Jasper shot me another plaintive glance before he opened the door. “Hey.”

“Oh thank God, you’re awake. Can I come in?”

There was a moment of silence. Then, “Of course.”

I looked up again to see Noelle stepping past Jasper and into the room, freezing in the doorway when she saw me.

Without makeup and wearing sweatpants and a large knitted sweater, she looked like a completely different person from the stompy boots–wearing, asshole-punching girl I knew. Her voice sounded uncharacteristically unsure when she said, “Sorry, am I interrupting something?”

“No,” Jasper said, rubbing a hand over his eyes. Gesturing at the screen, he added, “We were just hanging out and watching TV.”

Noelle slowly made her way over to the bed. I scooched over to the very end of it to give her enough space as she flopped onto her back, her legs hanging off one side.

Jasper paused the show before he moved towards the bed as well. He sat down on the other end, three thousand light-years away, and reached a hand out to lightly nudge her shoulder. “Is everything okay?”

“Yeah. No. I’m not sure.” She groaned and flung an arm over her eyes to block out the light. “It’s Evelyn.”

I sat up a little bit straighter at that. “What about her? Did something happen?”

“She’s okay, don’t worry. Has she ever talked to you about her nightmares?”

“Yes.”

“Tonight was worse than usual. So I did her makeup.”

“You did her makeup?” Jasper incredulously echoed.

“Yes, to help her calm down and make her feel better—I swear it made sense in the moment.”

“All right . . . What happened then?”

“Nothing happened.”

Jasper frowned. “Then why are you here?”

Noelle sat up, looking from Jasper to me and back. “If either of you tells anyone this I’m gonna have to kill you. Do you promise not to?”

We both nodded.

“Okay. Listen, I literally have no idea if it was the fairy lights or the shitty indie music, but I think I might like Evelyn. Like, a lot.”

Jasper’s face suddenly split into a wide grin. I knew we were both flashing back to the night in the park in Gloomswick, to Evelyn lying in the grass, pink-cheeked and a little bit tipsy as she gushed about her crush on Noelle.

“Praise the Lord, she’s finally realized it!” Jasper said, dramatically spreading his arms. “So, did you kiss her or not?”

“No.” Even I could hear the regretful tone in her voice. “She was still so shaken after her nightmare, I didn’t want to throw her off even more. I really, really wanted to though.”

Suddenly, I couldn’t even be mad that she had interrupted us.

There was something terribly endearing about the way Noelle spoke about Evelyn, every syl able softer than the one before.

“Would you look at that, Noelle Daniels is actually a giant softie,” Jasper teased, as if reading my mind.

“No, I’m not—”

“Softie.”

“No—”

“Soft.”

“Jasper, I swear—”