Page 78 of Eye of the Beholder

I lurch upward as quickly as I can and manage to grab the front of his shirt. He teeters off balance and falls face-first into the snow next to me. I quickly scoop up as much snow as I can in my arms and pile it on top of him. Then I haul myself up and brush off, dancing from foot to foot from the cold. My shirt and jeans are wet, but not as soaked as his will be. I grin and head toward the front door.

When Cohen extricates himself from the snow, I’m already halfway to the door. He holds his hands up in a sign of surrender and then brushes himself off.

“You started it,” I point out.

He grins. “I would do it again.”

“I bet you would,” I say. I push my front door open and jerk my chin at it. “Come on,” I say.

He could just go back to his house. I know that. But…then he wouldn’t be with me.

And I don’t want him to go.

I sigh as I watch Cohen come toward me, stomping his feet hard and rubbing his hands over his head to get the snow out of his hair. What am I going to do about him?

“I’m home,” I call when I step inside. “Cohen’s with me. We’re going to my room.”

“Hi, Cohen,” comes my dad’s cheery voice. “Haven’t seen you in a while. How’ve you been?”

“Good,” Cohen calls back, smiling even though he can’t see my dad. Then he looks at me, his eyebrows raised. “Your room?” He grins. “Isn’t this all moving a little fast?”

“Shut up,” I say. “I’m just getting you a towel and a dry shirt.”

All things he could find at his own house. But he doesn’t say anything about it.

“Leave the door open, sweetie,” my mom calls.

My face turns red, but Cohen probably can’t tell if my face is anywhere as red as his already. “I will,” I say. I pull off my shoes, and Cohen does the same. He follows me silently to my room, and I feel suddenly nervous. What if he doesn’t like it?

I mean, it doesn’t actually matter. But…maybe it matters to me.

I take a deep breath, stop in front of my door, and open it. “Welcome to my sanctuary,” I say, and we step in.

24

Cohen

Idon’t know entirely what’s happening with Mina and Jack, and I don’t really want to know details, but Idoknow that they’re not exchanging vows any time soon. Because a girl head-over-heels for a guy doesn’t look at someone else the way Mina looked at me. She also doesn’t invite me to her house for something I could just as easily find at my own. I have my own towels and my own dry shirts. She knows that. And yet here I am, right outside her bedroom.

So, as much as I’ll keep telling Lydia that nothing’s going on, I’ll also keep an eye on that situation. Because I’m pretty much past the point where I can convince myself I’m not feeling anything for Mina. I am feeling things. A lot of things. Some of them are familiar—like the swoop in my gut when I saw her in that ridiculous dress of Lydia’s or the frankly surprising surge of jealousy when she said she and Jack were still going on dates.

But some of them are new. I have never felt anything like what I felt when she said she’d missed me. It’s stupid, I know. But it made me…happy. Just really happy. I’ve been happy before, obviously. But this was different.

And I’ve never felt anything like the sadness that accompanied the jealousy I felt about her and Jack. I’ve been trying not to think about it. Sadness isn’t really my thing.

I’ve also never wanted to kiss someone this badly. I try to avoid thinking about that, too. I’m not going to make a move while she’s trying to get things going with Jack. But if that doesn’t work out…well, all bets are off.

When Mina swings open her bedroom door, I don’t know what to expect. But as soon as she turns on the light, I can see that the room is quintessentiallyher. I step in, smiling as I look around. There are flowers everywhere—on her bedspread and in actual vases around the room—and the walls are a pale yellow.

I turn to her. “I didn’t know if your room would be like this”—I gesture around—“or if it would be some unfortunate combination of grays and whites.” I’m about to sit on the edge of her bed before I remember my jeans are wet, so I remain standing instead

“Shut up,” she says, but she smiles. She opens the top drawer of the dresser in the corner and begins to dig through it. “You, I believe, are the only person who’s ever been in here. Other than family, I mean.”

I grin. “I’m honored.” It comes out like I’m joking, but I’m not.

She tosses a shirt to me, and I catch it. I hold it up. It’s a t-shirt that looks like it might actually fit me. It is, predictably, gray.

I frown. “I thought Lydia told you to get rid of all your baggy clothes.”

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