“Hey.”
Nick startled and turned. Lily had quietly entered the kitchen. She was barefoot, wearing an oversized TCNJ T-shirt and black shorts. He tore his eyes away from her thighs and focused on her face.
“Hey,” he said. “I was just looking at your pictures.”
“Oh gosh,” she said, walking closer. “My parents document almost everything.”
“This one’s my favorite,” he said, pointing to the picture of her crying on Santa’s lap. “Looks like you were having a good time.”
She smiled and shook her head. “If you call pure terror a good time, then sure. How’s the pullout couch treating you?”
“I wouldn’t know. I was willingly demoted to the armchair by your little cousins.”
Lily laughed. “Oh no. Are you having trouble sleeping?”
“Yeah, but that’s the norm, so it’s fine.”
She paused, looking at him more closely. “The norm is that you don’t sleep?”
“I mean, it’s not that big of a deal. I’m okay. The chair is fine. I’m not complaining.”
“I didn’t think you were.” She walked to the pantry and pulled out a bag of Doritos. She shook a handful out into her palm and offered some to Nick. He accepted a couple, and their fingers brushed. He took a deep breath as his pulse hammered away.
“I wasn’t really sleeping either,” she said. “If you want to hang out.”
“Yeah, hang out where?” He wondered if she might take him to one of those twenty-four-hour diners that New Jersey was known for.
“My room,” she said.
Nick hesitated. His gaze shifted to the staircase that led upstairs to her parents’ bedroom.
“Don’t worry,” she said, smirking. “We’re adults. It’s not like we’re going to get in trouble.”
He pictured Lily’s dad catching him in her room and chasing him out of the house with a shotgun.
But even that image wasn’t enough to deter him from spending time with her.
“Okay,” he said. He followed Lily down the hall to her room, feeling like a teenager sneaking into his crush’s house in the middle of the night.
Lily led him inside of her room and he immediately smiled at what he saw. Her walls were painted a soft lavender and her bed had a matching lavender comforter. There was a large white bookshelf by her window, stacked with books. A handful of teddy bears were piled in the corner. Her walls were covered in posters of Aaliyah and Destiny’s Child. He walked over to the bookshelf and immediately found what he was looking for: her copy of Ella Enchanted.
“I love that book,” she said, closing her door behind her. She came to stand beside him.
“I do too.” His voice was quiet. In her emails, she’d told him it was her favorite book of all time. He placed it back on the shelf and continued to walk around, admiring her things. He reached the pile of teddy bears and picked up a pink bear holding a Valentine’s Day heart in its paws.
“My dad got that for me in elementary school,” she said, sitting down on her bed. “Iris keeps meaning to take them home for Calla.”
“Are all of these from your dad?”
“Most. Some are from boys in high school. Just my friends.”
Nick smirked. “Your cousins said you friend-zoned people all the time when you were growing up.”
“That’s not true,” she said, snorting. “I just didn’t want Violet’s sloppy seconds. She wouldn’t give them the time of day, so they thought I was the next best thing.”
Nick turned around and walked back over to her bookshelf, leaning against it. They were directly across from each other now. She folded her legs underneath of her, pretzel style, and watched him.
“I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe some of them just really liked you.”
She shrugged, dismissing his comment. He wished she could see what he saw. To him, she was incomparable. Not the next best thing, but the best thing.
“Your room is so . . .”
She waited, looking at him. “So what?”
“So you,” he finished. “I can picture teenage Lily in here reading and doing her homework. Tricking herself into believing that the pile of teddy bears in her room isn’t from a long list of admirers.”
She laughed, and he slowly approached the foot of her bed. He sat down at the edge of the mattress, closer to her than he was before, but still far enough away that they weren’t anywhere near touching.