Page 128

“Nothing,” says Kenzie.

“Nothing,” says Bianca.

I type.

Me: Sleep.

Nash: Come here when you’re done.

My stomach drops the way it does on the first hill of a roller coaster, and I don’t do anything with my face. I’m positive I don’t. Every girl in the room sees it anyway.

Paige leans back and folds her arms. “Oh. You’re fucked.”

“Hopefully,” I say, and we all laugh. I scrape the last of the dip out of the crockpot so nobody can see me blushing at it.

I go to my own room first. Tessa is in bed, turned toward the wall with her lamp off and a white-noise app going on her phone. I do everything quietly. I brush my teeth, take my makeup off with a wipe and then wash my face anyway, because the wipe never gets all of it. My shirt has a spot of cheese right in the middle of the chest that smells like chiles, so it goes in the hamper. I put on my strawberry pajama pants, my big gray T-shirt, and fuzzy socks, and braid my hair back wet so it won’t be insane in the morning. Then I’m standing in the middle of the room in the dark with my phone in my hand, looking at the door.

I could just get in bed. It’s right there, and it’s warm, and it’d be fine. I go to the door instead and open it slowly so it won’t click.

“Take your key,” Tessa says to the wall, without rolling over.

I freeze, then grab it off the desk. “Night, Tess.”

“Night.”

I’m halfway down the hall in my socks before it hits me what I’m doing. I’m going to a guy’s room to sleep. Not to hook up. He said sleep, and I said sleep, and now I’m walking to his room in my pajamas with no makeup and my hair in a wet braid like I’m going to a sleepover.

I knock. It takes a second, and then the lock turns and the door opens. Nash is in sweats and a T-shirt with a worn-soft collar, holding a controller. Behind him, the TV shows a hockey game that isn’t real, and Rafe is on the other bed with a controller of his own, not looking away from the screen. Nash looks at me; the braid, the socks, the strawberries. It takes him a second.

“You,” he says.

“You.”

“You done?”

I nod. “I’m done.”

He steps aside and lets me in, shuts the door, and sits back down on the end of his bed and picks the game up where he left it. I stand there a second. Then I climb onto the bed behind him and sit against the wall with my knees up, because I don’t know where else to go.

“Hi, Rafe.”

Rafe glances at me, then at my pants. “Kylie.”

They play, and I don’t understand any of it. Somebody scores, and Rafe says something in a flat voice that makes Nash’s shoulders move like he’s laughing without making a sound. There’s a blue Gatorade on the windowsill, half gone. I lean over, take it, and drink some. It’s still cold. Nash reaches back without looking with his hand out, and I give it to him, and he drinks and hands it back without looking either. At some point, his hand ends up wrapped around my ankle. He’s still playing. He’s just using my leg like the arm of a chair.

“What’s with your pants?” he says to the TV.

“What?”

He looks down. “Fruit?”

“Good observation, Kennebeck. Do you know what kind?”

He turns his head and looks at me like I’ve said something unhinged.

“You do know what a strawberry is, right?”

Rafe scores on him. Nash looks at the screen, then back at me. “You made me lose,” he says, and goes back to playing.