For the first time in weeks, the scrolls were no longer top of my mind.
Armed with hot chocolate and a dozen chocolate-glazed donuts, we found a table in the busy seating area behind the rink. “Does it ever snow here?” I asked the other girls. I felt too shy to look at Daziel now, though he sat right next to me. His thigh pressed against mine as we squeezed onto the benches. “Back home, we get a few inches, but since Talum is so much farther south, I wasn’t sure.”
“Nope,” Gilli said, licking chocolate off her fingers. “Which is too bad, since snow seems so romantic.”
“It’s cold enough as it is,” Jelan grumbled. She wore a red hat Gilli had crocheted pulled over her ears, and a bigger jacket than the rest of us—this was the first winter she’d experienced outside her semi-arid country, and she wasn’t loving it.
“Snow is pretty magical,” I agreed, actively not looking at Daziel. “Especially for something that isn’t actually magic.”
We chattered until we’d drained our cups and only crumbs remained of the donuts. “My hot cocoa is gone,” I said mournfully. To no one, really.
Okay—to Daziel, whose mouth twitched. “Anyone else?” heasked, and the girls cheerfully handed over their empty mugs. Daziel gave me a slightly woebegone look, then headed back to the cocoa tent. The mugs bobbed behind him like a trail of ducklings.
Gilli leaned her head against my shoulder. She’d done her braids in loops behind her ears, and her blue velvet hat matched her coat. “You and Daziel seem cozy.”
I looked up at the pale blue sky and smiled. I felt warm and soft—cozy, one might say—in a way I wasn’t used to, making the whole world seem like a kinder place. “Yeah.”
“I noticed he held your hand while we were skating.”
“Did he?” Leah leaned forward. “I missed that.”
“Shh,” I said, despite Daziel being too far away to hear. My cheeks blazed. My friends noticing embarrassed me, like I’d had a vulnerable underside revealed. But I also felt gratified they thought it worth discussing; if so, maybe ithadmeant something. Still, I didn’t want to make too big a deal out of this, not when Daziel might have done it absentmindedly. Shedim might hold hands as a matter of course. “It doesn’t mean anything.”
“Your blush means something,” Leah teased. Her amber earrings twinkled in the sunlight, as playful as her tone.
“Has anything happened between you two yet?” Gilli asked, as though it was a foregone conclusion something would.
“Of course not.” My friends waited, clearly deeming this not enough information, so I babbled on. “We’re just roommates. He’s not interested in me.”
Leah rolled her eyes. “Okay.”
I frowned at her. “Besides, I don’t have time for romance. The work on the scrolls is ramping up, and I need to make sureProfessor Altschuler is impressed enough to renew my scholarship. I irritated him a few weeks ago.”
My floormates looked unimpressed. “There’s always time for romance,” Gilli said. “But it doesn’t magically happen. You need to make a move.”
“Who even says Iwantsomething to happen?” I didn’t. Probably. Well, not if Daziel didn’t.
Leah snorted. Gilli pursed her mouth. Even Jelan, who usually avoided these conversations, couldn’t contain her amusement.
I unbuttoned my blazer, overly hot. I wouldn’t even need the warmth from a second hot cocoa. “Why do I need to be the one to make a move? He could.”
“He’s clearly obsessed with you,” Leah said. “He’s getting youandyour friends cocoa at this very moment.”
“You’re his friends too.”
“Do you not like him?” Gilli sounded confused. “You spend all your time together and act like an old married couple. But if you don’t like him…”
This was such a surreal conversation. “I like him. But…he thinks of me as a friend.” Anything more than friendship was terrifying. How did one evenmakea move?
“Do you think of him as just a friend?” Leah asked. “Youmustthink he’s hot. He’s objectively more attractive than any human.”
“Attraction is subjective,” I said, peeking at where Daziel still waited patiently in line. He’d been assailed by two science students in their yellow blazers but didn’t look like he minded. And he did look strikingly handsome. “Though fine, yes. But welivetogether. What if it went horribly? We’d betrapped.” Any shift in our relationship would impact so much of my life.
Gilli shot Jelan a meaningful look. “What if it went wonderfully?”
“No.” I understood what she meant, but their situation was different. “You two still have separate rooms. Space. Daziel and I have no space.”
“What you do already have is a relationship,” Jelan said practically. “You eat together, study, socialize. You look out for each other. You do everything anyone in a romantic relationship does except the romance.” She raised her thick brows. “If you’re both attracted to each other, you should see if the romance is as strong as everything else you have.”
