When We Met

“Are you okay?” she asked, and stood, her expression worried.

“No—yes—I just, oh my God.” I pointed in the direction of the house next to ours and looked at Darryn. “I thought . . . I’m such an idiot,” I groaned, and sagged against the counter.

“Because none of that made sense,” Darryn said.

I laughed lamely and covered my face with my hands. “I know. I’m full of win this morning.” Looking back at them, I took a deep breath and hoped I could make them understand how grateful I was for what they had done. “Thank you both so much for fixing my car. Please tell me how much the battery cost and I’ll pay you back.”

They gave each other a look, and Darryn glanced at me before his eyes darted to the floor. “Uh, we—”

“Just think of it as a late birthday present,” Misha said, cutting him off before shooting Darryn a look.

“I can’t, that’s too much.”

“Well, you’re going to have to. Because I won’t be telling you how much it cost.”

“Misha,” I complained, but knew she wasn’t going to give on this. “If I wasn’t covered in sweat right now, I’d hug you both.” It hit me then that I’d just hugged Kier. Oh God, kill me now.

A small smile crossed her face. “No need, really.”

“Thank you guys, again.” Pushing away from the counter, I went upstairs to shower and try to forget how badly I’d just humiliated myself. I’d gotten halfway through my junior year without talking to Kier. It wouldn’t be that hard to go back to how it had been before yesterday.

And it hadn’t been hard. Well, it had, and it hadn’t. It’d been nine days since I thanked him for the battery he hadn’t even bought for me, but it’d been impossible to forget about the quiet guy next door. I looked for him during the party at their house a couple of days later, but before long I’d gotten lost in drinking games—not that I would have said anything if I had seen him. And even though I knew he was in the back left corner of the lecture hall in our class on Monday and Wednesday, I refused to look back there, even though everything in me was screaming to do so. I didn’t remember anything from those classes other than once they were over, I’d let out a relieved breath.

After looking for him for a few minutes at the neighbors’ party tonight, I’d given up. It was stupid to look for him. I’d never seen him at one of these parties anyway. For all I knew, he wasn’t even here tonight. He could be at work if he had a job; he could be out with his girlfriend—oh my God. He could have a girlfriend.

“He could have a girlfriend!” I said out loud, and the guy I was curled up against on the couch gave me a fu

“What?”

I threw my hands up in the air. “This whole time I’ve been— Where the fuck did this bread come from?”

The guy laughed loudly, and curled his arm around my waist. “Baby, you are wasted. You keep forgetting about it, but you’ve been holding it for an hour at least.”

I stared at the gold foil as I leaned away from his body. I didn’t like the way he called me “baby.” “Did you give this bread to me?”

“No, and you won’t let anyone touch it.” He pulled me back toward him, his mouth going to my ear. “Let’s get out of here.”

“Mm. No, no.” I made a sound of disapproval as I scrambled away from him and off the couch, taking a few seconds to get myself steady when I was standing.

Holding the bread close to my chest, I moved through the tightly packed bodies, needing air. I don’t know why I didn’t go toward the front door. It would have made more sense to leave and go to my house, but before I knew what I was doing, I was standing in front of a door in the hall on the first floor.

“Safe room,” I mumbled to myself, and tapped my finger against the wood.

Unrolling the top of the foil, I tore off a piece of the warm bread and put it in my mouth as I continued to stare at the door, like if I stood there long enough, it would do something for me.

It didn’t.

I let my forehead fall roughly against the door and whined, “Stupid safe room. You didn’t go all wardrobe on me and lead me to Narnia.”

The door swung open and I stumbled forward.

“Shit—I got you,” a deep voice grunted as a pair of arms caught me and helped get me standing again. “Guess it’s time to go home?”

I looked up and gasped. “You. You have a girlfriend!”

Golden eyes widened with shock. “What?”

“You have a girlfriend, don’t you?”

“No, I don’t have a girlfriend.”

“You don’t?” I breathed, and staggered closer to his body. His hands tightened on my upper arms to keep me where I was. My lips fell into a pout. “And you didn’t fix my car.”

He laughed softly and moved to wrap one arm around my back. “Hold on to your bread, Indy.”

I held up the bag and shrugged. “I don’t know where it came from,” I murmured. “But it’s delicious.”

“I bet it is. Up you go.” He lifted me into his arms, and I squealed.

“No, no! No!” I said sternly, my eyebrows slamming down.

“If you’re in my room, then it’s time to get you back to yours.”

My face fell, and I kept my eyes trained on the bread in my hands as he walked us down the hall, through the people at the party, and out the door. “I bothered you. In your room. That was your room, not Narnia.”

He missed a step and tightened his grip on me as loud laughs burst from his chest. “Narnia? What the hell did you drink tonight, Indy?”

I tried to glare at him, but I probably just looked like a three-year-old not getting her way. “It was the safe door. It was supposed to be magic,” I whispered. “No magic.”

He did stop walking then. “What did you just say?”

“No magic,” I repeated.

“Before that.”

I stared at his face for a few seconds before popping a piece of bread in my mouth. “I don’t remember,” I said honestly. “Why are you carrying me?”

“Because you would fall otherwise.”

“Nu-uh.”

“You did the first night,” he grumbled, and looked away.

I stopped chewing. “What first night?”

“It doesn’t matter.” He began walking again, his hardened eyes straight ahead.

“Cookie?” I asked when we walked into my house.

He snorted as he kicked the front door to my house shut. “You’ve called me a lot of names, but that’s definitely a new one. No.”

“I know your name,” I said, and held up my hand. “Do you want a cookie?”

His dark eyebrows pinched together. “That’s bread, Indy, not a cookie.”

I looked at the bread and frowned before offering it back up to him. “It’ll be our secret,” I whispered. “We can pretend it’s a cookie.”

He smiled wryly at me before dipping his head and biting the food out of my hand. “Amazing cookie.”

I watched his mouth as he chewed, and didn’t know if I should be embarrassed by the fact that my breathing was heavy now. “My room is—”

“On the second floor,” he finished for me. “I know.”

“How’d you know that?”

“Why’d you call my door the safe door?” he countered, his eyes flicking to my face for a second before he began climbing the stairs with me still in his arms.

This felt familiar . . . and right. But that couldn’t be right, because I’d only talked to Kier twice, a week and a half ago.

“Indy?”

“Hmm?”

“Why did you call my door the safe door?”

“When did I call it that?”

He exhaled heavily but didn’t say anything else as he finished walking up the stairs and straight into my room. My eyebrows pinched together, and I wondered again how he knew where my room was, but before I could ask, he was lowering me onto the bed and pulling the bread from my hands.

“This is mine,” I complained, and tried to pull it back toward me.

“I know it is, but I’m betting you have about five minutes before you’re asleep. And you don’t want to fall asleep with garlic bread in your hands, do you?”

“Yes! Yes, I do!”

A bright smile crossed his face as he uncurled my fingers, one by one. “No, you don’t.” Once it was in his hand, he straightened and looked down at me, his gaze lingering on my face for a few seconds. “I’ll be back in a couple minutes. Get changed.”