For the first time in a while, Natalie y alone in her bedroom without someoo apany her. She'd inteo spend the night with Sofia, but that hadn't e to pass; the white-haired girl had scurried back to her room o became clear she wouldn't be 'taking advantage' of their bet.

  Normally Natalie would have gone and gotten Jordan, but then she would have to expin what happened with Sofia, and more than that, Jordan would have asked all kinds of questions. Questions Natalie didn't know how to answer.

  Hence, she was alone in her bed for the first time in a while, and while it was cold and unweling not having her best friend lying there to keep her warm, she did, at least, appreciate the moment of calm. To think about a very puzzling situation.

  Sofia. Clearly, Natalie had misjudged a few things there. Not only about Sofia, but also about herself. Because she hadn't been pnning to hahe night like she had. With soft touches and pliments, not even telling Sofia to put her colr on. The girl had looked so nervous that Natalie hadn't been able to help herself. And when she'd responded so positively to the gereatment, Natalie had wao keep ying in more pliments, turning that blush even redder.

  But then she'd gone and asked if she meant anything to Natalie. She was still mad about that an hour ter. Or maybe mad was the wrong word. Baffled? ed? Indignant? Some co of all of those things?

  Because obviously Sofia meant something to Natalie. She wasn't 'just another quest.' The idea that Sofia could be 'just another' anything was ridiculous.

  In the least charitable interpretation of Natalie's i, Sofia would have been the quest—not any other. But even that wasn't a valid description of what Sofia was to her. Partially, maybe; she wouldn't pretend like the idea of making her life-long rival squirm didn't invoke some proud feelings of 'quest.' But there was a lot more there, bubbling underh the surface.

  ecifically, though?

  Natalie rubbed her face, trying to make sense of her thoughts. Instead of examining them too closely—the revetions on the horizon made her nervous—her mind wandered back to Sofia.

  She'd been insecure. Insecure. Sofia. Those two words didn't belong together. Sure, Natalie had seen it once before, like that i orain where Sofia had gotten overexcited and finished quickly, but that had been a—she didn't know, surface-level insecurity? The kind everyone had. Insequential, she guessed, or at least not all that deep.

  But that vulnerability she'd shown not a full ho, lying underh Natalie right as she was about to thrust in? That had been something more. A genuine break in her fidence.

  And about Natalie no less? About what Natalie thought of her?

  What?

  Why?

  She didn't uand.

  The two of them hated each other.

  Okay, that wasn't true. Natalie hadn't ever hated Sofia, even if that was a word she'd sometimes used. If she allowed herself a moment of gerospe, she would begrudgingly admit jealous was the better descriptor. Natalie was a fiercely petitive person, like just about anyone accepted into one of the world's most prestigious delving academies. And Sofia had grown up alongside her, always a bit better in bat, and a lot better in other things—all of those pliments she'd been throwing at her. Prettier. Better poised. Smarter. Hard-w. Just so goddamn perfect that it drove Natalie insane.

  And that woman was ed with what she thought?

  That she 'meant something to her'?

  Then again. If Natalie thought over what she'd actually said, it made more se might be less about Natalie herself and more about Sofia wanting to mean something to anyone about to take her virginity. Which was obviously fair. Sofia got off on people bossing her around—that was why Natalie treated her like she did, or, well, was one of the reasons—and even enjoyed being degraded to some extent that she was carefully testing the limits on, but tonight, apparently, she had gooo far. However quickly Natalie's enters might go from flirting to sex, one week really wasn't all that much time to 'work into things' for a more reserved or inexperienced girl, which Sofia obviously was.

  So yeah. Maybe it hadn't been about Natalie at all. She'd just gooo fast, and Sofia had gotten nervous about her first time being taken by somebody who didn't care for her. And that was totally reasonable. If not how she'd expected Sofia to react, else she wouldn't have pushed for the climactiight at all. And while the two of them were hardly going to end up girlfriends—t-that would be pletely ridiculous—Natalie was still a bit miffed by the implication that Sofia had thought them not something, even if just … special rivals? She didn't know what to call it.

  heless, her rea had been reasooo fast was too fast, and it didn't matter what anyone else thought about the matter. Hence why Natalie had broken the enter off; tinuing would have taihe iion, or at least would have a ce to. She'd have id with Sofia in bed for a while, at a minimum, clothed and without ulterior i, but the girl had fled back to her own room—maybe to think about things herself, whiatalie could hardly bme her for, sidering her owless rolling side-to-side, her thoughts going a thousand miles per hour while finding no answers whatsoever.

  Still. The tentative clusions she'd drawn were at least somewhat f. No, Sofia hadn't been asking Natalie whether she liked her in that way; she just wao mean something to her first partner. And when Sofia had asked for the 'girlfriend experience,' she wasn't asking to be girlfriends—else why phrase it like that? The 'girlfriend experience.' Sofia just wahe proper experience, a vehat their retionship was like most others, so that she could feel more fortable for their first time.

  If their first time would even e, now that the bet would be ending. Sure, the colr acted as some sort of iive, but that was Sofia's item: the bulk of the 'leverage,' the mutual excuses for their behavior, came from the bet.

  Natalie sighed. Well, whatever. She didn't want Sofia's first time unless she absolutely wao give it. She'd thought they'd already beehough, and was admittedly a bit pent up at not finding release after such a long, inteicipation. She rolled over and tugged her pillow over her head, the cool sheets of the bed a salve against her uedly hot face.

  And now she had two dates to pn instead of one. Jordan, at least, Natalie knew: she had ideas in the works. And holy, the two of them were lifelong friends, so walking dowreet enjoying each other's pany would be a date she loved, because any date she would love so long as Jordan was there, and hopefully Jordahe same. Not that Natalie had something so me pnned out; she just knew, when it came to Jordan, that simply being together was enough. She was stressed, but also not.

  But where in the world would Sofia want to go?

  Natalie groaned and flopped back over, staring at the ceiling.

  At least it wouldn't be a real date. For whatever reason, the idea of that possibility had her head ten times the mess it was already in. She didn't dare ihe tangled knot there.

  Just a fake ohe 'girlfriend experience.' Yes, she could do that.