“Okay, so the kind I’ve absolutely never met,” I say.
He points both thumbs at himself. “This guy.”
“You’re just one of a kind, aren’t you,” I say.
I was trying to be jokey, playful, but his face softens and he catches my hands in his, running his thumbs up mine, a frisson of want bolting through me. “If she gets to be too much and you need me to kick her out,” he says, “just say the word.”
My throat feels desert-dry. “What should the word be?”
“Ryan Reynolds,” he suggests.
My laugh breaks up some of the growing tension. “That’s two words, and also comes up way too often in casual conversation.”
“Okay, just scream enough at the top of your lungs and I’ll use context clues to figure it out.”
I ask, “Why are you so worried about this?”
“Well, for one thing,” he says, “she’s twenty-three.”
“Are you calling me old,” I ask.
“I’m calling you thirty-three,” he says.
“Rude,” I say.
“She’s the best,” he promises. “But she’s very much a little sister. She’s going to make herself completely at home. If your toothbrush goes missing, you’re going to want to just assume the worst and buy a new one.”
“I can’t even begin to imagine what the worst is in this scenario.”
“Whatever it is,” he says, “it’s bad. Probably just don’t leave anything you’re really attached to in the bathroom.”
Our gazes hold for a second too long.
“So—” I begin, right as he says, “We probably shouldn’t—”
He laughs. My abdomen feels like one of those water wiggler toys, the glitter and liquid inside bubbling furiously to the top as it flips. I’m sure I’m blushing.
“After you,” I say.
He rubs the side of his head with the heel of his hand. “That was a bad idea, right?” He’s looking at me closely, like it wasn’t a rhetorical question. “I mean, we’re both just coming off of horrible breakups.”
He has a point. I’m not exactly myself right now. I don’t normally do things like this.
But the Daphne I’ve always been, the practical and intentional one, hasn’t exactly set me up for success. For a few minutes, I’d just wanted to give fun, casual Daphne a turn at the wheel.
She didn’t even run things when I was twenty-one, ferrying Sadie to frat parties and pulling her into the bushes when cops showed up to bust them. I was never the one just having fun. I was the one anticipating consequences.
It’s not that I want to revert to a twenty-one-year-old, but my whole life has collapsed, and I’ve been trying new things, and whatever just happened, it was new and fun.
Miles is still looking at me closely, like he’s making a decision. I feel my courage building, the words rising. Right when I’m about to tell him I don’t think it was a mistake, or even if it was, I might like a break from smart decisions, he sighs heavily and goes on: “We live together. If things got messy . . .”
The carbonated feeling in my chest turns leaden.
If things got messy, he’d need a new roommate, and I’d need a new apartment. As ready as I’ve been to flee the state, I’m here until the library gets through the Read-a-thon, and I can’t screw things up before then.
“Honestly,” he says, “I’m not usually the guy to think things through. But I really like you, and the last thing I want right now is to fuck up this friendship. Or hurt you.”
What exquisite timing for my identity crisis: he wants to do the smart thing, and I want to have reckless sex with him.
“I really like you too,” I tell him. At his faint smile, I clear my throat and add, “You’re a good friend. I don’t want to mess this up either.”
That part, at least, is still true. I just wish we could “not mess this up” in bed together.
“So,” he says, his small smile somewhere between apologetic and bemused, “friends?”
I clear my throat. “Of course.”
He stands, brow lifting on a smile. “And you’ll have my back with Julia, about the beard.”
“That’s what friends are for,” I deadpan.
His bemused smile splits open. “Wanna come to the airport with me?”
“No, go have some time with your sister, and I’ll pick up here.” My gaze dips and snaps back to his eyes, my face flushing.
“What?” he says.
“Nothing, you’re just still . . . unzipped.”
