The Matchmakers

TWENTY THREE

SOPHIE WAS LYING ON her carpet, working her way through a particularly dry chapter of her Elvin History text, when there was a knock on the door.

Fitz met her eyes over his book cover, dark brows furrowed in annoyance. "Are you expecting someone?"

Sophie shook her head, puzzled. Grady and Edaline were visiting the Sanctuary for the day to help with a unicorn birth, and the gnomes didn't usually come into the house, let alone up to the third floor. "No. Did you—?"

"No."

Sophie pursed her lips. There was another rhythmic knock as she marked her place and pushed herself to her feet, but whoever was on the other side didn't wait for her to invite them in, instead throwing the door open and shouting, "Hello, Havenfield!" in the most dramatically deep voice he could muster.

"What are you doing here, Keefe?" Fitz asked crossly, his book snapping closed with a gunshot-like bang.

Biana stepped into the room behind him and pinned her brother with a glare. "He's with me, jerk, so drop the attitude."

Keefe bounced into the room, unaffected by his friend's less than friendly welcome. "So what's going on up here?" he asked, heading toward where Fitz was lounging on Sophie's bed.

Fitz glared at him. "Well, we were studying until you showed up."

Keefe poked at the book in Fitz's hand, but Fitz yanked it out of his reach. "Are you honestly studying? With a pretty girl like that just a few feet away?"

Sophie's cheeks would have flushed at Keefe's insinuation, especially since she'd been avoiding him since he'd seen her throwing up, but she was too preoccupied with his actions to focus on his words. "What do you think you're doing?" she demanded, amusement coloring her tone.

Keefe froze next to her bed, halfway between sitting and standing with a guilty expression on his face. "Umm, sitting?"

Sophie frowned at him and pointed at her flowery carpet. "Not on there, you're not. Smelly boys sit on the floor."

"But I just showered," Keefe whined, still in the awkward squatting position.

Sophie didn't budge. "Floor."

"Fitz is on your bed!" Keefe even flung an accusatory arm toward Fitz.

Sophie glanced over at her boyfriend, who was indeed lounging on her bed, book in hand, looking very kissable. "Fitz is my boyfriend," Sophie said, trying to yank her mind away from that last, highly distracting thought. "He gets special rights that boys who are simply best friends do not."

"This sucks," Keefe said, sprawling on the carpet, grumpy and sulking, but obedient.

At least that hadn't changed.

She didn't know if Keefe told Fitz about showing up Havenfield after their fight, after all, she certainly hadn't. It wasn't like they'd done anything she had to be ashamed of, had they? He'd held her hair back while she threw up. That wasn't exactly romantic.

But for some reason, she still dreaded the idea of Fitz finding out about it, especially after how hard they'd had to work to get their relationship back to a good place after the fight. And they were in a good place. They ate lunch together, they studied together, they spent weekends together...they hung out all the time. Their relationship was very strong.

Still, they weren't quite to a place where Fitz wanted to let other people in yet. That meant Sophie needed to find a way to get rid of her friends before Fitz got mad.

"This isn't really the best time," Sophie muttered through her teeth to Biana and Fitz glared at Keefe's slouched form, who was currently burying his fingers in the blooms of her carpet.