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Then something in him settles. His shoulders come down. His hand stops moving. He looks up off the floor, straight at me, and whatever he was stuck on, he’s gotten past it. He looks like himself again. He looks like Rafe.

“Stay with me for Christmas,” he says easily.

I stare at him.

My heart is like a hundred horses on a stampede right now.

It sounds like an order. His words come out of him flat and certain, the way stand up came out of him in a cafeteria four years ago, the way withdraw came out of him in a stairwell. A thing that he’s already decided.

“Is that a question?” I say.

“Yes.”

“Because it didn’t sound like one.”

His jaw closes, and his eyes go to the side for one second, like he’s replaying it. Then he says it again completely serious with the question mark where it goes.

“Stay with me for Christmas?”

And I smile. My face feels red, and he watches me like he did it on purpose.

“Rafe,” I say kindly. “I’m not your problem.”

“Never said you were,” he says back without hesitation.

“It’s almost a month,” I say. “Christmas break is almost a month long.”

“I know how long break is.”

I scoff. “You don’t even like me.”

“Never said that.”

I stop and look at him. He looks back at me, totally calm.

“You literally did,” I say. “On your couch at Thanksgiving. You said I didn’t like you.”

“I said I didn’t.”

I open my mouth. Nothing comes out. I close it. My heart’s still racing.

He doesn’t say anything else. He doesn’t explain it. He doesn’t make it bigger, or softer, or into anything. He just stands there and lets it sit in the room with us. Didn’t. One word, like it’s in the past.

And I don’t know what to think about that. I look at the window.

“I’m not a charity case,” I say.

“You aren’t.”

“Then why—”

“Because you need somewhere to stay,” he says. “And I have somewhere.”

He says it like a math problem with one answer. You need a place. I have one.

I wait for the rest of it. The part where he tells me it would make him feel better. The part where it turns out to be about him. The part where it costs something.

“I know you can take care of yourself, Tess,” he says. “I figured that part out.”