The door whines open and Miles leans in, hair wet from a shower, beard sticking out in every direction. “Hey.”
“Hey,” I say; then, with a realization, “It’s Friday.”
“It is,” he says.
“Shouldn’t you be at work?” I say.
He half shrugs. “Katya needed more hours. You up for another film?”
We’ve watched a movie every night since Sunday. Specifically the over-the-top action-comedies I’d always assumed were strictly intended for viewing whilst high out of your fucking gourd. It turns out they’re also pretty good when you’re stone-cold sober and trying not to think about making out with your roommate.
Lying on the floor of my tiny bedroom, while he stands over me like this, for example, is less ideal.
I sit up abruptly and knock over my chai in the process. “Shit!”
Miles retreats and returns with a hand towel, throwing it at me. Not to. At. It hits my face.
“Great catch,” he says.
“Thanks.” I yank the towel down and mop up the spill. “When’s showtime?”
“Whenever you want,” he says.
“Give me two minutes,” I say.
“I’ll make popcorn,” he says.
Five minutes later, we’re settled in for our ritual.
The oddball pairings are so cliché, so expected. But then again, they work.
The huge guy and the tiny one.
The trained assassin and the everyday Joe who gets mixed up with him.
The serious one who gives good eyebrow and the wisecracking sidekick who is absolutely always Ryan Reynolds or someone nearly indistinguishable from Ryan Reynolds when you close your eyes.
“This man must make sixty of these a year,” I say.
“And Dwayne Johnson’s only in thirty of them,” Miles says, from the opposite end of the couch.
“I wish I could send them an Edible Arrangement to thank them for their service.” I sit up to grab another sour gummy worm from the Spread of Bad Decisions Miles arranged for us.
“There’s just something about a movie where shit gets blown up during a car chase,” he says, “that makes me feel like everything’s going to be okay.”
At my laugh, he looks over, stretches one leg out until his foot is pushing against my thigh. “Hey, that was a real one.”
I turn to face him, my back against the arm of the couch, and swing my legs up onto the cushions. “A real what?”
“A real laugh,” he says. “You’ve got your polite little chuckle, and then you’ve got that weird, deep chortle you do when you actually think I’m funny.”
“It’s not a polite laugh,” I say. “It’s a display of mild amusement. I’d never fake-laugh. I don’t fake anything.”
He gives me a look.
I go warm in several places.
“So if that’s the mild amusement laugh,” he says, “then the low chortle is reserved for . . .”
“When you’re actually funny,” I say.
Without warning, he grabs my ankles and yanks me down the couch, draping my legs across his lap, my butt resting against the side of his thigh so that his face hangs over me.
“Fine!” I say, heart trilling at this closeness. “You’re actually funny a lot of the time.”
The corner of his mouth ticks. “And the chortle is . . . ?”
“I think it’s when I’m really relaxed,” I say. “I’ve always been self-conscious about my laugh, but this immense amount of attention being drawn to it is definitely helping.”
At the sarcasm, his grin spreads. He takes hold of my wrists. “No, don’t be self-conscious,” he says. “It’s so fucking cute.”
“I can really tell from the way you described it,” I deadpan.
“I’m serious.” He lifts my wrists, planting my limp hands on the sides of his face, a grown and bearded version of Macaulay Culkin in Home Alone. “I never would’ve said anything about it if I didn’t think it was cute.”
This is the most we’ve touched in weeks. Every point of contact vibrates.
He gingerly sets my hands back down on my chest, crossing them like I’m lying in a coffin, and while his knuckles barely graze me, my nipples peak up against my shirt.
I see him notice.
The anesthetizing power of the action-comedy genre isn’t cutting it anymore. I’m a bundle of buzzing nerves and want.
His gaze lifts abruptly. “Shit, sorry,” he says. “I’m sorry.” He starts to straighten up, but I catch his wrists now, keep him from moving too far. “It’s fine,” I say. “Really. It doesn’t need to be weird.”
“I think it’s just because we kissed,” he says.
“I think so too,” I tell him.
Still neither of us moves.
“I’ve been trying not to think about it too much,” he says.
Realizing he’s been thinking about it at all is enough to raise my body temperature a few degrees.
“Same,” I get out.
It’s been almost three weeks, and instead of the kiss fading in the rearview, it feels like every day since, I’ve been sliding closer and closer to an invisible ledge, more and more desperate to know what lies beyond it.
