“I’m nervous,” I blurt.
Nathan’s eyebrows rise, and then he lets out a long breath and a tiny smile. “Same.”
“Really? Okay, good. Because logically, I know it’s me and you.” I sputter a humorless laugh. “It’s a dream come true, in fact! I shouldn’t be nervous—I should be tackling you.”
“It’s harder to accomplish than you think,” he says, cracking a joke that instantly eases the prickling in my lungs.
“But what I’m nervous about—or afraid of, really, is that I said I love you back there and you said it too only to humor me.” I have big cartoon eyes now—I can feel it.
Nathan smiles in a way that shows barely contained amusement. “Humor you?” He takes a nervous step away and runs an awkward hand through his hair. “You thought I could have been humoring you by telling you I love you?”
“Yes. You don’t have to keep repeating it.”
“I do. Because if you were in my head, you’d see how difficult the concept is to comprehend. Bree, I…” His voice trails off and then he freezes. He deflates with a sharp breath. “Sit down,” he commands, and then he disappears into his giant walk-in closet.
I perch on the bed and bounce my knee. Then I realize I’m sitting on Nathan’s bed—something I’ve never done before—and I jump up like it just burned my butt cheeks. I force myself to sit back down and process this like an adult. I’m in Nathan’s bed. In his room. He loves me. Nope, see? None of these abstract ideas will permeate. I’ve spent too long believing he has not a care in the world for me outside of friendship. It’s all I’ve known. How am I supposed to retrain my thoughts?
Nathan steps back into the room, and if he notices that I’m barely letting my cheeks rest on his mattress, he doesn’t show it. His attention is fixed on the shoe box in his hands. He looks nervous, maybe even a little sick as he extends it toward me. When I try to take it, it doesn’t budge. He’s white-knuckling this thing so hard.
I grunt. “Nathan, do you want me to look in here or not?”
“Not,” he says, dead serious. “I mean, yes. But no.”
I shift back a little. “Well now I’m terrified. What do you have in here? Bones? Endless pictures of earlobes? Am I going to be scared of you after I lift that lid?”
“Probably.” He winces lightly and then relinquishes the box.
I set it down on the bed carefully （because who knows what’s in here or how fragile thousand-year-old bones are） and gingerly lift the lid. I steel my spine for something to jump out, because he’s prepared me zero percent for what’s actually in here. Lizards? Maybe he keeps a box of moths in his closet and when I open it, they’ll rush out and choke my airway.
It’s neither.
After the lid is off, it takes me a second to realize what I’m looking at. Nathan paces away from me with a tight hand on the back of his neck. I dip my fingers inside and pull out…my scrunchie. The sunshine yellow scrunchie I thought I lost after Tequila-gate several weeks ago. I look up and make eye contact with Nathan. He looks like he’s going to barf. His fist is pressed to his mouth, and his eyes are crinkled. Poor thing is really going through the vulnerability wringer tonight.
“This is my scrunchie,” I say, holding it up for his confirmation that what I think I’m seeing is actually true.
He gives me a tight nod. “You took it off and left it on the table that night. I kept it.” He gestures toward the box with his eyes. “Keep going.”
Nathan resumes pacing, looking at me every so often like someone might watch a surgical operation they have been forced to attend. Next, I find a cocktail napkin with my lipstick imprint from the epic poster-ripping night. Then the orange Starburst I threw at him on the couch.