HALLE

NO DAY STARTS WELL WITH a phone call from my brother.

“Who’s dead?” I ask as I answer the phone and put it on speaker. I’m trying to transfer Aurora’s birthday cake into a box that will survive my drive to the hotel, while simultaneously trying to 1nish my book for book club and not fall over Joy, who is currently weaving around my feet.

Only an emergency would make Grayson ring me outside my birthday or a public holiday, and I honestly don’t feel mentally able to take on anything else, so it isn’t great timing.

“You, potentially. I’m your tsunami siren. Get to higher ground, Hallebear,” Grayson says.

“I watched your game last night, so I know you didn’t get a head injury. Try explaining, Gray. Just a straightforward explanation, please.”

“Mom says you’re not going home for Thanksgiving. She called Dad and he said you weren’t having it with him. She called me and I said I didn’t know what she was talking about. So I suspect any minute she’s about to call you.”

Managing my mom’s emotions is something I don’t have time for today. “Thanks for the heads-up. Look, I’m super bus—”

“Are you not going to tell me what’s going on?” he says, interrupting me midsentence.

“There’s nothing to tell. I’m working.” And avoiding Mom. And Will. And everyone else, if I’m being totally honest.

“What about Douche Bag? Is he not upset you’re working? You know Mom will recruit him to pressure you into calling out sick or something.”

“Douche Bag and I split up months ago, so I don’t think he’ll care, to be honest.” My phone starts beeping to indicate another incoming call. “Mom’s calling, Grayson. I gotta get this.”

“Wait! This might be the happiest I’ve ever been. Why did it take you so long?

Why didn’t I know this? I’m so proud of you.”

Grayson has never hidden how much he dislikes Will, so I wasn’t expecting him to hide how happy this breakup makes him. I know he’d like Henry, but I won’t be telling him, because I know the 1rst thing he’ll ask is why I only seem to kiss my friends.

“Because I didn’t tell anyone to avoid being burned at the stake. Look, I gotta go. Thanks for the heads-up.”

I disconnect from Grayson and accept Mom’s call. “Hi, Mom! I’m just getting ready to head out, can I call you back another time?”

Given how Mom totally ignores the fact I’m an adult with commitments and things to do, I’m going to assume the answer to that question is no. In true Mom fashion, she doesn’t shoot straight into what, thanks to Grayson, I know she’s calling for.

She asks what Maisie should do as her science fair project, then asks me to help her. Then if I think she should dye her hair darker for the winter. How she and my stepdad were called into Gigi’s school to talk about her not hanging out with anyone her own age, and that they’re worried for her social development. She wants me to talk to her. She asks if I’ve started planning the itinerary for our vacation at spring break, which I haven’t because no one would stick to it anyway.

As she talks, I mentally list all the other things I need to do before I head to the hotel for Aurora’s birthday sleepover. I give her the responses she wants when I should be telling her again that I’m too busy to talk, but my conformity eventually leads her to the point I know she’s calling me about.

“What are your travel plans for Thanksgiving? I know you and Will usually road-trip with Joy, but I was told he is Rying alone.”

She practically chokes out the word alone. “I was going to call you about it,

but I’m working over Thanksgiving, so I won’t be coming home. I’m working over Christmas, as well. It’s because I’m the newest employee; I have to if I want

to keep my job,” I lie. “And people have kids, so they already booked their vacation days. I know it’s disappointing, but it’s only one year.”

There’s a long stretch of silence. “You can’t begin to understand how disappointed this makes me. All of us. Your sisters will be distraught. And what about Will? This is really sel1sh of you, Halle.”

There’s a responsibility that comes with being the child that’s an extension of the parenting unit: never be the one to rock the boat. You’re the anchor that keeps everyone in place. There’s an unspoken requirement never to have problems you can’t resolve yourself quietly, and it’s a condition I’ve never failed to meet until now.

For as much as not telling my mom about Will was for self-preservation reasons, avoiding hearing everyone else’s thoughts and emotions about a situation that only impacts me was a factor, too. Don’t get me wrong; if I called my mom heartbroken, she’d be on the 1rst Right out here to comfort me. My family loves me as much as I love them, but my needs have never felt like anyone’s top priority, and my breakup would be no exception.

I’d be rocking the boat, and how can everyone else remain steady if I’m not anchoring us down? How can Will and I break up when nobody wants us to?

It’s time to put the whole thing behind me, and that’s the thing I focus on when I 1nally summon the courage I’ve been missing for the past couple of months.

“We broke up, Mom. A mutual agreement that we weren’t happy. I’m sure Will won’t care what I’m doing.”

Silence.

“All couples go through rough patches. Look at me and your father, we took a six-month break when we were in college. It’s normal.”

I don’t need a mirror to tell me what I look like because I can feel the tightness in the muscles of my face. I am the living embodiment of the word huh right now. “Mom… you and Dad ended up getting divorced.”

“After two beautiful children and many happy years together, Halle. One divorce doesn’t erase that. I know you have high expectations because of the books you read, but real people have Raws. You included. I’m con1dent you and Will can work it out, honey. He’s your best friend.”

“I really need to go. It’s my friend’s birthday and I’m hosting a sleepover party at the hotel. It’s going to be really bad if deliveries arrive before I do,” I say, hearing the defeat in my voice.

“Okay, honey. Call me soon, I need you to explain how to do some silly science thing for Maisie’s homework.”

“Can’t you just google it?”

“Probably, but you know I prefer it when you explain things to me. Anyway, get to work and give my love to your friend.”

“Bye, Mom.”

The call disconnects and I let out a loud, soul-deep groan before carrying on with all the things I need to do.

THE PENTHOUSE SUITE AT THE Huntington is bigger than my house.

It might be bigger than Mrs. Astor’s and my houses combined, in fact. Thankfully, Pete, my manager, helped me bring the various decorations up to the hotel while the hotel’s event manager coordinated other deliveries.

I’d love to pretend it’s because they want to help me, but it’s more likely that the event coordinator was given clear instructions from Aurora’s mom to do whatever I say, as well as her credit card to pay for all my requests. I think the coordinator was a little put out I was involved, but Aurora is very particular with what she likes, and her mom said I have to approve everything 1rst.

Helping set up is my way of an apology for stepping on her toes.

With the extra hands, everything is set up early, which gives me time to read Gigi’s latest English essay, catch up on messages from people wanting to join the Enchanted book club, and rewrite the same two lines of the chapter I wrote last night. I had such big goals when I started that book club, and I feel like I blink once between sessions until it’s coming back around. I want to give it more attention, but I don’t know how to 1nd the time.

I feel the same about writing, although recent events have caused inspiration to Row out of me. Sure, I rewrite every other word, but at least there are words on the page now. Even if, when I’m being totally honest, until the last week I de1nitely hadn’t been working on it as much as I should.

When the penthouse elevator doors open unexpectedly, someone a lot more interesting than a caterer steps out. “It’s very pink,” Henry says, looking across the living room of the suite. He’s not wrong. Between the balloons, food choices, and inRatable beds set up in front of the movie screen, it feels a little like Barbieland in here. “I feel like I just stepped into the middle of cotton candy.”

“That’s a funny way to say wow, Halle, you have such an eye for design,” I say

playfully as he strides con1dently across the room toward where I’m working. “Also, aren’t you supposed to be at the barber’s? Your hair is looking very not- recently-barbered.”

When he reaches me, he bends down to kiss my forehead gently while dropping his overnight bag next to the table I’m working at. “You smell good.”

I have the overwhelming urge to throw myself at Henry. I don’t because I don’t know if that’s cool, but I really want to. In one way, it feels strange to me that we haven’t talked about what, if anything, we are now, but I also kind of like not having another expectation to meet.

He’s been busy with an art project and hockey, and I’ve been organizing this event and getting on top of my other responsibilities, so it feels like we’ve hardly spent time together, but that was okay. It turns out I needed a little time alone to process my new feelings anyway. It’s what I like about Henry; he doesn’t expect me to act a certain way.

“Don’t distract me. Why aren’t you at your appointment?”

He sighs and drops into the chair beside me, quickly leaning forward to peek at my laptop screen. “It’s walk-in and I didn’t leave home when I was supposed to leave. Then I didn’t leave at my backup leave time, and I just kept staring at the time until I got to the point where if I did go to the barbershop and wait for the only guy I’ll let cut my hair, I’d de1nitely be late to this.”

“How do you ever get anything done?” I ask genuinely. “I would have dropped you oI if you needed someone to nudge you.”

He runs his hand over his hair, his now-longer curls moving under his palm. “I used to go with a guy on the team named Joe. I put him onto my barber when we met because his hair texture is the same as mine, and he hadn’t found a good one yet. It was our thing that we did together. Then we’d watch sports for a

couple of hours and hang out. He graduated and moved to Connecticut for law school, so now I have to go by myself.”

“You had a date day with your hockey friend? That’s so cute!”

I’m definitely smiling, but he isn’t. He rolls his eyes. “It wasn’t a date. It was two guys with the same barber going to get their hair trimmed at the same time. Then hanging out in the same place afterward.”

“So you got all your date experience from Joe, and now you’re passing it on to me? I love this. How wholesome.”

Henry moves forward to take my hands and pull me onto his knee. With our faces level he leans in, his lips practically brushing mine. “There’s nothing wholesome about the things I think about when I’m with you. Or when we’re apart.”

I rub my nose against his slightly and his breathing slows. I lower my voice. “Did you say the same thing to Joe?”

That one makes him laugh. “No, but there’s lots of things I say to you that I don’t say to anyone else. How long do I have you before everyone arrives?”

Henry’s 1nger travels over my thigh, tracing small circles and swirls while he listens to me talk. It makes it di cult to string a sentence together.

“Less than an hour. Aurora is at dinner with her mom and sister, then I arranged for a car to pick everyone up from her house. The event coordinator was supere cient, so the setup crew and deliveries 1nished early.”

“What do you want to do with time alone in a hotel?” he asks, his voice low as his mouth skims my jaw until his lips 1nd my neck. “After a week without me?”

My skin feels electric. Every cell in my body pays attention when Henry is near me, and the more he touches me the louder they scream for more. More touching, more pressure. Just more. It’s as exciting as it is totally terrifying.

“I want to go into my bedroom”—he mumbles an mmm of approval against

my skin—“and take oI our clothes.” He kisses my neck, and the will to continue dwindles with every microsecond. “And put on our personalized Aurora’s- birthday-sleepover pink pajamas.”

He stops and slowly leans back so I can see him and his dilated pupils. “We need to work on your delivery, but I’m okay with this plan. And it’s been so long

since I saw you totally naked…” His arm scoops under the back of my knees, and before I can react, he’s carrying me across the room toward the bedrooms. “Which one is ours?”

“You broke a rule!” I squeak, Rustered by being carried like I weigh nothing. “The same one you always break!”

“Tell it to the board, Captain.”

I point toward the door that’s slightly ajar. “That’s my room. You’re sleeping out here with the rest of the guys.”

Henry uses his back to push the door open properly and walks until he can place me gently on my bed. He crosses his arms and grips the bottom of his T- shirt, slowly pulling it over his head. It lands on the bed next to me. “We both know I’m not.”

Desire and anxiety are 1ghting each other to be my most dominant feeling. Yes, I want to have a repeat of last time, but here? When we’ll have to rush and then spend the night hanging out with everyone? I’m not sure I’m there yet. Even the desire to do anything with someone is such a strange new thing for me. “Henry…” I say, hating how meek my voice sounds, pushing myself up onto

my forearms to look at him properly.

“I know what you want, Halle. Do you trust me?” I nod. “Good. Close your eyes.”

I should tell him that I’m unsure, but I’m also curious to see what happens. It’s diIerent from how things have been in the past; my anxiety is rooted in being nervous about the unknown. It is, at its core, excitement as much as it’s apprehension.

Henry doesn’t touch me when my eyes Rutter shut. I hear him move around the room and the sound of a zip, followed by more shu ing. My heartbeat doesn’t know what it’s supposed to be doing and he still hasn’t done anything to me.

“Open your eyes, Halle,” he says gently.

Taking a deep, and hopefully discreet, breath, I slowly open my eyes. And immediately burst into laughter.

“I feel like a marshmallow,” he says, looking down at the satin pajamas he’s now wearing.

The small sense of relief I feel confuses me more than anything. “Baby pink suits you.”

Henry pulls the hem of the shirt and shakes his head. I love that his name is embroidered above the chest pocket just like his Titans T-shirts. “Everything suits me. It doesn’t mean I should wear it.”

“Your modesty is my favorite thing about you,” I tease. I sit up fully to get a view of the entire vision, and he really does look cute in pink.

“What’s the point of me being modest when I look good in everything I put on?” Taking a step toward me, he grips my knees to pull me to the edge of the bed, stepping between my legs. “I look good in nothing, too. I don’t think that’s something you want to 1nd out when people will be arriving soon.”

It feels like a question and a con1rmation that he understands me all in one. “I would really like for you to prove your claim,” I challenge, immediately

regretting my con1dence when his hands drop to the waistband of his pants. Holding my hands out in front of me in some kind of dramatic protest, I squeak, “Just not today!”

“I know. I’m trying really hard to know, Halle. I’m paying attention to everything so I can get things right with you.” Henry takes my outstretched hands and links them at the back of his neck, getting even closer to me. He kisses my forehead, then the tip of my nose, before moving away enough for me to see his face fully. “Just because we did something once doesn’t mean we have to do it again or somewhere you’re not comfortable.”

“I know. Seriously, I do know that, and I understand the whole continuous consent thing. I just”—don’t know how to word this?—“haven’t had the experience of someone making me feel like this. The experience of wanting the experience is a new experience for me, y’know? So the nerves of not having experience but wanting it is taking up a lot of head space.”

Does he know? Do I even know? I de1nitely don’t know.

“All I got from that is I’m so great at giving you experiences that you’re having experiences on experiences on experiences. I want to understand you. Can you explain in a diIerent way? Sometimes it’s hard for me to read between the lines. You’re better oI just telling me directly.” I love that he cares so much

about understanding me. “Maybe break it down into diIerent points. Start with the 1rst thing you said.”

I’m very aware that if I’m grown-up enough to want sex, I should be grown- up enough to talk about it, but boy do I want the ground to swallow me whole.

“I’ve never actively wanted someone the way I want you. I genuinely thought I was broken in some way for a really long time. I know I’m not, but that’s how I was made to feel, and it was hard to unlearn. So that’s the 1rst new experience.”

“Will didn’t make you horny? But I do?” Henry says, a de1nite hint of smugness to his tone. “Your 1rst new experience is horniness?”

Why did he have to word it like that? “Correct.” “What’s next?”

“I’m also experiencing wanting to do something about wanting you. Things were good with me and Will for the 1rst few weeks of our relationship—stop grimacing when I bring him up, please—but I still never had the urge to do anything further than kissing. I do now with you, but I also don’t know where the boundaries are. Like, what’s out-of-bounds for our friendship? The last time I started kissing my friend he became my boyfriend, and we both know how that turned out. I know you haven’t dated anyone, but what if the label is what made it go wrong? I kind of like having no expectations.”

“Where do you want our boundaries to be? What label will help you feel comfortable?” he asks so gently that I want to cry. He tries so hard with me when even I don’t know how to work out what I want. “I don’t not date because I have a problem with it. I’ve just never cared about labels, Halle. I just know I want you the way you want me. I’m good with doing whatever stops the noise in your head.”

“It’s cute that you think the noise in my head could ever be stopped,” I say playfully, attempting to lighten the very serious mood I’ve set in my attempt to explain myself. “But this brings me to my next experience, or inexperience, I guess.”

I should continue talking, but I don’t know how to word it. He nods, encouraging me. “Go on. I’m listening. I’m trying to understand.”

“I’m nervous, Henry. I don’t know what I’m doing, and what if I’m not good?” I say quietly. “I’m used to being a problem solver, and this is the one

thing I don’t know how to solve in advance. You have experience and I don’t. What if you decide you want to hang out with someone who can have more than one sexual encounter without turning her thought process into a freaking riddle that has to be broken down into sections to be understood? I just said that I like having no expectations, while knowing if you came over one day and said you’d been with someone else it would hurt.”

“I’m glad you saved that one until last, because I wouldn’t have been able to pay attention to the rest. Why would I hook up with someone else?”

My eyes narrow. “I give you a touching and vulnerable speech and that’s all you got from it?”

“It’s the only thing you said that doesn’t make sense to me, Halle. I don’t want someone else. I haven’t been with someone in any capacity since I met you. I didn’t even realize that it’s because I wanted you the whole time until recently.” “Yeah, but that might change. Will got tired of waiting for me to be ready an

—”

“And Will is a prick,” he interrupts. “But go on.”

“And I don’t want to lose you as a friend if you want to be with someone less… I don’t know what I am. Apprehensive?”

Henry cups my face with his hands, his warm palms heating my skin. “I wish you spent as much time imagining things for your book as you do imagining things that aren’t going to happen in real life.”

“Henry!”

His thumbs glide across my cheeks. “Halle, have you ever considered being chill for 1ve minutes?”

Luckily for him, he kisses me before I can argue, and his joke plus the tender way he touches me does a lot to ease the tension I’ve developed during this conversation. When his mouth eventually leaves mine, he hugs me tight. Something I didn’t even know I wanted until he did it.

Murmuring into my hair, he strokes the back of my head with one of his hands. “I might get to be the guy who gives you all your experience, Halle. That’s a big deal to me, too. I don’t want someone else with more experience; I want you. And if you decide I don’t get to be that guy, I’ll still be right here, trying to solve riddles to understand you so I can be your friend.”

“How do you manage to take all my bullshit and make it into something really sweet?”

He leans back, his hands reaching to cup my face. “For all you know, I’ve totally misunderstood everything, and I think we’re about to get married. Should we retrace your mental steps to make sure we understand each other?”

I groan. “Do we have to? It’s too embarrassing to say out loud again. Maybe I should have just joined a convent right out of high school.”

“You’re not allowed to be embarrassed; it’s one of our rules. What did you call it? Your touching and vulnerable speech. Let me slim it down. Experience one: I make you so horny that it’s making you reassess your whole life.” Give me strength. “Experience two: you want to do something about those urges with someone, ideally me, for the 1rst time instead of just yourself and your sex app. And experience three, which is actually inexperience three: you’re nervous about trying things you haven’t done before.”

“Bingo.” If this was a game show there would be buzzers going oI. I nod enthusiastically, because he’s said it far better than me even though I think he was trying to make me laugh. “Basically, I’m an inexperienced triple threat and it’s pretty busy in my brain currently.”

“We can handle it, Cap. We’re a team, so you have all the time you need. You already have the advantage that I am so much better for you than Will ever was. And I have a really great idea for getting rid of all the thoughts in your head. You just need to lie back and take oI your pants. I can de1nitely get you to be chill for 1ve minutes.”

It’s the mood lightener I need, and I’m so grateful that we can have these types of conversations in a healthy way. With Will they always turned into arguments. I beam at him. “Your problem-solving skills are unmatched, but I think this time I’ll pass, thank you. And no, I’ve been managing a family since birth. I haven’t had a chill day in my life. My natural state is to think of every eventuality.”

“Me and another woman can be crossed oI your list of eventualities. Waiting isn’t the big deal Will has made it out to be, I promise.” The elevator dings loudly outside the room, followed by the sounds of multiple voices, making

them very early. “Let me kiss you and show you how much I’m not interested in other people.”

He closes the gap between us quickly, kissing me with the determination of a man with something to prove.

And right at that moment is when the bedroom door opens.