I pushed myself up to sit. The long, meandering night had finally hit me. It hurt to move. Franny leaned forward on her elbows and then turned to look at her legs before looking back at me. “Did you put a blanket on me?”

I nodded.

“And you stayed here on the floor instead of waking me up and having me lock the door behind you. Or sleeping in my bed.”

“Yeah.” I ran a hand through my hair, which was sticking up at all angles. Those ideas hadn’t even crossed my mind. Just the mention of her bed kicked me awake, imagining the thought of us in it. Not sleeping. God, I felt ridiculous.

“It’s”—she squinted at the watch on her arm—“ten twenty-four.”

“I haven’t slept this late since college,” I said, twisting to give my back a crack. “I’ve normally run six miles and done a bunch of work by now.”

“You’re a terrifying machine,” she said with a laugh.

“I’m sorry I ended up crashing here. I’ll head home.”

“Okay, or”—Franny’s hand was suddenly on me, my shoulder, fingering the edge of my button-down—“you could stay.”

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Three

Franny

“Stay.” Hayes’s voice was unsure, and his tone made me realize the gravity of what I’d just suggested. It’s why I’d kept extending our night, over and over again. I didn’t want our time together to end. I wasn’t ready for him to leave; I wanted his hand back in mine for a little bit longer.

“Yeah,” I said. “We could get some coffee, go to the farmer’s market. Make a day of it?”

And then it dawned on me: I was stalling. I was holding out because I knew where this was headed. And, god, I liked teetering in this spot, that moment when you’re strapped in and standing on the edge, about to jump out of the plane. This feeling sometimes felt better than the actual fall.

“Coffee,” he said. “And bagels?”

“Oh, definitely bagels.”

I grabbed some jeans and a tank top out of my drawers and shuffled into the bathroom, where I blotted my face with a makeup-removing wipe and brushed my teeth. I stared at myself in the mirror and remembered how, just days ago, I had told Hayes I didn’t want anything to happen between us. I realized now I’d been afraid, and it had been easier to shut things down than to actually say yes to the thing I wanted. I don’t know if it was the gelato, or the moonlight, or the magic of the Brooklyn Bridge, but somewhere over the East River I decided: Maybe it was okay to go for exactly what I wanted for once. And what I wanted was Hayes.