Hardin Scott and Steph

Hardin Scott and Steph are connected by a past sexual encounter and by Steph’s later efforts to provoke Hardin through his fears about Tessa and Zed. Their relationship shifts from sexual familiarity to open hostility: at Target, Steph attacks Hardin’s confidence in his relationship, and he identifies her tactics as manipulation even as her claims overwhelm his self-control.

A History of Familiarity and Betrayal

The encounter at Target carries an uncomfortable history. When Steph recalls Tessa’s early embarrassment about being seen with Hardin, he also remembers Steph’s hands on him and recoils at the memory. The scene establishes prior sexual intimacy without presenting it as a current relationship. Hardin’s response is not nostalgia; the memory makes Steph’s provocations more repellent to him.

Steph’s connection to Hardin is further complicated by what happened to Tessa. During the confrontation, images of Tessa barely conscious swarm into Hardin’s mind, and he tells himself he needs to get away from Steph. The association gives his anger a history beyond their immediate exchange: Steph is not merely an antagonist making a cruel remark, but someone tied in his mind to Tessa’s vulnerability. Hardin says he would never physically hurt Steph, while recognizing that he could use words to wound her. His attempt to contain that impulse shows both his hostility and his awareness that his anger can become harmful.

The Target Confrontation

The meeting takes place in a Target aisle while Hardin is shopping for groceries. He has already been influenced by Tessa’s preferences: instead of going to another store, he has pulled into Target, where she often shops and whose merits she has repeatedly defended. As he tosses a box of Frosted Flakes into the cart, he spots Steph by her red hair and distinctive black boots with red laces. The ordinary errand gives way to confrontation before he can decide how best to avoid her.

Steph tells him that Tessa is not good for him and argues that Tessa is not enough for him, just as he will never be enough for her. She predicts that he will grow bored with Tessa’s prudish behavior and uses Tessa’s supposed embarrassment about him to reinforce the attack. Hardin steps toward Steph, but then recognizes her effort to manipulate him and pushes past her. The exchange makes clear that Steph’s remarks are directed at an existing insecurity: whether Tessa truly wants him and whether their relationship can last.

Rumors About Tessa and Zed

When Steph brings up Tessa’s repeated visits to Zed and the rumors surrounding them, Hardin recalls how the rumors reached Tessa earlier. Tessa had returned upset from lunch with Steph and Molly after they hinted that people were saying she had slept with Zed. Hardin had been angry enough to warn Molly not to come between him and Tessa, but at the time he had not understood that Steph herself was the person he needed to distrust.

At Target, Steph claims that the account did not originate with her: she says Zed’s roommate heard Tessa moaning Zed’s name and heard the bed striking the wall. She adds sexual details intended to make the story more vivid and painful for Hardin. The book presents these statements as Steph’s claims, not as confirmation that Tessa and Zed had sex. Hardin’s immediate reaction is to accuse Steph of making up the rumors; when she names the roommate as their source, the new detail intensifies rather than resolves his distress. Steph’s grin and her continued taunts turn uncertainty into a weapon, exploiting the distance from Tessa and Hardin’s existing jealousy.

Hardin repeatedly tells himself to walk away. Instead, he shouts for Steph to stop, covering his ears as she continues, while she backs away still grinning. She dismisses Tessa as a waste of time, then disappears just as Hardin’s fist connects with the metal shelving. The blow lands on the store fixture, not on Steph, but it marks the point at which her provocation has defeated his effort to keep control.

Conflict, Control, and Consequences

The confrontation exposes how Steph’s hostility works: she does not simply insult Hardin, but recruits his fear that Tessa may prefer someone else and that he may not be enough for her. Hardin sees the strategy clearly enough to name it as manipulation, yet recognition alone does not protect him from its effect. His physical outburst against the shelving, after Steph has left, makes the cost visible without turning her allegations into established fact.

Their antagonism also sits within a wider struggle over Hardin’s jealousy and Tessa’s autonomy. Tessa has told Zed that she stopped answering his messages because Hardin did not want her to talk to him, and she later insists that she needs to make decisions without seeking Hardin’s permission, as an equal partner. Those tensions help explain why Steph’s invocation of Zed has such force: her taunts strike at a conflict already affecting Tessa and Hardin, rather than creating it from nothing. The relationship between Hardin and Steph therefore functions as a pressure point in the couple’s recurring conflict over trust, control, and independence.