“I know, but I just wanna get it done.”
I hear footsteps on the stairs. Don’t look up.
“Nova?”
“Hmm?” Still reading. Or trying to.
Someone clears their throat. “Nova.”
Something in the tone makes me finally lift my head.
Rane is standing at the bottom of the stairs.
He’s… dressed up. Button-down shirt, sleeves rolled to his elbows. Hair actually styled instead of its usual mess. He looks good. Really good.
I sit up slowly. “What’s going on? Why do you look like that?”
His face goes red. Behind me, someone snorts. Someone else mutters something I don’t catch.
“Oh, well, I—” He clears his throat again. Shoves his hands in his pockets, pulls them out, doesn’t seem to know what to do with them. “I was hoping… maybe…”
He takes a breath.
“Nova… would you do me the honor of letting me take you to dinner?”
Someone groans from the couch. “Jesus, Rane, did you black out and wake up in a regency novel?”
“Shut up,” Rane mutters, ears going pink.
I blink at him.
“Don’t we usually eat here?”
A noise from behind me—Kyron choking on something, Locke’s low laugh, Trey’s muttered “oh my god.”
Rane’s blush deepens. “Well, yeah, but I wanted to—I guess—take you out to dinner.”
“Why?”
“Well, you know…” He shifts his weight. “On a date.”
Date.
That word I know.
The pressure of it hits me all at once. Rane, standing there in his nice shirt with his styled hair, asking me on adate. In front of everyone. While I’m lying on the floor in sweatpants with a textbook.
“Um.” I scramble to my feet. “Yeah. Uh. Okay.”
His whole face lights up. Relief and something warmer flooding his expression.
He’s still smiling. Like I just gave him something he wasn’t sure he’d get.
A date. I said yes to a date. My palms are sweating.
Why do I want to impress him so badly?
“Smooth,” Kyron says behind me.
