“I’ll catch up with you, I just want to go over some stuff with Clarity real quick.”
She waves to the girls before they duck out and joins me at the front of the room. The maneuver is so casual, I wouldn’t think anything of it if I wasn’t in on our secret.
“Hey, Clarity,” Hannah says, her voice carrying the tiniest hint of excitement. “Do you want to get together after practice to, you know, work on committee stuff?”
The way she says “committee stuff” makes my heart race. The thought of spending time with her alone, even under theguise of work, makes me the best kind of nervous. This could be our first date.
“I’d love to,” I say, keeping my voice steady. I glance toward Mrs. Rubio’s desk. She’s focused on grading some papers. “What time?”
“Practice ends at five,” Hannah says, her eyes sparkling. “We could meet at the field house then.”
“Perfect.”
I finally fit my papers into my folder and pack up my bag while Hannah waits for me by the door.
“Hey.”
Kristen appears in the doorway and strides into the room with a determined look on her face.
“Hey,” Hannah replies.
“So, the meeting’s over,” Kristen says to me, her voice bright but a bit too firm to be casual.
“Yes, we just finished,” I tell her.
“Are you free for a bit?”
I glance at Hannah. She’s already looking at me, her brow furrowed. Technically I’m free until five…
“Uh, yeah,” I say, cautious. I want to spend time with Hannah, but I’m also never against killing time with Kristen.
“Great! Are you hungry? Vincent and I were thinking about grabbing a bite at Rockne’s.”
Rockne’s is over in Kent. If I go with Kristen, chances are I won’t be coming back to school, which would mean no meeting up with Hannah at the field house.
“I was hoping to start on some homework. Thought I might go to the library,” I say. I don’t like the feeling of choosing between Kristen and Hannah.
“Oh, come on. Homework can wait. Vincent and I would love for you to join us. It’ll be fun.”
I try to steal a glance at Hannah, hoping some sign of what I should do will reveal itself on her face. She gives me a half-hearted smile and a slight nod, understanding tinged with disappointment.
Kristen glances over her shoulder and I avert my gaze. Now it’s just the three of us and Mrs. Rubio in the room. The risk of Kristen misreading my interaction with Hannah is too high.
“Rockne’s it is,” I say quickly, regaining Kristen’s attention.
Her face breaks out into a smile before she says, “Perfect.”
Twenty minutes later, I slide out of the back seat of Kristen’s car and follow her and Vincent into Rockne’s. It’s an Irish pub on the edge of Kent’s campus. Trailing a few steps behind them, I fire off one more apology text to Hannah, the bubble popping up underneath my promise to FaceTime her later tonight. I know she’s at practice now, so she won’t reply for a while, but the guilt around the way I left her is unbearable.
We slip into a six-person booth on the bar side, facing a TV playing Food Network. As Kristen and Vincent scoot as close as humanly possible together, I settle in for an episode of a rancher’s wife preparing the perfect slider.
“Clarity,” Kristen whispers, reaching for my hand from across the table.
When I look up, she nods her head to the left, and over her shoulder I find Maurice walking toward our table.
“Hey, Clarity,” he says, his smile big. He dabs up Vincent before sitting down next to me, forcing me farther into the booth, trapped between him and the wall.
“Hey, Maurice,” I say, leaning in when he holds one arm out for a side hug.