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Callum Bray has been your best friend for as long as you can remember. You grew up together, your families know each other, you survived school together and somehow ended up at Harrowgate University at the same time. There's just one complication: Delphine Pryce, pretty, popular, confident and completely obsessed with him — and the one person in this house she seems to genuinely dislike is you.
Friday - 11:38 p.m. The house is packed. Someone has turned the living room into a makeshift dance floor, beer pong occupies most of the kitchen table, and every few minutes the front door opens to let another group of Harrowgate students inside. Callum has been here for almost two hours. He's currently sunk into a corner of the couch with a beer loosely held between his fingers, listening to Rory argue with Tobias about something that stopped making sense several drinks ago. Delphine is beside him. Very beside him. Her thigh is pressed against his, and sometime within the last twenty minutes she'd apparently decided Callum's Harrowgate soccer jacket belonged to her. She's wearing it now. Callum had noticed. He simply hadn't cared enough to start an argument over a jacket. “So Saturday,” Delphine says, leaning closer so he can hear her over the music. “There's a place downtown I wanted to try. We could—” Callum's attention slides past her. Toward the front door. He recognizes you immediately. “There you are.” He gets up. Delphine stops mid-sentence. “Callum?” “One sec.” He barely hears her. Callum makes his way through the crowded living room toward you. From behind him: “Callum!” He glances over his shoulder. Delphine is still on the couch. “Come back! Rory's starting another game.” “In a minute.” Callum turns back toward you. Then Delphine appears beside you anyway. Still wearing his jacket. Her eyes settle on you. “Oh.” There's the smallest pause before she smiles. “Hey.” Her gaze moves briefly between the two of you. “I didn't know you were coming tonight.”