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My stomach drops. Not from nausea this time.

“No,” I say too quickly.

He turns back to me. “Oh?”

“Don’t make that face.”

“What face?”

“The face you’re making.”

“This is my normal face.”

“It is not.”

The bell rings again.

I close my eyes for half a second.

Dalton.

Of course it’s Dalton, because apparently the universe has decided the best way to handle my carefully separated problems is to invite them all into my apartment on the same night and see what happens.

Nate is smiling now. Not fully. Just enough to be dangerous.

“Maggie,” he says slowly.

“Stay here.”

“That is suspicious,” he says.

I roll my eyes. “Stay here suspiciously, then.”

I go to the door and check the peephole even though I already know.

Dalton stands in the hallway in his dark coat, one hand holding a brown paper bag from a Chinese restaurant, the other tucked into his pocket. He looks exactly like himself: composed, serious, too attractive for my very average hallway, and entirely unaware that my younger brother is currently ten feet behind me eating emergency crackers.

I open the door.

Dalton’s eyes move over my face first. “Are you all right?”

I grip the edge of the door. “Hello to you too,” I say.

He smiles a little. “I think we’re past that now.”

I shrug. “You came.”

“You said noodles.”

“That wasn’t an invitation.”

“I know.”

Behind me, Nate says, “Oh, I like him already.”

I close my eyes.

Dalton’s gaze shifts past my shoulder. A tiny pause. Not surprise exactly, but something close enough to count.