Page 134 of In Somnis

He straightens up and looks at my face. “It worked. And your hair looks pretty too.”

“Thank you.” I reach for the next thing in the pile. “Now if only the rest of me⁠—”

“Why don’t you wear what you have on right now?”

I look down at my yellow sweatpants covered in tiny lemons and my plain white T-shirt. Then back up at him. “Ha-ha.”

I knew I shouldn’t have let him in.

“I’m completely serious.” The corner of his mouth lifts. “This is the most you thing I’ve ever seen you wear. It’s sexy.”

“That’s it.” I pull out my phone. “I’m texting Paul to cancel.”

He takes it out of my hand with the easy reach of someone who has about twelve inches on me and simply does not have to try very hard, and pockets it. “Nope.”

“Nevan.”

“You want to go,” he says. “So you’re going.”

“Then give me my phone so I can text Jasper. Maybe he can actually help me.”

“He’s still at school.” He leans back against the wall, arms crossed, looking entirely too comfortable in the middle of my disaster zone. “Also, I’m the better option here, or you’ll walk out wearing lilac eyeshadow with crystals braided into your hair.”

“Maybe Paul likes lilac eyeshadow.”

Maybe Paul is emotionally prepared for whimsy.

“Maybe he does.” He says it with complete equanimity, which is somehow more annoying than if he’d argued. “He’ll like anything you wear.”

My chest does a small, inconvenient squeeze. “It’s not even a date,” I murmur.

Nevan opens his mouth.

“And if you say ‘if you say so,’ I will actually cancel it.”

He closes his mouth. Opens it again to say, “I wasn’t going to say that.”

“You were absolutely going to say that.”

“I was going to say…” he continues, with great patience, “… that it doesn’t matter what you call it. You like him. He likes you. You’re going somewhere together at three o’clock. Label it whatever helps you breathe.”

“That’s easy for you to say.” I start straightening things that don’t need it. “You’re not the one who has to sit across from someone and try to be interesting and not say anything weird and remember what normal people talk about on…” I gesture vaguely, “… whatever this is. And I don’t even know where we’re going so I don’t know if the sandwiches were a good idea or a terrible idea or if it’s going to be weird that I made food when he probably has somewhere in mind, and what if he thinks I’m presumptuous, or worse, what if he thinks I’m the kind of person who always brings homemade sandwiches everywhere like some kind of⁠—”

“Lemon.”

“… deranged picnic person, and I haven’t done this in so long, Nev, like actually done this, because my ex and I sort of slid into each other without it ever being a thing. There was no first date, it just happened, and now I have to remember how to be a person someone would want to take somewhere, and I genuinely cannot remember how to do that, and what if⁠—”

His thumb finds the bridge of my nose, pressing gently until the scrunch releases.

“Hey,” he says quietly. “Have you eaten anything today?”

“I…” I blink. “I made sandwiches.”

“That’s what I’ve heard.” He smiles. “But not what I asked.”

“I had a bite of one… half a bite.”

He exhales through his nose, not quite a sigh. Then he goes to the counter, grabs a sandwich, and brings it to me.