Page 16 of Haunted

“Anyway, I got you some things,” he says, taking out his shopping bag.

“You didn’t have to.” I cough and then apologize.

Lance shakes the bag, and I look at the haul that just landed on his bedspread. I hold up a green toothbrush, tapping the cartoon character on the handle. “And what inspired this choice?” I try to laugh, but it sounds painful, so I stop.

“I remember you liked Kermit,” Lance says, looking awkward.

“When I was seven!” I say, but I’m smiling anyway. “But thank you. I’ll think of you every time I put it in my…” I look up and I’m pretty sure I just turned crimson. “Oh.”

“That’s a bonus I didn’t anticipate, but I don’t hate it.” He grins at me.

I look down so I can dodge my own embarrassment. “And a razor, thank you.”

“I didn’t get you any shaving cream because you can use mine.”

“Oh. Thanks.”

He shifts so his back is against the bed. I sit cross-legged on the mattress, looking down at him. Neither of us says anything for a minute. Bree is laughing at something down the hall. The TV murmurs in the living room.

“Lance?”

“Yeah?”

“What are we doing?”

He tips his head back to look at me. “What do you mean?”

“I mean—the whole country thinks we’re together. Your dad introduced me as your boyfriend. And I don’t even know what this is. Are we—is this—” I pull at a thread on his comforter. “I’ve never done this before. Any of it.”

“Me neither,” he says. “Not with a guy. Not with anyone I actually—” He stops. “I don’t know what the rules are.”

“There are rules?”

He laughs, and the tension cracks just enough. “Probably. I think we’re supposed to define the relationship, or DTR, or whatever. I saw it on TikTok.”

“Great. So we’re getting our relationship advice from TikTok.”

“I mean, where else would we get it?” He turns around properly so he’s facing me. “Look. I know this is the worst possible timing. You’re going through—everything. And now there’s a picture of us on the national news, and people are saying things, and it got public before it even got private. That’s not fair to you.”

“It’s not fair to you either.”

“I don’t care about fair. I care about you.” He says it so simply that it sounds like a fact, like gravity. “I just don’t want to add to the pile of things you’re carrying right now. So if you need this to be—nothing, or—slow, or—whatever you need it to be, I’m okay with that.”

I look at him sitting on his own bedroom floor because he took the floor without even thinking about it. I think about the Kermit toothbrush. I think about “you can use mine.”

“I don’t want it to be nothing,” I say.

His whole face changes. “Okay.”

“But I don’t know what I’m doing.”

He reaches up and squeezes my hand. “We’ll figure it out.”

“Actually, can you do something for me?” he asks.

“Sure.”

He stands up and goes to the top drawer of his computer desk. “I’m going to get it framed,” he says. “Can you sign it first? Just in case you’re ever a famous artist and I can say I knew you?” He hands me the drawing I gave him a few weeks ago—Lance in a full suit of armor with no helmet, sword raised, fire and chaos behind him. I did it in the back of my math notebook and tore it out for him because he laughed when he caught me at it.