I said, handing the Ziploc bag to Logan. Holden had given me a few strands of his hair to give to Logan. There would've been no point in trying to keep it a secret from Holden. We were better as a team. Lying to him would've protected no one.

"Not bad Sorenson. Maybe you have a knack for espionage," he commented, inspecting the bag before shoving it into his backpack.

"Not sure what your creepy obsession with Holden is, but I hope it was worth blackmailing us," I said before walking off. "Can I have the mask back?"

He fished it out from his pocket, and I took it back. Even though a simple spread of a rumour would be enough to get the gossip going, it'd be easier to diffuse if he didn't have any actual evidence.

The game between me and Holden had gone on for almost a month. It was probably time to call it before people began catching on, or if Logan started getting other interesting ideas.

--

Holden, Parker and I were sitting in the cafeteria. Elaine had decided she wasn't hungry enough to bear sitting with Holden and the others for an entire forty minutes. Instead, she went to the library to finish an assignment.

"Your friend really hates me, doesn't she?" Holden asked, watching as she walked off with her books.

"It's not you," I said slowly. Clarissa and a few others were making their way towards our table.

"Yeah, they used to be friends or something," Holden said, picking up on where I was looking.

"Hey Daisy, hey Holden," Clarissa said, flashing her pearly whites before sitting next to Parker. Luke and Owen, two of the other guys from the basketball team sat next to Holden. Holden was right next to me, and every few minutes, his phone would buzz. I could tell it was Allie because that was the only time he ever reacted in that way.

The others had gotten up to get food when I asked him, "It's obvious you're pretty much still in love with her. So why don't you just tell her?"

"I'm not in love with her," he scoffed.

"You can lie all you want but anyone with half a brain can tell."

"I guess most people at Pemberton don't even have that then, because pretty much everyone is convinced I'm insane about you," he said, kissing me on the head.

Before I could bring up the idea of ending the entire thing, the others got back and sat down. Clarissa was laughing at something Parker had said, keeping a hand on his forearm.

Maybe she should give you your first kiss, I thought. As though reading my thoughts, Parker turned to look at me and I quickly looked away.

After lunch, I had chemistry class. Even though everyone wanted me to like them, there wasn't exactly a queue of people waiting to be my lab partner. Allie spoke to me occasionally, but she had her own friends in the class. She was actually extremely nice, and not in the fake way.

"Partner up?" A guy said as I wandered around near a spare set of equipment. It was Wesley, one of the guys on the basketball team.

"Sure," I replied, grabbing a bottle of distilled water. "Who do you usually partner up with?" I asked, trying to make friendly conversation.

"Luke, but he dropped chemistry."

"How rude, abandoning you," I joked.

"I know right?"

We both put on our safety goggles. The experiment was about methods for identifying unknowns using a series of known chemicals and substances.

"Ok, so we know the blue one is copper sulfate. That's always the obvious one," he said.

"Yep. Let's mix it with..." I paused to have a look at the list of unknowns and then the solubility chart. Sodium hydroxide was the only substance on the unknowns list that would precipitate with copper sulfate.

"Sodium hydroxide..." Wesley pondered. "That should be one of these three clear liquids."

"Yeah, so how about we put a drop of each of the clear ones into the wells and then drop some copper sulfate in each as well?" I suggested. He nodded and proceeded. I leaned against the bench to observe the reactions. The second well started precipitating. "That one's sodium hydroxide," I said, pointing. "Hey Wesley, do you want to record the observations or do you want me too?"

"You can," he said. "By the way, call me Wes. Only my parents call me Wesley, and that's when they're about to grill me," he laughed.

We finished the experiment a little early and started packing up and finalizing our findings. "The experiment went well," I said. "It was nice working with you."

"Yeah. Permanent lab partners then?" He grinned.

"Sure," I smiled, knowing damn well I didn't want to keep being placed as the third member in a pair, or waiting until everyone else had already paired up.

Bonnie avoided me as I tried to smile at her on the way out of class. Even though we had the exact same classes, she hadn't spoken to me in a while. Had I done something wrong?

"Daisy," Allie called, just as I was about to follow Bonnie out. "You have human bio next right?"

"Yeah. You looking forward to the dissection?"

"Strangely yes," she nodded.

We took turns making incisions into the pig's heart we'd been given. The task was to sketch the heart and label all the main vessels and chambers.

"I hate learning blood supply," I said, knowing how complicated it got with the branching.

"I have notes for that. I can send them to you," she offered.

"Oh really, that'd be awesome. Just let me know if you need any of my notes. I'm pretty good with everything else."

There were tonnes of questions I wanted to ask her, but there was never really an appropriate time while cutting open a heart, so I just spat it out. "How long did you and Holden go out for?"

"Oh um, like two years?" She paused. "You don't have to worry about him. It seems like he's serious with you." If only she knew the truth. "It takes him a while to open up, but no, he's really loyal. He's a good guy," she reminisced fondly. Her face softened, the same way his would when he spoke about her. Which was precisely why I couldn't work out why they'd broken up.

"It seems like you guys still have some unfinished business," I said, trying to prod her further.

"Oh you don't have to worry about it. We're just friends now," she smiled. "Anyway, let's finish off the dissection."

It was clear the two of them still wanted to be together. Holden's idea to have a fake relationship was a distraction, along with the flings he'd had previously. I was going to end whatever it was between us, and I decided I was going to reunite them.

Of course, I'd talk to him about it first. If not, I could always add in a gentle nudge to get things going.

------------

dun dun dun dunn

what do you think the entrance of Wesley will mean?

will Allie and Holden get back together?