A warm breeze drifted in from my window, playing with the blonde hair I'd just curled. The sky was turning pink and orange behind the buildings framing the horizon, casting a pretty glow over my room.

I stood from my makeshift vanity table at my desk, running a finger along my curled eyelashes to rid them of any excess mascara. I'd opted for my signature look—a form-fitting bodysuit paired with a short black skirt, completed with suede boots and tights. The tights were torn, of course. What from my old life wasn't? But I'd looked up Rocky's online, and I felt as if my grungy, distressed aesthetic would actually help me fit in for once.

My appraisal was interrupted by a light knock at my door. Frowning, I walked over to open it.

And was greeted by the sight of Holly.

She wasn't wearing a mirage of color for once. She looked less like Holly and more like Ivy. Like me, she was wearing all-black—a low-cut dress synched at the waist, paired with high-top platform Converse and a deep burgundy lip.

One word that I never thought I'd describe Holly as was sexy. She was beautiful. Cute and bubbly. But sexy? Still, hovering in the hall outside of my dorm, her curves proudly on display, that was the word that immediately came to mind.

Hopeful butterflies were spinning in my stomach. If she'd gone to that much effort to look like that, then perhaps there was hope for her and Dex after all. And, therefore, hope for my assignment. After all, what girl tries to look sexy in front of a guy she's not interested in?

After my phone call with Dex, I just hoped that he was still interested in her.

"Holly," I greeted, slightly startled. As far as I was aware, I was meeting her and the guys at Rocky's. "Is everything okay?"

She beamed back, not a hint of anything but excitement on her face. "Totally. I just thought we could head over to the club together. Is that okay?"

"I thought Dex was driving you over?"

"He was, but I told him to go ahead without us. I thought we could use some girl time."

"Oh." I tried to mirror her smile, swiveling around and stuffing my phone into my purse. I couldn't help but feel a hint of irritation. How was Holly and Dex not spending time with one another going to bring them closer together?

Maybe this is a good thing, I told myself as I grabbed my keys and joined her in the hall. If the kiss was lackluster for love-sick, eternal optimist Dex, then there was a good chance that it was for Holly as well. By the sounds of things, he wasn't the only one that needed a pep talk. Perhaps that was the real reason why Holly had suggested we drive over together; she needed a girl's opinion. Some reassurance, just like the night in the guesthouse.

I didn't know when I'd become a relationship expert. Maybe about the same time my life started falling apart. A hypothesis for another day.

I let Holly plug her phone into the aux of our Uber on the way to the club—mostly because Ivy was still blowing mine up with an avalanche of texts. I supposed she was finally getting around to actually starting her essay and, like me, was realizing that nothing concrete was happening on the Dex-and-Holly front. Which made it all the more alarming that during mine and Holly's ride to the gig, there was one topic that was noticeably obviously absent from our discussion: Dex.

Rather, Holly and Dex.

Our driver parked around the side of the nightclub, and Holly paid him her half in cash while I put mine on card. I was popping it back into my clutch when my eyes flickered back to her, watching as she assessed her pristine reflection in her compact. There was a playful edge to her warm brown eyes, a coy smirk painted on her lips.

Hope filled my lungs once more. I was positive that she could reel Dex back in. Especially in that dress.

She slammed her compact shut as I turned to step out of the Uber, reaching over and grabbing my hand.

"Wait!"

I turned back to her. Her expression wasn't light or mischievous as it had been seconds before. It wasn't demure like the time we'd spoken at the wedding reception.

She looked worried.

Our driver was watching us curiously through the rear-view mirror. Holly offered him another twenty for five minutes of privacy and, unsurprisingly, he took it.

I would have taken it, too. I would have preferred twenty dollars over whatever conversation was about to unfold.

"There's something that I want to talk to you about," she revealed when we were alone. "Actually, I've been wanting to talk to you about it for a while."

As the overhead light flickered off, and without the indie music blaring through the speakers, I became increasingly aware of how fast my heart was beating.

"What about?" I feigned intrigue, but I knew the answer already.

"Dex," she said quickly, as if spitting out his name before she could think twice. After taking a steady breath, she clarified, "Me and Dex."

Part of me was grateful. I did want to talk about her and Dex. I had to. And I didn't want to bring the topic up myself. But the way that Holly was looking at me nagged at the other half. She was fidgeting with her charm bracelet, her mouth set in the beginnings of a grimace.

She was nervous, and that made me nervous, too.

Still, I threw her something akin to a smile, trying to convince her with a look that whatever was troubling her could be easily resolved. Trying to convince myself, too. I'd gotten myself into that mess. I'd gotten both of us into it.

"What's up?" I asked, my tone more casual than I felt.

She tilted her head to one side, pursing her dark lips as though she was thinking better about what she wanted to say. Her face was lit up in the indigo hue pouring off of the neon lights around us, the flash of light and shadow making her look mischievous and ominous all at the same time.

In a tone more pointed than I was used to hearing from her, she said, "I know you've been trying to set us up."

My stomach sunk.

The small space seemed to close in around us, the darkness cloaking us in awkward silence that made me feel even more claustrophobic.

I was already fearing the worst. Fearing that she knew everything.

But there was something else to her expression. The veil over her eyes hadn't lifted. She still appeared nervous, like her revelation was only the tip of the iceberg. Like there was something else that she wanted to say.

Like she was scared of me.

"I have to give it to you. You're a great wingwoman. And Dex is a great guy." She bit down on her lip, discomfort cracking her composure. "A great ... friend."

The word all but punched me right in the gut. Like it was me who Holly was friendzoning. If My Best Friend's Wedding had taught me anything, it was that there was rarely any coming back from the friendzone. Not even Julia Freaking Roberts could hack it.

I could practically see that scholarship floating further and further away, see my incomplete assignment stamped with a big red 'fail'. A fail, in my first semester of university. A fail that could bring my entire scholarship into question.

"I'm sorry ..." Holly's mouth floundered open and closed as she watched me, no doubt interpreting my panic attack over my assignment as irritation towards her. "I'm sorry to put you in this position. I just don't know how else to handle this."

I shuffled in my seat to meet her eye line. I forced my lips into a smile, trying to give it one last shot. "He really likes you, Holly."

"I know." She nodded. "I know that. And, strangely enough, I think that's it. The reason why I can't see him as more than a friend. He's so ... nice. All the time. I mean, he'll say something, and I'll disagree, and he'll just ... let me. Like, give me something, you know? Fight me a little. It's like we're co-workers or business partners. There's no electricity."

"You want him to fight with you?"

"Not fight. Just ..." She started stammering again, breaking my gaze to gather her thoughts. After a moment of inner deliberation, her eyes lit up. She turned again, practically bouncing in her seat. "Okay. Take James."

I arched an eyebrow. "James?"

"Yeah. He's always making those little comments, you know? Always teasing us or challenging us. It's not malicious, it's just ... hot."

I felt my face straighten out again, only to crinkle into a frown instead. Sure, James teased and challenged. He was bursting at the seams with wit, and he could take banter as well as he could give it. But it was the way she'd said it—always teasing us, challenging us. For some reason, I'd always assumed that he was only like that with me. It had never crossed my mind he was like that with everyone, let alone with other girls.

Why did it bother me that she was implying that he was?

"That's what I want," Holly said.

I nodded, still lost in the strange cocktail of emotions pooling in my chest. "Right."

"No, Madison. That's what I want."

"Yeah, I hear you—"

"Madison."

I turned at a sudden force on my arm. Holly had reached out to me, guiding my gaze away from the road to meet hers. Her expression was just as pleading as before, just as worried and hesitant. Only now, her eyebrows were raised pointedly above her sparkling eyes. Directing me to catch on to something she'd said.

I replayed the last ten seconds of our conversation in my mind. Tried to make sense of the jumbled words through my own confusing thoughts.

Suddenly, everything clicked.

My throat felt coarse when I tried to speak, only one word spilling from my lips. "James?"

Slowly, she nodded.

No. No. There was no way.

I was preparing myself for the worst, but I couldn't possibly have imagined that.

"You're into James?"

"God, I know." She turned away from me, leaning back into the leather-lined seat and throwing a hand over her face. "I'm the worst friend. But you said you're done with him, right? You're not into him?"

Dread was bundling in my stomach.

But I did say that.

"Yeah—"

"Right." She nodded. "So, you wouldn't mind if I took a swing?"

My heart was pounding louder than before, my head swirling as my vision became hazy. But for once, I wasn't thinking about my assignment. I wasn't even thinking about Ivy, or about how angry she'd be when she discovered that I'd allowed one of our test subjects to stray so far from her original plan. So. Far.

I was thinking about Dex.

My heart was splintering for him. He'd told me the day before that things weren't working out with him and Holly, but that didn't mean he'd be any less hurt to discover that she was crushing on his best friend. A best friend he knew had women lining up just to get a glimpse of him. Dex, on the other hand, was so insecure that he'd enlisted a whole team to help him get just one.

Living in the shadow of a friend was a struggle that I, of all people, could understand.

"Holly, I just don't see that happening." I shook my head, leaning closer to her so that she could see my sincerity through the darkness. "Even if you're not into him, Dex and James are like brothers. And they take bro code very seriously. James would never get with someone that Dex likes."

"But what if Dex didn't like me anymore?"

I stifled a dry, humorless laugh. But Holly didn't share my cynicism.

She turned to me slowly, the shadows of the night dancing on her face. The neon lights illuminated her glittery eyelids, causing them to sparkle devilishly.

"What if," she asked, "he friendzoned me?"

My frown deepened. "What?"

She wiggled her eyebrows, once again waiting for me to catch on. But the entire premise of her question seemed ludicrous. Dex wouldn't be the one to friendzone Holly. There was no way. Even after everything he'd said to be on the phone the day before ...

My eyes sprung open.

It was as if a light had been switched on in some dark, pessimistic part of my mind. That part of it that always feared the worst.

"What are you saying?" I cocked my head, testing my theory. Daring her to say it out loud.

Worry still danced on her bronzed face, but it was mixing with something else, too.

Amusement. As if we were both in on the joke.

"I told you that I've been saying things, trying to get him to disagree with me." Her grin widened, a pink hue dashing across her round cheeks. "Well, I've been doing that on purpose. Using the things I know he likes—like Star Trek and Game of Thrones—and acting as if I don't like them. Or pretending that I think they're dumb. And then there's the little things, like making less of an effort with my appearance when it's just him and me. I know it's superficial, but I think it's been working."

My jaw dropped. "Holly—"

"And then the kiss."

My eyes snapped to her, the words on my tongue dissipating into the air.

"We kissed." Something flashed in her gaze, and she threw me a knowing smirk. "But you knew that."

There was no use denying it. Not anymore. Not when everything else was crumbling around us.

She cocked her head at me, oblivious to the anxiety coursing through my veins. "What did he say about it?"

"We didn't really talk about—"

"That it was bad, huh?" she guessed. "It was bad."

I didn't need her to spell that one out for me. I was well and truly up to speed.

"Let me guess," I said dryly. "It was bad on purpose."

She didn't confirm or deny it. Not audibly. But that impish tug of her lips told me everything that I needed to know.

Holly was self-sabotaging. She was purposely trying to get Dex to friendzone her—showing him that they had little in common, weakening his physical attraction to her, keeping things platonic and shattering any chance for romance to develop. She wasn't interested in him, but she couldn't break things off completely. Because she needed to keep him in her back pocket in order to get closer to something else. Someone else.

"You want him to break things off with you," I guessed. "You want him to friendzone you so you can still pursue James."

She nodded enthusiastically, as though she was grateful that I'd finally caught on. "Right. I mean, you and James are just friends now, right? You don't care about who each other dates?"

A shiver rippled up my spine, an ice-cold numbness draining the color from my cheeks. I told myself that I was upset for Dex. And I was.

But I couldn't shake the feeling that there was something else to the bizarre reaction locking my body. Something personal.

"Right." The confirmation felt like poison on my tongue. But Holly wasn't assuming anything that I hadn't told her first. I had said that James and I were just friends. That there was nothing else between us.

So why did saying it now suddenly leave me feeling so cold?

"Right," Holly repeated. "So, maybe Dex and I can be like that, too."

Despite the fog that was clouding my mind, I tried to turn to her again. I had every intention of talking her out of her big ideas, of explaining to her that what she was trying to do was futile. But the quiet of our car was interrupted by her ringtone, and she quickly turned from me to accept the call.

It was Dex on the other side of the line. My heart lurched all over again when Holly laced honey through her voice, releasing a breathy laugh at a joke he must have made. She was leading him on. And, unintentionally, I'd been helping her do it.

I'd been selfish. And now, everything was crumbling around me in the worst possible way.

Rocky's was definitely my kind of place.

Dark and grungy, brimming with college students decked out in flannel and denim who wore the shadows of the club like a cloak. There was a mezzanine above the dance floor, dotted with bar tables and alcoves perfect for secret glances and stolen kisses. It was the epitome of teen angst and rebellion. It was the perfect place to hide.

But that night, in the state I was in, it only intensified my anxiety.

It was also a far cry from the glamorous locations I was sure that Dex, Noah, and James were used to frequenting back home. Still, there they were. Huddled by the side of the dancefloor, exactly where Dex told Holly they'd be.

My eyes flittered to James before I could stop them. He was staring right back at me, blue eyes eating me up with enigmatic curiosity.

We hadn't spoken since The Kiss. We hadn't had a chance to talk about it or not talk about it. We hadn't even seen each other. The tension swelling between us was no doubt the result of that fact alone.

In a flash of neon light, I thought I saw his lips pull into a smile. I thought I felt mine do the same.

But I counted one more figure than I should have in the guys' huddle, her head bowed close to Noah's while her left arm was linked through Dex's. The lights of the club bounced off her raven hair, casting rays of blue and purple onto her torn tee-shirt dress. But it was a glint from the floor that seemed to anchor me in place, that caused my hammering heart to rise to my throat.

Ivy turned on her silver-studded boots. Her lips were painted as dark as ink, sinister-looking as she lifted them into a snarl. "Speak of the devil," she cooed softly.

The guys threw her a polite—if not slightly confused—laugh as she broke rank to saunter toward me. But it was background noise. Every person in that club became hazy and lifeless as the walls closed in. The only thing I could hear was my heart beating in my ears, while my tired, shaking legs bolted to the floor. A wave crashed over—one that threatened to wipe me off my feet had my limbs not locked themselves into place with dread.

Ivy was at Rocky's. She was kissing Holly on the cheek. She was talking to Noah and joking around with Dex.

An alarm flashed in the dark, and I drew a shaky breath as I dared to consider the questions it asked. What did Ivy tell them? What did they know?

My vision was growing sparkly. My jaw was throbbing, and I realized I'd been gritting down on my teeth. My whole body, in fact, was aching with tension, my stomach churning like I was going to be sick.

Like someone had pressed play on a DVR, the club around me sprang to life, jolting from slow-motion playback into a neck-breaking pace.

"Are you guys up for another round?" Holly asked, nodding to the guys' empty cups. She flashed her fake ID between her middle and pointer finger. "James and I have the first one!"

My stomach somersaulted when James laughed, conceding to Holly's offer and following her to the bar. That was when my eyes moved away from Ivy, when they seemed to focus again as something other than panic knotted my stomach. I felt it in my chest, something piercing and consuming. Like a dagger had been placed there, like it was being slowly turned.

For the first time that night, I dared to question my initial conclusion. Dared to wonder whether Holly's plan could work. What if Dex truly did friendzone her? He'd basically told me the day before that his feelings for her were starting to fade, that there was no chemistry or spark between them. Of course there wasn't. She'd ensured that.

Holly already had my blessing, she only needed his. And, if she got it, there was literally nothing standing in her way. There was no way that James would turn her down. Someone so beautiful, so bubbly and charismatic. Someone so much like him.

But the sense of dread the thought stirred only confused me more. Because even if Dex gave his blessing, even if it turned out that he truly didn't care, I had a feeling that I still would.

"Now I know why you were so secretive about your new friends." Ivy's head was cocked, her near-black eyes boring into James and Holly just like mine had. But she didn't look angry. She didn't look bothered. Actually, she looked amused.

She'd slithered up right next to me to link her arm through mine, her grip like a viper snatching its prey. "Just remember, darling," she whispered in my ear, "love is a construct."

And heartbreak is inevitable.

Did any of you see that coming?

Those of you who came from SLR know that I love a good twist!

What do you think about Holly's revelation? Do you think she has what it takes to pull off her master plan?

And what do you think Ivy was discussing with the boys?

Comment of last chapter goes to nyssavaeh_ 💓 If you thought her grades were sinking before, they're for sure drowning now.

All the best,
Danielle