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“That’s shitty,” I mean it. I can’t picture my mom looking at me and deciding I was too much work. “Wait. Small towns exist outside movies?”
He gives me a funny look, taking me completely seriously. “Did you think they were fake?”
I shrug, smiling. “I guess I never really thought about it.”
“Where do you call home?”
“Petoskey up north. It’s a touristy area up near Traverse City. Just not as slammed. But Christmas is big, and they usually have ice carving contests and Christmas tree lighting with ice skating. It’s pretty this time of year.”
His eyebrows draw down. “You should go home for break.”
“Yeah, not happening. I’m not leaving you here alone. The only way I’ll go home is if you come with me.”
The sentence is out before I can stuff it back. And then it doesn’t feel like a joke at all. Wait, that is actually a great idea. Mom would lose her mind in a good way. Dad would be gruff about it and then sneak Quinn extra cookies or some shit. I can already see him on the ice rink downtown bundled up, complaining about the cold and secretly loving it. I can feel excitement at the idea of showing him what my Christmas is like and making him a part of it.
“That’s—” He starts as if he’s unsure if I was serious.
“A suggestion,” I say, fast, because the way his eyes have gone wide behind his glasses tell me I freaked him out by even saying it. “I promise I won’t kidnap you. And it’s not a meet-the-parents campaign. You’d even get the guest room, so you’d have privacy. And so much food…” I trail off. He’s put his taco down.
“Your parents don’t even know me.”
“She knows that you’re my roommate and that you helped me not fail. That would be enough for her to start buying you stuff for under the Christmas tree.”
“That sounds like—” He stops. He won’t say that it sounds like dating, and neither will I.
“It sounds like Christmas,” I say. “Or we can stay here and eat cafeteria food, and I can sleep in your bed with you. The only thing that isn’t negotiable is me getting on a bus without you.”
He stares at his plate. And I wonder if I pushed too hard. Is he going to tell me that we can’t do the friends with benefits thing now? Did I shift it too serious for him?
“No pressure,” I add when he doesn’t say anything.
He looks up, and I trace his face, trying to take in all his emotions.
“I’ll think about it,” he finally says.
FORTY
QUINN
He lets me think about it. In fact, when he doesn’t bring it back up the next two days, I think maybe I misunderstood the invite. Or hallucinated it. I almost ask Christine if people invent conversations when they want them to be real. But I don’t, because she would ask more questions, and then I would break one of our rules and tell her about Daniel. And then she will tell me it’s a bad idea to not only go with him to his house, but to suggest friends with benefits.
But the more I roll it around, the more appealing it sounds to meet the people who made him who he is.
And I know that’s not part of our deal.
No one has to tell me that it’s basically the opposite of friends with benefits. Meeting the people who made him who he is—that’s data I’m not supposed to want. I don’t need an internet search to tell me that. I want it anyway. All of it. I want to see the house that taught him how to smile the way he does. I want to know if he was loud as a kid. I want to stand on a frozen lake with him and have his family assume I’m someone to him, even if I have a notebook that says I’m not.
He won’t know that’s why I say yes. Right?
He’s sitting next to me, scrolling on his phone while I pretend to read. I’m pretty sure we are the only two left on our floor, if not the whole building. Christine left yesterday morning. And Lincoln has been busy. So it’s been just the two of us, except for when he left to pick up his friend, Luke, from the hospital. He’s been somber since he came back. But I don’t want to ask about it. I’m sure it’s emotional seeing a friend hurt.
“Daniel.”
He looks up too fast, as though he’s been waiting for me to say his name.
“Yeah?”
“The invitation. To your parents’. Did you mean it?”
