“Something’s always wrong,” I say. “This morning, it was my brain. This afternoon, it was my heart. Right now, it’s this protein bar.”
“Stan.”
I look down at my hands because the mirrors are too honest, and Nil’s too honest too, and I’m sweating in a room that’s as cold as the sea outside. “I didn’t want to make you uncomfortable,” I admit.
“You don’t do that to me.”
“You sure? You turned cherry red, Nil.”
He lets out a groan. “I wasn’t uncomfortable. I was…taken aback.”
“Taken aback that your dumb roommate thinks your face is kissable?” I ask, trying to joke my way out of sweating through my shirt.
“You’re not dumb, Stan, and I wasn’t shocked about that.”
I blink at him, raising a brow. “Because we can blame Kys after?”
“No.” He scoots over closer, until I’m facing him.
He’s smiling.God, he’s smiling.
“Iwasshocked because you, of all people,ran awayfromme.”
I force myself to keep breathing before I do something embarrassing, like pass out or confess all of the feelings I’ve held back for the past half a year I’ve known him.
Nil’s fingers brush mine by accident. Or maybe not. Hard to tell when my body’s trying not to combust. Either way, his hand stays close to mine. All I’d have to do is tilt my pinky a little and we’d be touching.
“You didn’t have to run off,” Nil says. “I didn’t freak out.”
“Yeah, butIdid,” I say.
“You don’t have to freak out,” he says. “Not over me.”
“Too late,” I whisper.
His eyes drop to my mouth. Oh, no, this is the start of something stupid or perfect or both.
I swallow hard. Damn granola drying up my throat. My voice comes out thin. “Ocean Eyes…”
He looks at me like he’s bracing for impact. “Yeah?”
I want to say something smart. Something smooth. Something that doesn’t sound like I’m begging for him. Except I probably will. And he probably knows.
“I wasn’t kidding about the kiss,” I say. “It wasn’t a joke, but the thing is…I wouldn’t blame it on Kys.”
His lips part. He sucks in a slow breath. “I know,” he says. “Me neither.”
That almost takes me out. Like, clinically. Shipwide emergency. Stan coded blue in the gym. “Really?” I ask.
“Yeah.”
“I didn’t think you’d take it seriously,” I say. “I thought you’d laugh or ignore it or, y’know, run screaming into the sea.”
“I wouldn’t,” he says.
My lungs stop working, I think. “Oh.”
He chuckles, more breath than laugh. “Yeah.”
