“Hmm?”
His smile is crooked, like the hangers still dangling in my closet. “Call me Henry.”
“All right,” I say, pulling my fingers out of the afghan and sitting up. “Henry.”
“In my time, to use sarcasm is to be disrespectful of the company one keeps.”
“Not here. Well, I guess sometimes it is here, too, but most people use sarcasm in a humorous way, or to lighten the mood.”
He sits in the swivel chair, his posture rigidly straight. “Example?”
“Well, I could tell my best friend I hate her and she’ll know it means I actually love her and don’t know what I’d do without her. Or my mom could ask me how school was and I could say great and really mean terrible, and she’ll know that by my tone and give me a hug or ask what’s wrong. Don’t people in your time do that?”
“I suppose so, on occasion. Although I must say, I have never heard anyone call me a—what was the word?”
“A brat.”
“Ah yes, a brat before.”
“Well, get used to it, Brightonsh—Henry. It’s the only way you’ll survive here.” Not that he needs to survive for long. Why am I telling him this anyway? He’s just going to go through the family archives, figure out whatever it is he needs to know, and then he’ll be back in his time before he knows what hit him.
One or two days, tops.
Just before bed I show him where the bathroom is and explain how the toilet works—which, believe me, is something I never want to have to do again. I hand him my baggiest sweatpants and an Ohio State T-shirt that’s a touch too big for me but will probably fit him like a second skin. While Henry changes, I go down to the garage and pull my old sleeping bag out of storage, careful not to make too much noise—Mom doesn’t sleep well these days and it’s easy to wake her. The sleeping bag’s dusty and smells like bug spray mixed with mothballs, but it’ll work. I’ve already set it up, wiping away the dust with a damp washcloth, when Henry tiptoes back to my room, zipping the drawstring back and forth on his pants.
Tight, loose. Tight, loose.
“Miraculous,” he says in a hushed whisper.
“Um, yeah. I guess.”
He drops the drawstring and starts inspecting his shirt, which is ridiculously tight and shows off Every. Single. Ridge. Of. Muscle.
My cheeks warm and I stare at the space above his shoulder instead.
“I do miss having long sleeves,” he says. “Tell me, do you not catch your death in such light fabric?”
“Well, we have this little thing called a furnace for the winter that keeps the house warm,” I say, “but this time of year you don’t really need it. If it gets cold at night, you just throw on another blanket, and if it gets cold during the day, you throw on a sweater. A sweater has longer sleeves,” I add at the confusion in his eyes.
“Fascinating.”
If anyone else had said it, I would have thought they were being sarcastic. But there’s wonder in his voice, and I know he really is fascinated.
I point to the sleeping bag. “I set up a bed on the floor. I can take it if you want the actual bed, since you’re a guest and all.” What can I say? My mother raised me right.
He bows his head. “I could not do that. I will take the floor.”
I’m about to say, Suit yourself and climb into bed, but as I turn away, I realize something.
I turn back. “Is it because I’m a girl?”
“Of course.”
Okay, well, just to make things clear. “And you’re a boy?”
He smirks. “I do believe so.”
“Okay, so here’s the thing. In my time, women are equal to men, which means I can sleep on the floor just as much as you can. I’d probably do it better, too,” I say, teasing him.
“How, pray tell, would you ‘do it better’?”
“I’d … sleep longer. And deeper.”
“Ah.”
“I’ll tell you what,” I say, grabbing my backpack from the corner of the room and rifling through the front pocket for my leftover vending-machine money. I pull out a quarter. “I’ll flip you for it. Winner gets the bed. Heads or tails?”
He crosses his arms over his chest. “Heads.”
I flip the coin in the air. It spirals end over end, lands in my palm and—
“Heads, it is.” There, I’d done my part for womankind, making everything fair and equal. “The bed’s all yours.”
I start to move toward the sleeping bag, but there’s a pressure on the backs of my knees and my legs fly out from under me. My head whips back and my neck presses into Henry’s arm.
“What are you doing?” I hiss.
“Carrying you.” He crosses the small room in one and a half steps and drops me on the bed. “I appreciate your character, Madam, but my conscience cannot allow me to let you sleep on the floor. I understand things are done differently in your time, but please, humor me.”
“But I—”
“And remember,” he says, peering down at me, “I am your guest, and you would not want me to feel uncomfortable. Correct?”
“I, um, yeah.” I can’t stop staring into his eyes. They’re brighter now than when I first noticed them, when he was in the shade of the wood’s canopy. Green like Easter basket grass. Like the neon-green crayon every kid whittles down to a nub because it makes Ariel’s flippers or their Daytona race car pop off the page. “I guess.”
“Good. I am glad to see not everything has changed in the past two centuries.”
He pulls away from me and I snap back into myself. Is this what Meredith goes through every time she’s around a boy she likes? Not that I like Henry, but he is the first boy who’s ever slept over in my room. Okay, he’s the first boy who’s ever been in my room.
I hate it. It makes your tongue stick to the roof of your mouth and your mind go completely blank. It takes away every ounce of your control, and I’ve never liked not being in control. It could get you killed in my line of work, so whatever this is that’s making me notice Henry’s eye color and his accent, making my stomach do a little flip whenever he speaks, and making me forget that I don’t even know if I can trust him, it needs to stop.
Now.
Henry slides into the sleeping bag and I turn out the lamp on my bedside table so I can’t look at him anymore. Too bad it’s almost a full moon and silver light pools through my wispy curtains, gliding across his skin and making his cheekbones appear even sharper, deepening the shadows beneath them.
I roll away and stare at the door instead.
“Good night, Winter,” he says, his voice soft and warm, like candlelight. “And thank you.”
One corner of my mouth lifts into a smile. “You’re welcome.”
I close my eyes but I don’t sleep. Instead I think of all the ways this plan could go wrong. Of all the ways I could get caught—and that wouldn’t even be the worst of my problems. This whole space-time continuum thing is extremely delicate. One wrong move and I could implode the universe as we know it, all because some guy wants to get his parents back and I think if I can help him do that, then maybe I can get my dad back, too.
And God help me—I’m a terrible person—but it feels worth it.