Page 43 of Tessa and Nash

She dresses quickly, pulling her sweater over her head in one smooth motion, hair tumbling loose again.

“Front hall creaks. Back stairs creak. And if my uncle hears either of us, this morning gets ten times worse.”

“You keep accusing me of creaking.”

“I was being generous,” she replies. “You stomp like a wounded moose.”

I glance at the door, then at the window on the far side of the room. It’s tall, old-fashioned, framed by heavy curtains.

“You want me to climb out the window.”

“Yes.”

“I am hungover.”

“Yes.”

She fixes me with a look. “Would you like to meet my uncle in my bedroom wearing last night’s jeans?”

I sigh. “Point taken.”

She crosses the room and pulls the curtain aside just enough to peer out. Snow blankets the side yard, pristine except for a faint trail of footprints that I’m ninety percent sure are mine from last night.

“There’s a trellis,” she says. “It’s sturdy.”

“That sounds like a lie people tell right before something collapses.”

“It held my grandmother’s roses for fifteen years,” she shoots back. “You’ll survive.”

I rub my temples. “If I die, I’m haunting you.”

“Get in line.”

She pushes the window open carefully. Cold rushes in, sharp and bracing, doing nothing for my headache but clearing my head just enough to register how absurd this is.

I swing one leg over the sill, then pause.

“Tessa.”

She looks at me, brows lifted. “What?”

“Thank you,” I say, meaning… well, I don’t really know what yet.

Her mouth tightens, then relaxes. “Don’t make this weird.”

“Too late.”

She rolls her eyes. “Go.”

I ease myself onto the trellis, gripping the wood as if my life depends on it. Which, frankly, it might.

“Don’t look down,” she advises.

“I am absolutely looking down.”

“Stop.”

“I can see my death.”