Page 137 of In Somnis

“What is?”

“We back each other’s hexes. No questions asked.”

That one feels important.

“Okay. Rule two.” He squeezes my wrist before letting go. “Now go find clothes that don’t belong at a prom, yeah?”

“Okay.”

A few minutes later, I come back out in a cream blouse tucked into high-waisted pants, fake glasses perched on my nose.

Nevan has somehow started assembling the furniture from the box in my absence—white pieces of wood and hardware that maybe belong to a dresser spread around him on the floor, instructions set to one side and apparently being ignored. He looks up when he hears me, screwdriver in hand, and grins.

“Sexy librarian. Bold choice.”

“It’s sophisticated.”

“Meh.” He points the screwdriver at my face. “What happens when he wants to kiss you? Two pairs of glasses. You’ll bonk noses and ruin it.”

“He’s not going to kiss me.”

“He absolutely is.” He sets the screwdriver down, makes a scandalous kissy face, and fires off a string of aggressively wet muah, muah, muah sounds in my direction.

“Oh my God,” I recoil. “Okay. Mystery solved. That’s why Sydney revoked your kissing privileges.”

“Wow.” He clutches his chest. “Cruel. I was vulnerable just now.”

“You were moist just now.”

He snorts, then goes back to wrestling with the dresser. “Hypothetically,” he says, not looking at me. “If someone were about to attempt a second first kiss. Purely theoretical. What would be the optimal strategy?”

“Rule one,” I say immediately.

“What?”

“No hiding behind fake hypotheticals. We agreed. Radical honesty or emotional death.”

He sighs as though I’ve personally ruined his life, then glances up at me, mouth crooked. “Fine. If I were about to attempt a second first kiss, what would be the optimal strategy?”

I consider this very seriously. “Grab her face. Tell her you physically cannot survive one more second without kissing her. Then go for it.”

The screwdriver stills in his hand.

“Wow,” he says after a moment. “That’s… unhinged.”

“It’s romantic.”

“It’s how you get maced.”

“Only if she doesn’t like you.”

“I don’t know,” he mutters. “I feel like even women who do would mace me.”

Heat creeps up my neck. “I read a lot of romance novels, okay?”

“Clearly.” He chuckles. “I’m starting to understand why you’re this way.”

My stomach flips. “What way?”