Giana rolled her eyes, leveling her gaze at me before she snipped the stem of an orange daisy-looking flower and plopped it into the vase. “Oh, come on, this is what we’ve been goading him to do this whole time. Remember? It was your idea to play the part of neglectful boyfriend.”

She said the words so playfully, like nothing had happened between us Friday night, like everything was completely normal and we were still faking a relationship.

Like we were nothing but friends.

“I just can’t believe it worked,” she almost whispered, shaking her head with a dazed smile as she finished the last of the flowers. She shook her head then. “Anyway, I need your help. What do I wear? And what do I do? I mean, we both know what watch a movie means.”

She waggled her brows with that, turning to press onto her tiptoes and reach for something on top of her fridge just before my fury made an appearance. I tried my best to school it before she turned around, tea kettle in her hand.

“Want some?” she asked.

I think I nodded. Or maybe I shook my head. I couldn’t be sure, because I was rounding into the kitchen with one thing on my mind. “So, wait, you’re just going to go over to his place and hang out?”

“Yes.”

I blinked. “You realize what that means, right?”

“Yes,” she said on a grin, almost like she was exhausted. “That’s what I was trying to say. I mean… what if he wants to… you know.”

I couldn’t fucking breathe.

“You don’t have to move fast.”

“What if I want to?”

The words shot from her lips, all smiles gone as she pursed them and leaned a hip against the stove. She folded her arms over her chest, lifting her chin a bit as I stared back at her.

“I’m ready,” she said. “I’ve been ready. I want it.”

My eyelids fluttered at hearing those words from her, desperation surging over me.

“I want to know what it feels like, what all of it feels like,” she whispered, her eyes falling to rest somewhere on the ground between us. She smiled, dazed, and then looked at me again. “Especially after the previews you’ve given me.”

She said it as a joke, even punctuating it with a little laugh as she took the kettle to the sink and filled it with water before setting it on the stove top and flicking on the burner.

“I just need to know what to wear. I mean, I want to be casual, comfortable, but also cute. Like, I know what to wear to a dinner date, but what do you wear when you’re just going to someone’s dorm?”