Page 56 of Blush Crush

“Why are you so interested in my personal life? Did Mom send you to spy on me?”

“No, but she did ask me if I had any single friends to set you up with.”

God, she’s already started. I should’ve seen that coming.

“I told her I would handle it myself.”

Nora’s eyes sharpen. “So there is a girl.”

I give her my most withering look. She absorbs it without flinching, because she has never once in her life been withered by me. The eternal curse of little sisters—total immunity to everything you have in your arsenal.

“Drop it, Nora.”

“Cole has a crush,” she sings in the exact same voice she used when we were kids.

“How old are you?”

“Never too old to tease you. That’s how much.” She grins, wholly unrepentant. “Is she nice? Pretty? Does she know what she’s getting herself into?”

“Again, there is no she.”

“Your ears are still red.”

“Don’t you have somewhere to be?”

“As a matter of fact, I do.” She glances at her watch and stands, smoothing her jacket. “I have court in an hour. Lucky for you.” She points at me on her way to the door. “But I will beharassing the shit out of you until I get to meet this woman who made you blush like a schoolboy. That’s a promise.”

“I would expect nothing less.”

“Love you,” she calls over her shoulder.

“Love you too. Get out.”

The door clicks shut behind her.

I sit in the quiet for a moment, the office suddenly feeling very still after Nora’s hurricane of harassment. I pick my phone back up.

Ariana’s last text is still on the screen.I’ll be there.

A rush of anticipation hits my chest as I set the phone back down, face up this time.

I can’t remember the last time I was this excited to spend time with someone. I’m not used to this—actually looking forward to the conversation rather than just what comes after it.

Maybe never.

CHAPTER 17

Ariana

DON’T DATE LITTLE BITCHES

I’ve never been to Cole’s house.

I guess before now, I had no reason to. I knew I’d be nervous, but I didn’t expect to be this nervous. I’m practically shaking out of my skin.

The drive out to the Benton property takes about fifteen minutes from my apartment, and I spend most of it having a very detailed internal conversation with myself about what could happen tonight. I’ve run through approximately forty scenarios. Most of them end with me doing something embarrassing. A few of them end with me dying from said embarrassment, which honestly feels like the preferable outcome at this point.

I agreed to this. I asked for this, but now it’s real. And tonight it’s going to get more real, and I have no idea what that looks like in practice, only that I don’t feel nearly prepared enough.