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It didn’t feel like a joke to me, though. Still, grudgingly, I stepped closer, the arm of my wool coat pressing against Seth’s. He took it upon himself to duck his head toward mine, and the end of a curl brushed my cheek. I closed my eyes for a second, taking a deep breath and fighting the urge to tangle my fingers in his hair again.

“Okay, got it,” Kylie called. Seth sprang away from me like I’d stung him. I tried not to be offended by that.

As we strolled downtown, we grabbed pictures of me and Kylie with a guy dressed as a nutcracker and Seth and Kylie in front of the Bryant Park skating rink. “That’s five,” Seth said, scanning through the shared album as he uploaded the last one. “Looks like we’re tied for first. Doing great, guys.” He raised his eyebrows hopefully. “Maybe great enough for an ice-skating break?”

Wearing uncomfortable knives on my feet while wobbling over an icy surface among people just as clueless about it as I was? No thanks.

Kylie was not as vehemently opposed. “Aw, that would be so cute. You guys hanging on to each other’s arms and everything.”

I glanced sidelong at Seth. “Actually, the last time we went ice skating together up in Vermont, I nearly decapitated him with my skate.”

Kylie’s eyebrows jumped to her hairline. “You what?”

“It’s not as gory as it sounds,” Seth said. “It didn’t even sever an artery.”

“Imagine how gross that would have been. Blood frozen all over the ice.”

“Fortunately, it only nicked me a little when she tripped head over heels and I lunged in to rescue her from breaking her neck,” Seth said innocently.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I feel like my blade wouldn’t have even come close to your head if you hadn’t also fallen head over heels.” We shared a small smile, and for a moment it was like we were back meeting his parents, wildly fabricating stories for the amusement of the crowd.

Except that, since then, we had real stories to tell people about. Real inside jokes we had together. So it was still fun, but…I don’t know, it felt a little emptier.

“Okay, so what I’m gathering is that we shouldn’t go ice-skating or risk losing a limb,” Kylie said.

Well, at least I’d won. “Or a head,” I told her. “Can’t really get a prosthetic head.”

The next stop was Times Square for one of the Broadway snow globes. Every year, many of the shows currently playing on Broadway would craft giant snow globes for the public showcasing a key scene; some even had music playing along with them. We passed Elphaba flying up into the snow on her broomstick, Rafiki holding Baby Simba out over a snowy gorge (not super accurate for the Kenyan savanna, I thought), Aladdin and Jasmine flying on their magic carpet.

Kylie stopped short in front of one I wasn’t familiar with. “Ooh, since it’s your turn and you’re a couple, you’ve got to do this one. It’ll be perfect.”

The show title in red and black spelled out Hadestown, and inside the globe, a young couple clutched at each other with angsty expressions like they were about to be torn apart. Well, I could definitely share the angst. “Whatever,” I said, eager to get this over with. Seth stepped up next to me and smiled.

But Kylie didn’t hold up her phone. “Aw, come on, you guys. Have a little fun.”

“Instructing someone to have fun isn’t usually how fun works,” I said.

She rolled her eyes. “You know what I mean. Lean into it a little! Come on, pose like them. It’ll be so cute. And if we end up tying later on, maybe it’ll win us some bonus points.”

I took another look at the couple in the snow globe. The girl stood facing me, her face tilting up; the guy—her boyfriend?—stood behind her, clutching her close, his mouth a hair’s breadth away from her forehead. Their arms twined together as if they were holding tight against some tremendous force.

If Seth and I were really dating, this wouldn’t even be a big deal. So that’s how I had to act. I swallowed hard. “Of course. No problem.” I tilted my head up at Seth in imitation of the girl in the globe. “Ready?”

His Adam’s apple bobbed. “Are you sure?”

“You guys, come on!” Kylie sounded impatient, but I couldn’t turn to look at her, because I couldn’t tear my eyes from Seth. He opened his mouth, then closed it.

Maybe he wasn’t as chill as he was pretending to be.

But he didn’t argue. He stepped up behind me, his front against my back. I turned my cheek against the soft wool of his coat, looking up toward his chin, at the scrape of black stubble there, and lifted my arms like I was doing ballet. One tender forearm found its way against his cheek, the other around the back of his head. He wrapped his own arms around them, his fingers tangling with mine.

He looked down at me like if I said the wrong thing, every part of him would unravel. It was lucky we weren’t supposed to smile, because I didn’t think I could.

“Guys? Guys?” It took me maybe one minute and maybe an hour to realize that Kylie was trying to get our attention. “You did great. We’re done.”

I cleared my throat. “You can let me go now,” I whispered.

He wrinkled his brow at me, looking just as tortured as the guy inside the globe, and I imagined him saying, I never want to let you go.