“Ahhhhh, okay. Uh, I need to have a serious talk with you and Nate about scaring me. Honestly, I’m thinking of making you two wear bells.” I keep my pace up and head to the elevator bank, but Cass is right in step with me.

“Right, got it. Won’t scare you. Now spill it about mister pecks and abs,” she says, pulling her sunglasses down on her nose to give me the full effect of her raised and suspicious eyebrows.

“How did you even see him?”

“Oh, easy. I was walking in with Nate, and he saw you both across the street. Then I stayed to watch for a while longer…pretty much because I’m super nosy, and I wanted to see what had him so pissed off. I get it now. That guy’s hot.”

Uhg. Nate witnessed that. I’m pretty sure I ceased any and all flirting immediately, but still. I wouldn’t be happy if it were Nate walking home with the female equivalent of Tucker. There’s a small piece of me that likes that Nate is jealous. We don’t talk about our feelings much, and I know that’s partly my fault. We talk about my fears mostly, and we’ve broken through so many of them. But we don’t talk about how he feels about me, and how I feel about him. Not really.

There was that brief moment, where he told me he loved me in the car on our way back from the airport, and when he said those words, my entire heart filled up with a joy I didn’t know existed. But then it left me just as fast—when he said he didn’t mean it. And I’m too afraid to open up that conversation again. Because I don’t know how to be in a relationship—when you’re not sixteen, and in high school, and going on dates that require you to be home before ten on weekends.

I told Josh I loved him almost immediately. We both said the words while making out in my driveway. But I know now we didn’t really mean them then. I meant them eventually, months after we’d been dating, when I realized how important and special he was to me. But I must have said them a hundred times before, and every time they were empty. I think that’s why I’m so afraid to say them to Nate, because I don’t want him to say them back just because he thinks he has to—like lines in a play, a reaction to my action. I don’t want this to be like when I was sixteen.

“So, I’m pretty sure you’re going to have to deal with that conversation with mister hottie,” Cass says to me as the elevator slides open, and she steps outside. She sees Nate waiting outside our door first, and when I step out and see him, shivers run down the length of my entire body. He. Looks. Pissed!

The closer I get, the more he tries to force coolness, but I can see there’s something simmering underneath. He kisses my cheek quickly, then sits backward at my desk chair, his legs wrapped around either side, and his knees bouncing up and down, just teeming with jealous energy.

I toss my backpack on my bed and pull my shoes from my feet before crawling up next to it, getting out my notebooks. Cass, obviously feeling the tension, just smiles at Nate with a nod and then leaves our room, actually shutting the door behind her. Oh god.

“What time do you think we should leave?” I ask trying my best to pretend like everything about the atmosphere in our room is normal.

“I don’t know, it takes an hour to get there, so five-ish?” His knees are still bobbing. I can see the motion from the corner of my eyes.

“Okay, I don’t need to do much to get ready, so we can still eat something before we leave.”

“I’m not that hungry,” he says.

Oh.

And now we have silence. I’m busying myself flipping through pages of my notebooks, pretending to look for something, just to avoid eye contact, and Nate’s knees are still jumping, and his eyes are still on me, and there’s still this awful awkwardness. And then suddenly they stop, and Nate stands.

“All right, just come by when you’re ready,” he says before quickly escaping through the door. The second it shuts behind him, I flop down on my back. What the hell? Cass comes back in a few minutes later.

“Girl, what did you do to that boy?” she asks.

“Honestly, I have no idea. He just sat here, silent, but edgy. I mean SUPER edgy. And then he left.”

“Awe, jealousy is cute on him,” she says, crawling up next to me and laying her head next to mine. I just look at her with my eyes wide. “You should use this. I bet you could get him to do anything you want right now.”

“Okay, when did Paige take over your body? Bring back Cass,” I say, standing to change into a comfortable pair of jeans and a blue shirt for the basketball game.

“Hey, we are twins. Some of those characteristics are genetic,” she winks.