“Nothing. I told you, we were looking at photos, and then we fell asleep. The end.” I nudge one of the slippers on the floor toward me with my toe. “Can you just let me go back to my room and act like this never happened?”

“I’ll let you go back to your room,” Oliver says. “But you should know that I’m not a good actor.”

* * *

True to his warning, Oliver maintains a thoroughly scandalized expression all throughout the morning, from when we bump into each other again at the breakfast buffet to when everyone regroups in the hotel lobby to when we pile into the bus for our next stop.

“Can you quit looking at me like that?” I ask, crossing my legs in the seat beside him.

He drops the scandalized face but only to peer over at me with unabashed curiosity. “You’re not sitting with Cyrus?”

“No,” I say. “I thought I’d talk to you.” Ever since I returned to my own room, where Daisy was waiting, wide-eyed and looking ready to burst with questions, I’ve spent the whole morning untangling my feelings in the daylight. And though I can’t guess at what might be going through Cyrus’s head after last night, I can be certain, at least, of what I want.

Oliver flashes me a grin. “And whatever did I do to deserve this honor?”

“I’m going to ask you a very obnoxious question,” I begin as the bus rumbles onto the road. “But I need you to answer me honestly.”

“Sure. Honesty is one of my best traits,” Oliver says. “Along with my good looks, natural charisma, impeccable style, shiny hair, and melodic voice, of course.”

“Okay, no comments on any of that—”

“Because there’s no need to comment on what’s objectively true,” Oliver says, nodding in understanding. “I get it.”

Just ask him. Say it. I take a deep breath and choose the most direct route possible: “Do you like me, Oliver?”

He pauses. Stares at me for what might be a full minute. “Like you, as in a let’s-make-out way?”

“Not really the wording I would’ve chosen, but yeah. Romantically. Not just as friends.”

Another pause. His voice is light when he asks: “Do you want me to like you?” As if he’s asking whether I want him to grab me a soda.

“I mean … it would be nice if you liked me as a friend, because despite my initial reservations, I like you like that a lot,” I say carefully, and brace myself for the fallout, my fingers gripping the seat belt. Maybe he’ll ask me to go sit somewhere else on the bus. Or maybe he’ll just spend the rest of the ride in sullen silence and never speak to me again, because what’s the point, if I don’t see him as a potential boyfriend?