Free Friends Without Benefits (Knitting in the City) by Penny Reid

completely charming. He kept his voice low, intimate. I could practically hear seduction in it. “It’s really nice to meet you.”
    Sandra’s gave a breathy laugh; I fought the urge to roll my eyes.
    “What are you doing here?” My voice was accusatory, because I meant it to be. It didn’t make sense. He had no reason to be here, in Iowa, at my high school reunion. I narrowed my eyes. Maybe he would look less appealing and edible if I narrowed my eyes.
    In truth, I didn’t want to deal with him, with my Nico-guilt, when I wanted to be petty and childish instead. He was a reminder of my historical immaturity. His presence made me feel less justified in my self-indulgent endeavor to wow the graduating class with my perceived impressiveness. He deflated my bubble of adolescent angsty vengeance. This left me feeling silly and adrift.
    The single eyebrow lifted slightly higher in an attractive arch. “Well, I did go to school here—”
    “But you didn’t graduate.” I immediately cringed as the words left my mouth. It wasn’t my intention to be rude, but likely, the blurted words would be interpreted as a slight. 
    “No. No I didn’t graduate.” His mouth twisted to the side. A flicker of what looked like bitterness burned momentarily beneath his cool gaze. “Some of us don’t need to graduate three times in order to feel successful. Some of us don’t need to graduate at all.”
    It was exactly like old times. We were standing in the hall of our high school, trading insults, throwing hateful glares like grenades.
    I blinked, flinched, opened my mouth to say something nasty, but Sandra interrupted my poised insult.
    “I’m such a fan of your show, but you must hear that all the time. I especially love it when you have the girls do that game show skit, Are You Smarter than a Bikini Model , where they make those guys look like idiots.”
    “Well, all the girls on the show are really smart and, honestly, the guys usually are idiots.”
    “Debbie is my favorite. I love that she leg-wrestles, she’s so strong. Thank you for the show, I never miss it.”
    His eyes twinkled. I’ve never seen anyone able to eye-twinkle on cue quite like Nico. I suspected he must have perfected said eye-twinkling in front of a mirror at a young age.
    “No, thank you . I never get tired of meeting fans. I love fans of the show.”
    I quietly snorted. It was a scoff-snort. But it must have been loud enough for him to hear , because his eyes returned to mine as he released Sandra’s hand.
    “Do you watch the show, Elizabeth?”
    I shook my head, disliked the way he said my name, looked everywhere but at his aggravatingly handsome face; I tried to sound bored instead of irritated. “Nope. Can’t say that I have, what with all the graduating I’ve been doing.”
    I felt his gaze on me, stud ying me for a very brief second, really a half second. Then he said something entirely surprising and yet—for Nico—not at all shocking; “Right. Why would you? You’ve already seen everything up close.”
    Oh.
    My.
    God.
    I heard Sandra’s small intake of breath at my side.
    My eyes widened and met his. Again a spark of triumph ignited behind his glare.
    Nico was trying to bait me into a fight. He always used to do this in high school—the unkind nickname repeated at every opportunity, insults flung down the hall at my back, knocking books and folders out of my hands, introducing me as a boy to new students.
    He was just a mean person.  
    Freaking Niccolò Manganiello.
    Nico had been tormenting me from the moment he put a dead and road-flattened toad down my dress in Sunday school when I was four. Despite our mothers’ close friendship and the time we spent playing, growing up together, my aggravation with him—and therefore avoidance of him—increased yearly.
    In kindergarten he cut one of my braids during nap time leaving me with long hair on the left, short hair on the right.
    In third grade he gave me what I thought was vanilla