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Soft voices from inside her room catch my attention. I look over her shoulder, finding her TV on. I audibly swallow, knowing that she’s here and I got my answer—if she wanted to hang out with me, she would have come down.

“Okay, good.” I dip my chin and turn on my heel, feeling every bit as pathetic as I’m sure I look.

“Wait.” Her soft hand clasps around my bicep, before I can turn around. “Do you… do you want to come in?”

Relief floods my veins and I try not to show it on my face.

“If you wanted to hang out with me so badly, you could have just said something,” I tease, sliding past her and the doorframe.

She closes the door behind us and when I turn to look at her, the room feels much smaller than I remember. Taylor walks past me, right to the bed. I look between the dresser, littered with empty water bottles and coffee mugs, to the chair in the corner of the room that’s piled high with clothes.

“Your room is kind of a mess,” I say, moving an eye mask, a Kindle, and some kind of blow dryer from her bed.

“To you,” she smiles.

“No, love. It’s a mess.”

“Okay fine, but I know where everything is.” I raise my eyebrows in question. “It’s true. Look under the bed and you’ll find my pink claw clip and an earring. My blue-light glasses are under a brochure on the dresser, and my passport is in the bathroom, under the towel on the counter.”

How?

“Oh, and!” She jumps up, and rushes to the closet, pulling out a backpack. She sets it on the edge of the bed, digging through it.

“What’s with the trackies?” I ask, lifting my chin to her.

She pauses, staring at me in confusion.

“Your sweatpants,” I clarify, pointing at her lower half.

“You don't like them?” She frowns, looking down at her legs.

“I didn’t say that.” I like the way they sit dangerously low on her hips—hips that point to a place that I’ve thought obscenely inappropriate things about.

“They’re my favorite ones. I bought three others exactly like these, but for some reason, these ones just feel different.”

“They’re yours?”

“Ah!” She pulls a brown bag out of the backpack before dropping the bag ground and moving to sit next to me. “Who else’s would they be?”

“An old boyfriend, maybe?”

“Nope. No old boyfriends here.” She smiles, shaking the bag. “Plus, I’m not that sentimental.”

I don’t have time to dissect what she means because she opens the bag, smiling from ear-to-ear.

“Candy?”

“Not just candy, anassortment.” She pulls out a long, red, gummy-type candy while handing me a hard circular one thatappears to be covered in salt. I look inside and find chocolates and an array of sweets, all different sizes, and all different flavors, mixed together.

“How do you know which is which?”

“You don’t, that’s the fun part. It’s like Russian roulette.” She wiggles her eyebrows, taking a bite from the gummy. “Mmm, watermelon. Try yours.”

I plop the round candy in my mouth and my cheeks suck in against my will at the impossibly sour flavor.

“I think I lost.” My eyes squeeze shut as I shake my head, and Taylor’s laughter rings out through the room.

“Oh, that must have been the sour fun blast.”