"Seriously, Duru? Anyone who saw you would think there's five meters of snow outside. And you're definitely the one who turned this place into hell," she complained, then called out toward the kitchen where our friend was pouring tea. "Sapphire! Turn the heater down a bit! I swear I'm drenched in two minutes."
I immediately shouted back.
"Don't you dare turn it down, Sapphire! I'm just warming up!"
Then I glared at Aylin.
"I walked here from the library in this cold, you heartless witch. Let my soul thaw a little."
"You'd think you came from the Arctic, not the library." She tilted her head. "And why were you at the library anyway?"
Before I could answer, Feyza walked in and replied for me.
"Don't ask. I asked, and I regret it. She went to do homework for Ayşe Hoca's class."
"Hey, I didn't do anything," I protested while they laughed. "I just said how I wanted revenge on the woman."
Both of them were still laughing when I was about to grab my tea from the tray, then I suddenly straightened with a detail I remembered.
"Oh! I just remembered!"
"Why are you yelling? You scared the life out of me!" Aylin snapped, spilling some tea with my sudden outburst.
I leaned in with a sweet grin and kissed her cheek.
"Sorry, baby. Look, I kissed it. Pain's gone."
Feyza laughed, handed Aylin a napkin to wipe her hand, then turned to me.
"Alright. Tell us. What happened?"
"When I was writing, I got so sleepy that I decided to take a break and rest my eyes. I opened my eyes and realized two hours had passed." I cut off their giggles with my glare and continued. "But that's not the point. When I woke up, there was a jacket on my back. I looked around, thinking it belonged to someone I knew, but in the library it was just me and the staff guy. Since the reading hall barely gets people, I thought he might've seen who covered me, so I asked him. He stared at me like that and said he didn't see anything."
Aylin rolled her eyes.
"Obviously the guy covered you, Duru. Couldn't you tell from the way he looked at you?"
"I swear that never even crossed my mind," I admitted, then grumbled as I set my tea down on the coffee table. "So I carried the jacket for nothing. But if it was his, why would he let me take it? He could've just said he did it out of politeness! It's not like I'm going to start planning a wedding because he covered me with his jacket while I slept."
When Feyza asked to see it, I pulled the jacket out of my backpack, where I'd barely managed to shove it, and handed it to her. She examined it for a while, then lifted the collar and sniffed it. Aylin and I watched her, curious.
"I don't think this belongs to a student who works part-time at the library," she said calmly. "This is a limited edition from one of the luxury brands. And the perfume on it is also from a very expensive brand."
Staring in stunned admiration, I muttered slowly, "Wow! Look at her… a walking brand catalogue."
Laughing at my reaction, she watched as I snatched the jacket back and checked the details she'd mentioned.
"You're right. It would be ridiculous for it to be his." I frowned. "But this scent feels familiar somehow. I just can't remember from where."
Aylin took the jacket too, inspected it with a doubtful expression, then looked at me hesitantly.
"I'd say it could be Kerem's, but first of all, a boyfriend wouldn't pull mysterious moves like that. Second, you'd recognize your own boyfriend's perfume."
"Stop calling him my boyfriend, please!" I snapped. "He's not my boyfriend, that Hotshot. And I don't know his perfume. Also, making polite gestures for no reason is not his style at all."
Aylin looked at Feyza as if asking for confirmation, and Feyza nodded along with me.
"He made you so mad you won't even say his name, huh? What happened that you broke up so fast?"
"Drop it, Teresa," I said quickly. "My mood is finally decent, don't ruin it by bringing up that jerk."
Feyza and Aylin traded a look and came to a silent agreement, clearly for my benefit. And the topic returned to the mystery jacket in our hands.
Of course, like it always did when the three of us were together, the "mystery" quickly stopped being serious and turned into entertainment. We threw out countless ridiculous guesses about who the jacket could belong to, and with every new idea, laughter filled the house.
After that, the topic shifted to Aylin, our poor, unlucky friend who'd suffered the most at last night's crazy party, and then to Demir, one of the uninvited guests of that same party. The second his name came up, Aylin started dragging him with the most magnificent adjectives in human history. She didn't stop until she ran out of energy.
That took over half an hour.
We spent the entire evening like that, fooling around and laughing. Then, since all three of us had exams the next day, we decided to split up before it got too late.
As Aylin and I walked home arm in arm, analyzing the exams, my eyes caught on someone stepping out of a car parked across from the garden gate.
Was that Rüzgar? What was he doing here?
"Hi, girls."
When we returned his greeting, he turned to me without waiting.
"I need to talk to you."
With his usual closed-off expression, it was impossible to tell what kind of issue he wanted to discuss, but it was obvious he didn't want to talk in front of Aylin.
I turned to Aylin and kissed both her cheeks.
"Go inside, dear. Good luck tomorrow."
As she returned it, she leaned in and whispered in my ear.
"Text me when you get home."
When we were finally alone, I looked at Rüzgar uneasily.
"Okay. I'm listening. What could possibly be urgent enough for you to come here at this hour?"
"Come on. Let's go. I'll explain on the way."
"Go where?"
Without answering, he opened the passenger door and waited for me to get in. I let out a weary sigh and climbed into the car. At this point, it wasn't even surprising anymore that he and Kerem were close friends. They were both equally terrible at leaving questions hanging in the air.
Dozens of possibilities ran through my head about what the problem could be. And every single possibility, one way or another, led back to Kerem. That did nothing but feed the discomfort crawling under my skin.
The optimistic part of me wanted to think it was about our breakup. The realistic part of me insisted it was about whatever secret business Kerem was running behind his friends' backs.
If I judged by what little I knew about Rüzgar, I could say my optimistic side didn't stand a chance.
Now that I'd narrowed down that part, only one question remained.
What kind of serious problem had that Hotshot caused that he'd made Rüzgar show up at my door in the middle of the night?