He responds, faster than I expected.
Rowan: Yeah
I hesitate, then type.
Sloane: Can I come over?
The dots blink, hover, vanish, come back.
Rowan: Do you want me to come to you?
I laugh and respond.
Sloane: I live with your sister.
Rowan: Good point. See you soon.
He texts me his address next, and I’ve still got a smile on my face as I get out of bed. As quickly as I can in the cold, I grab jeans and a sweater, then — before I lose my nerve — I open the drawer where the things I never wear are, and I dig out the one nice lace set I own.
It’s the one I’ve never had a single occasion to wear.
Tonight is the occasion.
I dress in the dark, the lace cool against my skin. Once it’s on, I check my reflection. My hair is the kind of messy that would take an hour to fix, my cheeks are too pink, and my eyes are too bright.
The Halden Girl is, very clearly, not in attendance.
I put the rest of my clothes on, then head out. I take the stairs, and outside the air is sharp enough to bite straight through my sweater — the first real cold of the season. But I’m walking too fast to feel it for long, and Ridgeview is only across the bridge.
Halfway across the bridge I almost stop.Turn around, call it a night, be sensible about it.
The voice in my head sounds like my mother.
But then I think about the way he pulled his hand back from my breast in the library, not because he didn’t want to touch me but because he wanted to ask first. And that’s enough to confirm that this guy is different.
I keep walking.
When I get there, I knock and he opens it before my hand drops back to my side, like he’s been standing just on the other side of it. He’s wearing a T-shirt and sweatpants, his hair sticking up on one side like he’s run a hand through it twenty times waiting for me.
Then he gives me the cutest damn smile a boy on earth has ever unleashed. “You walked here in a sweater?”
I feel a shiver, which seems perfectly timed. “I made a series of poor choices on the way to this very excellent choice.”
He holds out his hand. I take it, and he pulls me inside. Before I can say anything else, there’s a blanket around my shoulders, and his hands are rubbing my upper arms through it, and he’s steering me toward a sofa. Like always, he’s solving a problem.
“You’re an ice cube,” he says.
“I’m fine.”
“You’re shaking.”
He drops onto the sofa beside me, wrapping the blanket tighter, and pulls one of my hands between both of his, pressing my fingers between his palms until they’re warm enough to pull a small, involuntary noise out of me.
I smile. “You’re doing the solving thing.”
“The thing where I keep my date from getting hypothermia?”
“Date, is it?” I say. “Come closer…”
