Page 128 of Nothing Like the Movies

“Yeah, but what if you’re the villain?”

“Luring you to the creepy attic after making sure there’s no key to the door?” I asked, wanting to grunt in satisfaction when I felt her fingers grab on to the bottom of my shirt. “Then I’d say I’m really incredibly brilliant.”

“Yeah, and I know you’re not that,” she teased, and it felt like a win. Teasing was one of the ways we’d always communicated, so it felt closer to “right” with us when she forgot herself and mocked me.

I started up the stairs, and she fisted the back of my shirt, following. I honestly hadn’t expected her to do it, to touch me, so I was kind of in no hurry to get those stairs climbed.

And when we got to the top, it was surprisingly… empty.

“Where’s all the stuff?” I shined the light around, and the big open attic was almost completely vacant of things, aside from a few random small boxes and a rocking chair. The antithesis of the area down the steps.

“The ghosts have to live up here,” Liz said, her hands still on my lower back. “So they Marie Kondo’ed the space.”

“Makes sense,” I said, walking over to the window.

I tried sliding it open, and after a moment of sticking, it came free and,hell yes, I saw exactly what I’d been hoping for.

“Come on,” I said, unwilling to turn around because I didn’t want her to let go of my shirt. “This is perfect.”

I stepped through the window opening and out onto the roof, which, thankfully, was the perfect kind of roof to sit on. It didn’t have a crazy pitch, and there was a flat area just outside the window, as if the space was created especially for midnights under the stars.

“I’m not sure we should go on the roof,” she said, following me through the window, and then I heard her breathe a startled “Oh.”

I did look back at her then, and she smiled.

“Right?” I said, and she let go of my shirt. “Not too bad for being locked in an attic.”

“Those Dollanganger kids would’ve loved this.”

“Sit,” I said, pointing to the flat spot just outside the window that had a wooden ledge instead of shingles. “And who the hell are the Dollanganger kids?”

“FromFlowers in the Attic…?” She looked at me like she thought that would make sense as she tucked her dress—Good God that dress—underneath her and sat down on the roof. “The book?”

“Never heard of it,” I said, sitting down beside her.

“Probably for the best—it doesn’t hold up well to analysis.” She looked out at the night sky and said, “This is a little incredible.”

“Wow,” I said, resting my arms on my knees and looking down. Not only could we see stars, but we had a nice vantage point over the streets of the neighborhood. I hadn’t planned to get locked inan attic with Liz, but this was a spectacular setup. “So question number one.”

“I never agreed to twenty questions,” she said. “For the record.”

“Let the record show Miss Buxbaum is answering under duress. Question number one—what is your current favorite food, and why did you pretend Clark was your boyfriend?”

She looked surprised that I knew about the fake-dating thing (Clark, overcome with guilt, had confessed the first time I saw him in LA after the Omaha trip) but not upset. She shrugged and said, “I panicked when I saw you, and it just happened. And I’ve been all about the tacos lately. The street-taco scene in LA is ridiculous.”

“Interesting,” I said, thinking yet again how much she’d changed. “I haven’t actually had a taco in LA yet.”

She was looking out at the city when she asked, “What are you waiting for, Bennett?”

“For them to be free,” I admitted. “On-campus food costs me nothing, so basically B-Plate and Rendezvous are my new favorite restaurants.”

“Smart,” she said, looking over at me, and I wondered what she was thinking. Somehow I knew her brain was drilling into that, into the reality of my financial situation. “Somyquestion number one, asked under duress, is where the hell is Otis living these days?”

That made me laugh, because she’d always pretended to find my dog annoying while sneaking him table food through the backyard fence when I wasn’t looking. “He is now the adopted son of one Michael Young.”

“Shut up,” she said with wide eyes, forgetting all about the way she didn’t know how to act around me. “Really?”

I nodded and said, “Sarah and I couldn’t bring him with us to school, and I was afraid he’d be ignored if he lived with my mom. So Michael is now his father, and we have FaceTime visitations once a week.”

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