There’s a silence, and I pick up the remote. “So, what should we watch?” I ask, wondering how long I actually have to watch TV with him before I can get out of here. I figure it’s only a matter of time before he brings up Kelly’s article and gives me the whole “I think we should only be friends” or “I think you’re cool, but I could never date a roommate” speech. I glance nervously at Sam the cameraman, who’s the one taping us right now. Getting humiliated is never cool, and is even worse when it could be broadcast to the nation. I wonder if I should bring it up first. You know, that whole “the best defense is a good offense” thing or whatever. Maybe I should say something like, “Can you believe all those LIES Kelly printed? NONE of it is true—she’s such a LYING jerk. All she does is MAKE THINGS UP and LIE.”

“Hey,” Drew says, taking the remote out of my hand. I can feel my skin get hot where his hand touched mine. He looks at me seriously. “Are we cool?”

“Of course!” I say, thankful he’s going to spare me the I-don’t-like-you-in-that-way speech. “Are we cool?” is obviously code for “You know I could never date you, right, so we will never speak of this again, okay, you delusional fool?” “Why wouldn’t we be?”

“I don’t know. Things just seem kind of sketch since that one night.” He waits for me to say something, but I keep quiet. “I don’t want things to be weird between us,” he finishes finally.

“Me neither,” I say vehemently. “I’m totally fine, I swear.”

“All right, cool,” he says, switching on the TV. “Now is it gonna be Tom Cruise or John Travolta? Think carefully before you answer—our whole friendship could hinge on whether or not you answer this question correctly.”

“It’s gotta be John,” I say. “Ever since Grease there has been no other choice.”

“Good answer,” Drew says, smiling at me. Heat rises through my body, and I’m not sure it’s a good thing that I got the answer right.

NOW

So that was that. After we got the initial contact out of the way, I was able get back to avoiding him, only this time with a clear conscience. I mean, I had thanked him for the book, so I didn’t owe him anything else.

The Kelly situation was slowly fading from my mind, I got the first post-sleeping-in-his-bed/post-newspaper-fiasco meeting with Drew out of the way, and Corey hadn’t said anything about me sleeping in another guy’s bed. It seemed like my life was on the upswing. And then something horrible happened, and things got worse than they’d ever been.