Summer was also blushing deeply. As composed as she had sounded just a minute ago, at the end of the day she was still just a girl who had barely come of age.
Ethan's gaze finally shifted away from Summer's face — her mix of embarrassment and irritation almost entertaining — and drifted leisurely over to Nora, who had practically folded herself into a ball in her seat.
He reached out and tapped the table lightly in front of her, his face carrying that mischievous-but-completely-serious expression, and said to Summer: "How about this. If you can convince her to be my girlfriend..."
He let that hang deliberately, watching Summer's expression go rigid in real time: "Four year term. The moment she agrees, I drop out of the race immediately. No going back on it."
Summer and Nora got hit by the same thunderbolt at the exact same moment, both frozen solid on the spot.
What.
The color drained completely from Summer's face, then flooded back in a wave of red from embarrassment and pure fury.
She stared at Ethan like she couldn't believe what she'd just heard.
He... Was this some kind of joke? She had put herself on the table — genuinely put herself on the table — and he didn't want her, but instead wanted that quiet, unremarkable...
Summer was more than a little annoyed.
Was he humiliating her?
Nora beside her had gone completely still for a long moment.
She finally swallowed hard and couldn't help touching her own ear...
Did she hear that right? He just said... He wanted her to be his girlfriend? As a trade?
The thought shot through her like an electric current. All the blood in her body seemed to rush straight to her cheeks and ears at once, turning her face as red as a ripe tomato. Even her small earlobes went crimson, burning hot.
"Ethan, what is that supposed to mean?" Summer shot to her feet, her chair scraping hard against the floor.
Her chest heaved, face flushed, voice shaking with wounded pride: "Are you messing with me?!"
Ethan shrugged, that same calm, infuriating smile still on his face: "Exactly what it sounds like, Summer. Those are my terms. Straightforward, no tricks."
Then he stood up and said simply, "Nothing else to discuss. I'm heading out."
Summer watched him walk away without a single care in the world and felt like a balloon that had just been popped. She sank back into her chair, eyes going vacant, staring at the table, muttering almost to herself: "What does he even mean... Why... Why her?"
She turned it over and over and couldn't make sense of it. Ethan had passed on her and pointed at that girl instead. That quiet, plain, barely-there Nora. It was the most effective insult to her pride she'd ever experienced and he'd delivered it without even trying.
Nora made no sound at all.
She could feel the low pressure radiating off Summer — wronged and furious all at once.
She wasn't even sure if Summer's anger was aimed at Ethan, or whether some of it had spilled over onto her as the unwilling "other party" in that transaction.
Then Summer looked up at Nora suddenly: "Nora. I know you didn't come back to the dorm that night because you were with Ethan... right?"
"Mm—" Nora responded on instinct, then caught herself and shook her head like a rattle: "No! No, it's not like that! It's not what you're thinking!"
After denying it she immediately dropped her head and started twisting her fingers together nervously.
She was too transparent. Every emotion sat right on the surface of her face with nowhere to hide.
Summer read it in one glance and didn't need to ask again.
Unlike Ethan, who was completely unreadable — no expression when he should have one, a smile when you least expected it — Nora couldn't hide a single thing.
Summer took a breath, expression darkening: "So it's true?"
Under the full weight of Summer's stare, Nora shrank like a startled rabbit, her voice dropping to barely above a whisper: "It... yes..."
"Did he do something to you?" Summer's voice jumped up suddenly, tight with urgency.
"Do something?" Nora didn't catch the full weight of what Summer meant right away. She only thought back to that night on the street, the grievance she'd felt, and her eyes went red almost immediately. She nodded: "He... he made me cry."
"What?!" Summer's voice shot up a full octave. She slammed her hand on the table and the bubble tea cups rattled.
She gritted her teeth, eyes practically on fire: "Ethan, you absolute— I knew it! He actually dared to— you—"
Her mind had already filled in a dozen different scenarios, every one of them worse than the last.
Nora rushed to clarify: "No no, not like that — I meant he made me cry from frustration, on the street that time..."
Summer exhaled slowly, then leaned in, voice dropping: "Nora. Tell me the truth. Don't be scared — did he actually do something to you?"
She put real weight on the word "something."
Nora shook her head quickly: "No, absolutely not. Except for that one time he made me cry on the street, he's been... fine. He takes care of me. Gets me food a lot..."
Only then did Summer's shoulders drop from around her ears. She let out a long breath and pressed a hand to her chest: "You scared me half to death. If he actually dared to do something to you I would have called campus security and had him reported on the spot."
She paused, then fixed her gaze on Nora again, genuinely puzzled now: "Then what did he mean just now? He specifically asked for you. Do you have any idea what he's thinking?"
Nora shook her head blankly, small face full of pure confusion.
She was still dizzy. The whole thing felt like a strange dream she hadn't woken up from yet.
Summer nodded. Clearly Nora genuinely didn't know either.
She rubbed her brow in frustration: "This guy, I honestly can't figure him out. It feels kind of like..."
She looked at Nora's flushed, timid little face, and something clicked in her head: "Hey, Nora — actually... why don't you... give it a shot?"
"Give what a shot?" Nora was still a beat behind, not sure what she meant.
Summer lowered her voice: "Try being his girlfriend."
"No, no, no, I can't—" Nora shook her head like a rattle drum.
"Why not?" Summer frowned. "Did you not want a boyfriend in college? I'll be straight with you — you've got some things working against you in the looks department. Finding someone in college isn't going to be easy. Ethan brought it up himself, and whatever his reasons are, he's exceptional and he's not bad at all. I think you should seriously consider it. Opportunities like this don't come twice."
"No, no, no! Absolutely not!" Nora shook her head even harder, face flushed so deep it looked painful, voice catching in her throat: "He said it himself — that day! He said he doesn't like... plain-looking people. He said he likes someone like you!"
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