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Ishivered like a chihuahua around ten o’clock, but it wasn’t from the cold. No, I paced the foyer of my house, second-guessing Margot’s probably horrible idea. All the “what ifs” ran through my mind. What if my parents had set up cameras in the house and never told me? What if a neighbor spotted Harry coming inside? What if one of the twins woke up? What if, what if, what if?
However, the adrenaline rush at the idea of Harry coming over kept me from chickening out. Sneaking a boy into the house after the twins were asleep and my parents were gone sounded crazy—which it was—but I couldn’t deny it was also a little exciting.
A car drove down the street slowly, as if looking for a specific house. I recognized it instantly as Harry’s red sedan. He parked on the opposite side of the street, right underneath the lamppost.
He’s here, my brain screamed, and I stood in the window like a creeper, watching the sedan’s door pop open, watching a figure emerge.Harry’s here. Harry’s at your house. Act cool, act cool.
The idea of acting cool sounded so freaking elusive.
I pulled the door open as Harry started up the cobblestone walkway, his gaze still upturned at the house. His expression looked awestruck, in a way that made nerves tumble inside me, knotting together like string.
When Harry realized the front door opened, his eyes fell to mine, greeting me with a smile. I watched him take me in, from my pink dress shirt and fitted pants up to my curly brown hair. “This…this is ahouse. Actually, I take that back. This place is a mansion. My house is probably the size of the bathroom.”
“Is that a bad thing?”
“No,” he said quickly, stepping into the foyer and glancing away. I winced inwardly when his gaze settled on the antique picture hanging on the wall above the fireplace. “Just surprising, is all.”
“Imagine how much it costs to heat it,” I said with a chuckle, though my joke didn’t sound as funny as it did in my head. I shut the door behind him, pulling my cardigan tighter around me. “The twins are asleep upstairs.”
“So, no raging parties, huh?” he asked with a smile, his jokes infinitely funnier than mine, but my chuckle came out tense. I still wasn’t used to being around him as Destelle. Gone was the confidence, the flirting banter. Totally gone. I stared up at him now, trying not to hyperventilate. “Where are your parents?”
“They went upstate for the weekend. They have friends there they like to visit.”
Harry slipped his hands into his jeans pockets, rocking back on his heels. “That’s cool.”
We stood awkwardly over the threshold for a moment, and my mind spun for a topic. “Did the gig go okay?”
“Yeah. A lot more people are staying after to talk, which is fun. I had to pry myself away, but this was definitely worth it.” He once more scanned the open foyer.
I smiled, but it immediately faltered when his words seemed to take a different meaning. Just hanging out with me was worth it to him? What did I even invite him over here for? Gosh, what did hethinkI invited him over here for?
I realized, so suddenly, how this looked. Me inviting a cute boy over after dark, no parents home. Nervousness and anxiety hit me so hard that I felt dizzy, and I desperately wished I could’ve taken this invitation back.
“Can we go look at the stars?” I all but blurted out, and then felt like a loser. The stars? Really? The last thing Harry would want to do would be to stand out in the cold, right? Not when he’d come all the way over here for…what?
Harry, though, proved my fears wrong when he nodded, taking a step toward the front door. “Sure.”
“Actually, let’s go out the back.” I wanted to reach out and grab his hand, to trail ahead and pull him behind me, but I…couldn’t. I was too chicken. “It’s probably easier to see without all the streetlights.”
That, or I was running less of a risk of someone seeing us.
I could just imagine Mrs. Cameron looking out her bedroom window and finding us on the sidewalk. She wouldn’t be able to wait to call my mother.
Harry followed me through our house, and I hurried along, not giving him any more time to look at pictures on the walls or gawk at the expensive furniture through our living room.
As our footsteps creaked along the floors, a thrill shot through me. I was breaking the rules as me. Not Stella. Destelle was breaking the rules, and she, well.
She kind of liked it.
I flipped off the porch light, casting us even further in the dark. The cloud cover wasn’t so thick that we couldn’t see the stars too clearly, but they were very faint. Despite that, we both looked up at the sky, shivering in the icy air.
Harry’s breath puffed in the cold air, and mine would’ve too if I hadn’t been holding it in. “Have you ever seen a shooting star?” he asked me, his voice quiet.
The snow on the lawn shifted, creating a hushed noise. Like sand falling in an hourglass. “I don’t think so. If I have, I don’t remember it. Have you?”
“Once. Not this past December, but the year before. New Year’s Eve.”
I looked at his side profile, so sharp and beautiful against the backdrop of the night sky. “Did you make a wish?”
