank fuck. “How was your . . . The interview, how did it go?”

            “Good, I think.”

            “Oh. Good.”

            He just got here, he said. He can’t have possibly overheard me. I haven’t said anything compromising in the past few seconds. And Hannah’s knockoff fairy tale used different names.