“Are you… crying?” he asks.
I avert my eyes and kick his foot. “Seeing you cry makes me cry!”
It’s annoying how he’s even capable of laughing at this point. “I know what will cheer both of us up.” His head turns my way. “Let’s revisit that whole you finding me cute again.”
I brush the sides of my eyes with my palms. “Um. You’re the one who had the crush on me.”
He bumps my leg back and then I notice his foot rests against mine. He’s so close that I can smell his faint vanilla scent, see his eyelashes move when he blinks, feel his chest rise and fall when he breathes…
I have no idea what’s louder—my heart racing or all the thoughts swirling in my head.
Another contender could be the alarm buzzing in my pocket.
“Oh!” I take out my phone and the clock reads twelve. “I think it’s Christmas.”
“Oh!” Seph moves to stand, and it quickly sets in that our situation at midnight has not changed from our situation at 11:59PM. We are still very much stuck in this elevator.
He slides back down next to me and picks on the sampaguitalei still hanging around my neck. “Any chance these flowers can give us a ‘Christmas miracle’?”
“Hopefully,” I say. “I didn’t get to finish my buko pie.”
“Come on. The real highlight of the night was the scrambled eggs.”
My eyes narrow at him. “Seriously. What do you need from me?”
“Nothing.” He puts his hand over his heart. “I really think they’re good!”
I scoff and shake my head even though my insides did a little leap when he complimented the eggs’ texture.
Silence stretches over us as we watch the redEflash on and off. Seph is the one who breaks the silence again.
“Did you really find me cute?”
I groan. “Moseph, so many girls in my class find you cute.”
“Didn’t know you did, though.”
“Your mom did say, ‘As a proper lady, you’re not supposed to initiate.’”
Seph rolls his eyes. “My mom gets a lot of things wrong.”
A beat passes and I barely hear Seph when he adds, “I wish you would’ve initiated.”
His words pulse through the air, and I’m reminded again of how small this elevator is. Seph’s face always makes these goofy expressions when he’s thinking something through, and I hate how… nice his face looks.
I hate how I likelookingat his face, how my eyes are always drawn to how wide his shoulders are, how I wonder what it’d feel like if our bodies were pressed together in this elevator…
It dawns on me then.
Shit. Do I still find Moseph King cute?
“Why didn’tyouinitiate?” I manage to ask, past the somersaulting in my chest.
“Would it have made a difference?”
“Maybe.” I hesitate before admitting, “I could’ve told you that you were my first crush too.”
He blinks; I blink.
