He smiled. “Secret family recipe.”
“Did you try the punch?”
“No.”
I looked at him, surprised. “Really?”
“Really.”
“Why not?”
He shrugged. “I wasn’t thirsty.”
“I was,” I told him, as if he didn’t know. “I just wanted punch, not happy punch, but all they had was happy punch. And then the grail. And then more punch.” I looked at him. “I was really thirsty.” I took a sip of hot chocolate. “This is yummy.”
“Thank you.”
“Adrian.”
“Yes?”
“Why are you nice to me?”
He smiled at me kind of funny. “Figured it was better than being mean.”
I absorbed this, took a sip of hot chocolate, then stated again, “Adrian.”
He smiled again. “Yes?”
“I won’t tell anyone your secret.”
He was merely a shadow sitting back in his chair. The smile slipped off his face and he didn’t respond for a long time.
“What secret?” he asked finally.
“That you’re…” I waved my hand around. “Y’know.”
He raised a brow. “Pretend that I don’t.”
I scrubbed my hand across my face, already regretting blurting this out. “That you don’t like girls. I won’t tell anyone.”
The blank look on his face seemed, for a moment, to be frozen in place. Then, very carefully, he leaned forward. “You won’t tell anyone that I don’t like girls?”
I nodded vigorously. I would take his secret to the grave. Especially if he kept giving me hot chocolate.
“Why do you think I don’t like girls?”
I made an incredibly unattractive pbbbbt sound with my lips. “’Cuz you wear sweaters. Your shoes cost more than my laptop. You’ve never gone on a date even once.”
Adrian stared at me. “So you think I’m—”
“Gay,” I interrupted very matter-of-factly. “My gay best friend. Except not, because I don’t have a best friend, and if I did, I think Trish would probably be it. You’re my gay study buddy. Except not really, because school is meh.”
Adrian dropped his head in his hands, and for a half a second, I thought he was crying. But then he looked up at me and he was smiling.
“You are a funny girl, Caitlin Holte. And you should probably get some sleep.”
I blinked at him and shivered. He frowned. “Are you still cold?”
“Kind of,” I said, head lolling to the side. I was too tired to un-loll it. “I can’t really feel my toes.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?” he asked, standing.
I blinked up at him. “You gave me pajamas.”
“Here.” He pulled me up and tossed back the sheet and blanket before setting me down again, swinging my legs onto the bed and tucking me in like I was a toddler. It felt wonderful.
“I’m stealing your bed,” I mumbled sleepily.
“That’s okay,” he murmured.
“No, it’s not.” With my last bit of energy, I grabbed hold of his shirt. “It’s your bed. Come here, to sleep.”
I expected him to say no. He probably found me repulsive.
But he pulled back the covers and crawled in next to me. “All right.”
I turned on my side, pressed my nose into his rib cage, and fell asleep.
5
IT’S MY PARTY, I CAN CRY IF I WANT TO
I was warm. That was all that mattered.
I was warm and comfortable and sleepy. So when the soft Caitlin floated past my ear again, I wanted to ignore it, to snuggle into whoever it was that was next to me and fall back into the delicious dream I’d been rudely awakened from. But someone whispered my name again, and the stubborn part of my brain felt obliged to respond.
“Hmm?” I mumbled.
“So you are alive,” the voice said. It sounded an awful lot like Adrian. Which was silly, why would Adrian be in my bedroom? Ridiculous. I was definitely still asleep.
“What are you smiling for?” he asked as I wriggled my head under his chin.
“You smell good,” I mumbled into his collarbone. After all, it didn’t matter what you told people in dreams. In dreams, if nowhere else, you should be honest. I pressed my cold nose against his warm neck and wrapped my dream-arm around Dream-Adrian’s waist.
“Caitlin, you need to wake up now. It’s four thirty.”
“Nurrr.”
“Come on, Caitlin, up,” he murmured. His hair tickled my face and I scrunched up my nose. Burrowing closer to the source of heat, I realized that my shirt was sliding off one shoulder—which was weird, because my pajama shirt wasn’t large enough to slide off my shoulder. I reached up and felt the fabric at my neck and realized that it wasn’t the heavy cotton I was used to; it was cashmere. I sure as hell didn’t own any cashmere. In fact, I only knew one person who did.
Slowly, I opened my eyes.
It was dark at first, and I wasn’t completely sure where I was. Then the hazy form of Adrian’s face materialized above me. I was huddled, leechlike, along the right side of his body.
I blinked.
“You all right?” he asked after a moment.
I blinked again. He was still there.
And I still had my arm wrapped around his waist and my leg hooked around his knee.