“Do you believe in miracles?” he asked. He faced the candles, their light dancing across his cheekbones and brow.
My instinct was to say no, to almost scoff at the idea, but he looked... almost fragile. “I don’t know,” I said instead. “Do you?”
“Maybe not inmiracles.Not divine things delivered on a silver platter. But... miraculous events? Maybe.”
“Like what?”
He glanced at me, then smiled again. It was a bright, wide smile, the one I was most used to seeing on his face. He’d pulled it out so quickly, like a switch had been flicked. Could a smile deployed so suddenly be real, or was it more a curtain whisking shut to hide what was really going on?
I’d never noticed before how many smiles he had.
“You know,” he said easily. “A perfect GPA. Being able to sleep, party,andstudy.”
The way he’d pulled out his smile, the way his voice had been vulnerable and now sounded smooth, made me sure he lied, sure he wanted something more than good grades and eight hours a night. “You’re sure those are the only miracles you want?”
Something hardened under the planes of his face, but then it was gone. He leaned forward, a gleam in his eyes. “You know, you’re actually sort of cute.”
“Excuse me,what?” I sat back, cheeks burning.
“I never noticed before. I’m used to thinking of you as... young. Pesky.”
“Gee, thanks,” I said, mortally offended. “You really know how to boost a girl’s self-esteem.”
“We’ve got this whole house to ourselves.” He spun the dreidel idly. It landed on gimel,again. “Imagine if we were on the same page about how to have fun.”
I shook my head. “You’d hook up with anyone you were snowed in with for a night, wouldn’t you?”
He shrugged. “It’d pass the time.”
This boy. What would it be like, to be so comfortable with hooking up? “So would Bananagrams.”
He laughed. “True. You wanna play Bananagrams?”
Actually? “Yeah. Let’s.”
We played Bananagrams until long after the menorah’s candles had burned down, leaving puddles of wax in the holders. The fire burned low, embers glowing. “How are you so good at this?” he asked after I won for the third time in a row.
“Years of playing Scrabble with my grandma.” I yawned and checked my phone, surprised to see the hour closing in on eleven. “Bedtime?”
We blew out the candles around the room and turned on our phone flashlights as we crept once more through the dark house. Our phones illuminated paintings and mirrors, then the stairs, then the doorknob of the guest room I’d picked for him. Not too far from my own, actually. The house was dark and a little scary; I wanted a human body near mine. “Here we are.”
I pushed the door open. We pointed our phones inward, their two beams of light haphazardly piercing the darkness. Two twin beds, a dresser. I headed to the closet, where I found a clean towel ready for guests. I grabbed it and turned back.
But Tyler had moved forward, and in the darkness, I didn’t see him quickly enough. We collided. I dropped the towel and my phone and almost fell. Tyler caught me, his hands on my waist, his own phone dropping to the bed, the flashlight going out.
“Whoa.” He steadied us. “You okay?”
It was dark except for the blue rectangle of night outside the window. I could hear his breathing. I could hear my own heartbeat and hoped he couldn’t. One of his hands burned hot against my hip.
I didn’tlikeTyler Nelson. He didn’t like me; he liked entertainment. Yet I didn’t move. I listened to his breathing, felt the feathering of his breath across my face.
Then he inhaled jaggedly and stepped back. “Sorry.”
Thank god for the dark, blotting away the redness of my face. “Right. Yeah. Um, here’s your towel.”
“Thanks.”
“Right. Okay. Are you all set?”
