no spoken word | truly, devious

by caughtontape (orphan_account)

Summary:

Stevie snorts. “Ah, yes, my chosen field of study: kicking criminal ass.”

“You’ve gotta admit, it has a ring to it.”

“You’re not a published author for nothing.”

They grin at each other, and some of the weight Stevie’s been carrying around for the last two days loosens and lifts. Things with Nate are so easy.

She shouldn’t try to complicate it.

ACT I : AUTUMN

It begins, as many things in Stevie’s life do, with a murder.

Unfortunately, this isn’t your typical true-crime-podcast-worthy killing; it’s not the mysterious demise of a millionaire, or the tragic passing of a teen girl fallen prey to a serial killer. In fact, it’s not the death of a person at all. Rather, the victim is the third cardboard box Nate is viciously slicing open in the living room of their new apartment.

The deal they made when Stevie decided on Harvard and Nate decided on finally starting to write a new series went something like this: They’d lease out a place near campus, split rent. Stevie would get to rave about gruesome, bloody true crime content, and Nate would get to half-acknowledge her as he scrawled out a new chapter outline on the back of the takeout menus to the Chinese place that was half the reason they chose the apartment complex they did. Stevie would get to hang her string lights that Janelle rigged to only light up at night, because she’s nocturnal at this point, and Nate would get to tape up all his Lord of the Rings posters out in the open instead of keeping them rolled up in the back of his closet. They would have joint FaceTimes with Janelle and Vi every Friday, and Stevie would call David when she could pencil him into her new schedule. Nate would do the dishes, Stevie the laundry. He’d walk her to and from her car if she ever went out or came home late. She’d give him new material for his writing, a half-planned series of mystery thrillers that his publisher had greenlit. They were Stevie and Nate; best friends and reluctant crime-solving duo. They would make it work.

Now, standing with two more boxes hefted in her arms as Nate decimates the one with their plates and silverware in it, Stevie isn’t so sure. He looks like he’s about to slice his own hand off.

“Do you think they’d make us pay for the damage if you bled out all over the floor?” she asks, setting their boxed-up coffee-makers down with a flourish (they both like their coffee in ultra-specific ways, and after discussing it for a ridiculous period of time, they’d just decided on bringing their own stuff). Nate rolls his eyes at her, but she catches a hint of a smile in the lamplight. It’s late, and the room is half-lit by the living-room lamps Janelle gifted them when they announced their arrangement-- she’d lamented the fact that she couldn’t join them, but they all agreed to call and text as often as they could. So, thanks to Janelle’s impeccable taste in mood lighting, Stevie and Nate and their many, many boxes are painted in sweeping shades of warm orange and peach, a sunset at midnight.

“Nah, you know enough about how to clean up that kind of thing,” he replies. Stevie laughs, lets some of the exhaustion drain out of her. Moving is hard, even when your parents are brainwashed and you spend eighty percent of your time yelling at them about politics. She still hasn’t shaken the feeling of her mom’s hug all these hours later; it was clutching and desperate and made her itch.

“Fair point. Hey, shouldn’t you have dragged that to the kitchen before you opened it?”

Nate sighs defeatedly, sitting back on his heels. In the car, she hadn’t noticed the dark circles under his eyes. He looks beat, and something catches and pulls in Stevie’s chest. He drove them the whole way here. Normally, she isn’t this emotional, but he’s her best friend and he looks like he always does whenever he gets involved in one of her hair-brained schemes: drained and half-annoyed and entirely too tired for someone his age.

Stevie takes the box from him, carries it into the kitchen in long, quick strides because it really is heavy. He trails after her, and she spins on her heel after setting the plates on the kitchen counter.

“Nate, as your best friend and closest confidant, I’m ordering you to go to sleep.”

His face twists into a scowl, so uniquely Nate that she almost laughs. “You are so not my closest confidant.”

She puts both of her hands on his shoulders and steers him back into the living room, where the couch they picked out at a quaint second-hand store is nestled in a corner.

“Sleep. Now.”

“Stevie, we have a ton of crap to unpack--”

She crosses her arms and levels him with A Look. Nate sighs and rolls his eyes again, sinking down onto the couch cushions with all the melodrama of a child being told to take a nap. Stevie grins, tousles his hair, and heads into the kitchen again to load the plates into cabinets.

Two hours and fifteen boxes later, their place is coming together. It’s nothing showy yet, because neither Nate nor Stevie are maximalists, but everything is finally in its proper place: plates in the cabinets, utensils in the drawers, throw pillows and the quilt Vi sewed them on the couch surrounding a sleeping Nate. He looks uncharacteristically peaceful now, which makes her want to snap a picture of him and send it to Janelle, so she does with minimal regret. He’ll be pissed once he checks the group chat, but it’s worth it.

Stevie surveys the living room one last time before draping another blanket over her friend and switching off the lamps.

He’ll probably wake up with a crick in his neck in the morning, but she’s too tired to drag him to his room. When she gets to hers, which is right across the hall, Stevie pulls out her phone again to check her notifications. Four texts from her parents, five from Janelle and Vi in the group chat in response to the picture of Nate, two from David.

She smiles to herself and opens his first, falling back onto her bed.

Asshole <3 : Hey weirdo, have you and Nate gotten to your new place yet? Text back whenever you can. Or call. I’m speaking at this anti-Dad rally tomorrow so I don’t know when I’ll have time to talk then. Love you!

Asshole <3 : Alright, I guess you’re there by now but you’re probably really busy, I get it. Here’s to hoping there isn’t too much black mold in your new place. Sleep well, idiot.

Stevie feels a pull deep in her chest. She knows this thing with David might not last; it’s a gamble, long distance always is, but he’s just… so sweet. She still can’t believe it herself, sometimes; he really knows how to subvert typical bad-boy stereotypes. She smiles at the screen and types out a reply. It might not last, but she wants to make the best of it while it’s here.

Evil Genius : I’m so sorry I’m late responding! We got here super late & then had to unpack all our shit, which took… quite a while, evidently. I hope everything goes okay tomorrow, you’ll be great as always! Be careful & call when you can. Love you, dickhead. <3

Satisfied with her response, Stevie sets her phone on her nightstand and flops back on her pillows. In the dark, she can almost pretend she’s back at home. Or at Ellingham. The thought makes her choke up, suddenly— she wasn’t planning on missing it as much as she does. And as much as she’s excited about Harvard, she’s also admittedly anxious. Nate won’t be there for her to fall back on in social situations; she’ll be completely alone. Making friends has never been her strong suit, and—

“Hey. You could’ve woken me, y’know.”

Nate is in her doorway. Stevie sits up just as he flicks on her light (an asshole move, honestly), wiping hurriedly at her eyes. Too late— he’s already seen. Concern flickers across his face, and he makes his way into her room. Stomach sinking, Stevie sighs and tucks her hair behind her ears, trying to look like less of a trainwreck.

“What, you were just gonna have a crying session without me? We both know our contract clearly states that if one of us is being sad, the other has to join them in solidarity,” Nate says, sitting gingerly on— and nearly missing— the edge of the bed with all the grace of someone who’s been awake for sixteen consecutive hours.

Despite herself, Stevie laughs.

“Hey— no laughing. Just sadness. What’s bothering you?” He asks, tired eyes searching her face. She shrinks back under the scrutiny, a pesky habit from being under her parents’ microscope. Nate seems to understand and surveys her comforter instead. It’s dark blue, with tiny yellow stars stitched around the edges; a housewarming gift from Vi, who’s experimenting with sewing.

Stevie clears her throat. “I guess… I’m just scared. About Harvard. I don’t know how I’m going to fit in… like, I’m terrible at talking to people. All I know how to do is ramble about true crime cases, which was fine at Ellingham, because everyone there was different, too, but… this is the real world, Nate. I just don’t know if I’m cut out for meeting people in college.” She stops, shakes her head at herself because Nate’s exhausted and she’s just keeping him up longer. “Sorry, it’s... stupid.”

Nate’s already shaking his head. “It’s not. Well, it’s normal to worry about it, I mean, but. But you’re not gonna have any trouble making friends, Stevie.”

He looks genuine: soft-eyed and full of certainty that she’ll be okay. He’s picking at a loose thread on the comforter, still not looking at her, but Stevie can still feel that all of his attention is shifted towards her in this moment. It’s jarring; so different from the heat of heart-to-hearts with David, who will look her dead in the eye without even listening to her.

Stevie blinks rapidly to shake the comparison out of her head; it’s totally nonsensical. And now it’s even more obvious that her brain is not functioning as it should be. She needs to rest, but first she needs to know how Nate is so damn certain she won’t end up friendless at Harvard.

“How can you be so sure?”

He breathes in, looks at her again. There’s a heaviness to his gaze that wasn’t there before, and it’s making Stevie’s head swim. God, she really needs to go to sleep. She never gets dizzy. Unless she’s panicking, which she’s not. This is like… a reverse panic-attack. Time has slowed to a crawl instead of speeding up. It’s like she’s looking at Nate underwater.

“Because I know you, and you’re… sort of incredible,” he says earnestly. “God, you don’t even know. You’re just— you know exactly the right thing to say, about everything. You’re crazy smart, and funny, and… just the fact that you’re making me emote right now is proof that you’re amazing. No one can get me to emote, Stevie. Maybe it’s my fault for not telling you this kind of thing enough, but… you’re gonna be fine.”

There’s a beat of silence that’s impossibly warm. The whole room kind of feels like it’s liquifying. She thinks she’s smiling now, and she must be, because he relaxes and grins hesitantly back.

“Thanks, Nate. That’s really sweet.”

He reaches out and squeezes her hand, then vaults himself off of her bed, all lithe and casual. “That’s me! Not emotionally stunted at. All.”

Stevie laughs earnestly at that, and he grabs one of her pillows and chucks it at her on his way out of the room.

“Night, nutcase. And hey— if you really are a social outcast at Harvard, I’ll always be here to help you plot the murders of the douchebags who shun you.”

Stevie shakes her head at him, still grinning. He’s such an idiot. And she’s so lucky to have him.

 

The next morning, all traces of Stevie’s earlier anxiety have vanished. She wakes to her alarm with a strange sense of calm washing over her. While she makes her way to the bathroom, Nate’s bedroom door swings open almost violently.

“What. The hell.”

Stevie whirls around to face him, and she promptly laughs out loud. He looks like he’s just been shaken awake from hibernation: hair matted to one side of his head, eyes bloodshot, sheets tangled around his ankles. Upon closer inspection, she realizes he’s wearing what looks like one of Janelle’s many fleece-y sweatshirts— it’s lavender, and reads ‘Ask me about my Leftist Feminist Agenda!’ in big turquoise block letters. It’s truly a sight.

“Are you alright, Nate?”

He scrubs a hand over his eyes. “Stevie. It is five in the morning.”

Oh. Right.

In preparation for the trials and tribulations of college, Stevie had taken it upon herself to reassess and repair her sleep schedule. In practice, this meant she’d begun setting her alarms earlier and earlier each day as a kind of experiment to test her limits. In the weeks leading up to her move, five a.m. had become a happy medium between four and six that she believed would serve her well.

Nate didn’t seem to agree.

“Sorry,” she says, trying to convey just how apologetic she really is. Nate’s trademark scowl doesn’t budge-- she can’t blame him. “I didn’t know it would wake you, honest. I’ve been setting my alarms earlier lately to try to get ready for college--”

“Oh my God,” Nate says. “Stop. Making noise with your mouth. I can’t process your explanation right now because my brain is currently still half-asleep. Just… Please turn your alarm off. Jesus, Stevie.”

“I’m sorry!”

He points at her, and she almost laughs again. “No more talking. I’m going back to bed.”

“I like your sweatshirt!”

His door has shut, but she can hear a muffled “Shut up!” from behind it. Smiling to herself, she resumes her morning routine. She’ll make breakfast for both of them as penance.

Stevie has never been a prodigy in the kitchen. Scratch that— she’s never been anything in the kitchen. Over the years, her limited knowledge of the culinary arts hasn’t been a problem; she’s skated by just fine on dry cereal and the maple-y meals served in the Ellingham dining hall. But now, faced with the task of cooking an edible breakfast that says, “I’m sorry I woke you up before sunrise on our first day of sharing a new apartment, please forgive me and also kill the spider that’s taken up residence on our kitchen ceiling,” she feels out of her depth.

Luckily, YouTube is there to help. In a matter of minutes (and by that, she means at least thirty), Stevie’s scrambling eggs and flipping pancakes. She’s a culinary multi-tasker! Janelle would be proud.

She’s in the middle of piling the pancakes and eggs onto plates when Nate trudges into the room. He’s changed out of Janelle’s sweatshirt and into a sage green sweater that’s at least a size too big on him and corduroys that make a slightly annoying thwipping sound when he walks. It’s a classic autumnal Nate outfit, and Stevie grins at him as he passes her and heads straight for his coffee-pot.

“Good morning to you, too, roomie.”

“Can’t talk,” Nate informs her. “Need coffee.”

“Ah, the wordsmith strikes again,” Stevie says, carrying their plates to the kitchen table. It’s small, but big enough for both of them plus some company, if they ever actually invite anyone over. Chances of that happening are slim unless Janelle and Vi are in town, though.

“Don’t call me that,” Nate sighs, joining her at the table. “I’m not worthy of the title. A week ago, I opened up Word and just stared at the document for a solid three minutes until I realized I haven’t used Word in years and all of my main drafts are on Google Docs. It was a dark moment.”

“Well, here’s to new beginnings,” Stevie says, passing him a plate.

He grins a little at that, and his eyes widen when he takes his first bite of eggs. “Hey, I didn’t know you could cook. This… actually isn’t horrible.”

Stevie snickers. “What a compliment. Maybe you’ll change your tune when I tell you we already have our first visitor.”

Nate’s face pales considerably, and he looks around the apartment like a cornered animal. “What? Did Janelle decide to surprise us, because I specifically told her--”

“Nate,” Stevie says in between laughs. “I was kidding. Well, partially. There’s a huge spider on our kitchen ceiling and I need you to kill it.”

He sighs in relief, shoulders relaxing, and Stevie feels a swell of warmth towards him.

“Bugs I can do. People this early in the morning? Hell no.”

“It’s nearly eight now, just so you know,” Stevie tells him. “And I’m a person.” He levels her with A Look.

“You don’t count. And yeah, it’s eight, but I lost a good hour earlier due to your horrendous choice of alarm ringtones--”

Stevie jabs her fork at him menacingly. “Hey! Mitski is a legend. It’s a privilege to be dragged out of the vice of sleep by her music.”

Nate shakes his head, making his way back into the kitchen to retrieve his mug of coffee. “You’re insane. Your college friends are going to arrange for you to disappear under mysterious circumstances if you have them listening to ‘Townie’ at five every morning.”

“They’ll learn to live with it.”

He laughs, a bright sound, and Stevie feels that strange, foreign feeling of calm from this morning wash over her again. She still isn’t quite used to hearing him laugh, or being the reason for it, but it feels good. She’s glad he’s coming even further out of his shell.

“And if you ever wake me up that early again, you’re going to have to live with that spider up there,” Nate says, pointing at the ceiling. The little menace is still there, spinning its web in the corner above the fridge. Nate will have to stand on a chair to enact the murder. Stevie will act as emotional support.

When they finish their breakfast, Nate washes the dishes and Steve hunts through their belongings for something heavy enough to crush the spider with. Finally, she settles on the hardcover version of The Encyclopedia of True Crime.

Nate drags a chair beside the fridge and hefts the book above his head. The spider seems to sense him, and skitters further into the corner. He swings at it while Stevie bites her nails; to their mutual horror, the book doesn’t crush it but instead acts as a bridge between the spider and Nate. It crawls around the surface of the book and up his arm.

“Shit! Stevie, do something!”

Nate’s jumped down from the chair and is swinging his arm in wild arcs in a desperate attempt to shake the spider off. Catastrophically, his choice of sweaters has only made this harder; the spider clings easily to the fuzzy, woven material, and Stevie feels a brief pang of sympathy for it despite her deep-seated phobia of arachnids.

“STEVIE,” Nate yells again, and this is enough to send her into action. While Nate shakes his arm like a man deranged, she races for the paper towels and rips off a wad. Hurrying over to him, she squashes the spider in the mass of tissue, and Nate blows out a relieved breath as she tosses the remains in their tiny trash can.

“That just took a year off of my lifespan.”

“I thought you said you were fine with bugs,” Stevie teases. When she sees how pale Nate’s face is, though, she feels a slight pang of guilt.

“Not when they’re crawling up my arm towards my face and they’re probably poisonous,” he tells her. “That was horrific.”

“Still better than conversing with people, though?” she asks, dragging the kitchen chair back to its rightful place. Nate cracks a smile at that, and Stevie grins back.

“I really wish I’d gotten a picture,” Stevie confesses. “I mean, Nate, your FACE—”

“Stop,” he groans, running his hands through his hair. “We must never speak of this again.”

“You screamed like a little kid—”

“Stevie. One of these days, I’m going to be entitled to financial compensation for all that you put me through.”

“Yeah, yeah,” she says, turning on the TV as he mock-glares at her. “Take it up with my lawyer, Fisher.”

Later that day, they go grocery shopping, which proves to be more of an ordeal than they initially thought. For starters, it’s pouring outside, which means that they both look like drowned rats by the time they make it from their car to the interior of the store. It also means that the freezer aisle is now 95% more hellish than usual; they’re already cold from being soaked to the bone, so this? This could rival the Ellingham blizzard, Stevie thinks.

Maybe she’s just being dramatic.

“Nate, please hurry up. If we stand here any longer we’re literally going to contract hypothermia.”

He holds up a hand to silence her, and she narrows her eyes at him. Rude.

“Stevie, I need to concentrate. This is a critical decision.”

“They’re just Lean Cuisines, Nate—“

“There are four different kinds of ravioli!” He exclaims, throwing his hands in the air. “How an I supposed to decide—“

In one fluid motion, Stevie yanks open the nearest freezer door and grabs an armful of frozen ready-made dinners. Nate looks genuinely distressed at this turn of events, but at this point she doesn’t care. She just wants to be back in the blessed warmth of Nate’s car.

“There. You’ve got cheese ravioli, beef ravioli— I think that one’s mushroom…? It’ll have to do. C’mon.”

He sighs and follows her begrudgingly through the store; they weave through the aisles of bread and bagels and overpriced organic granola until they come upon the cereal aisle. Stevie grabs a Family-Size box of Froot Loops for herself and a box of oatmeal for Nate, then steers them into the produce section.

“Hey— You’re being weirdly brisk, here,” Nate says, speed-walking to catch up with her as she shoves apples into a bag. “Is everything okay? Have you been possessed by a white suburban mother with latent undiagnosed anger issues?”

Stevie huffs a laugh, looks up at him. His hair is still dripping, and she gets this weird urge to push it out of his eyes. Intrusive thoughts, man. They’re wild.

“Yeah, sorry. I’m just really cold and kind of anxious and I speed-shop when I’ve built up a lot of nervous energy.”

“Sounds like my mom,” Nate says drily. Stevie whacks him in the shoulder with the bag of apples, and he laughs a little and starts helping her pick out fruit.

Once they’ve scanned everything and paid in self-checkout, it’s time to brave the storm again. Stevie and Nate stand, shopping bags in their hands, in front of the big double doors of Publix, staring out into the downpour.

“I’m not running to the car through that,” Stevie says.

“You woke me up at the ass-crack of dawn this morning,” Nate responds. “This is your atonement, Bell.”

Stevie shakes her head resolutely as a gust of wind propels a stray shopping cart across the parking lot like a wild west tumbleweed. So much runoff has collected in front of the sidewalk that the parking lot could be a swimming pool for ducks.

“No. No, Nate. I’d sacrifice a lot for you, but not this much.”

“You’re literally wearing a raincoat. You can pull the car around, I have faith in you.”

She huffs a sigh, and a smile creeps onto Nate’s face because he knows he’s won, and Stevie marches towards the automatic doors, and he trails after her to watch from the safety of the curb. She can feel droplets of water collecting in her hair already, and she hasn’t even plunged into the open yet.

“You owe me for this,” she tells him. Nate just grins wickedly.

“Atonement,” he says.

And then Stevie plunges into the downpour, running headlong through the parking lot and swiftly unlocking Nate’s car. Through the haze of rainwater in her eyes, she can make out the flashing of lights. She dives for the driver’s side door and vaults herself inside, and the world rights itself.

She’s even more drenched now, but she can’t bring herself to care because she can see Nate breaking down laughing in front of the store, and somehow that makes it okay.

When she pulls the car around, he rushes to open the passenger’s side, but at the last second she locks it and watches as betrayal flickers across his face.

“Stevie Bell, I swear to God—!”

She can’t help it; she starts laughing. He looks like a wet ferret, all long limbs and sandy hair, and he’s looking at her with absolute murder in his eyes. It’s too much.

“Stevie, I’m not kidding around. Let me in!”

“Atonement!” she shouts victoriously.

When she finally caves and unlocks the doors, Nate throws himself inside the car and says, “drive,” and after a minute he starts laughing, too, and they’re falling into each other, hysterical, as the rain pours down in sheets outside and Stevie drives them home.

 

That evening, after they’ve hauled all their groceries inside, Nate’s got his music playing from a bluetooth speaker Janelle loaned him, and Stevie’s got to admit, it’s pretty different from what she expected. Sure, there are The Smiths, and Billy Joel, and The Cure, but there are also a couple of ABBA songs, and at one point she recognizes Fiona Apple.

“Oh my God,” Stevie says as Nate hands her a loaf of bread to store in the pantry, “Could it be? Nate Fisher has… taste?”

“Shut up,” he says, laughing when Stevie twirls him around. She couldn’t resist— ‘Across the Universe’ is her favorite.

“Stop twirling me, idiot, you’re the girl here,” Nate gripes, and Stevie huffs a surprised laugh.

“Hey! That’s a stereotype. What would Janelle say if she knew you were upholding the oppressive patriarchy, Nate? What would… what would your sweatshirt say?”

“You’re a terrible dancer,” he tells her. “Put the chips in the pantry.”

Stevie laughs, and Nate cracks a smile and does a little spin again when the chorus starts up, and they forget the three grocery bags still waiting to be excavated on the kitchen counter and start improvising the worst imaginable dance routine, trying to see who can make themselves look more idiotic.

“This is not a song you can do the robot to,” Nate informs her through laughter. Stevie just ignores him, and he laughs harder when she slips on a receipt that’s drifted to the floor, rushing forward to catch her before she hits the kitchen tile.

Later, once they’ve finished a dinner of ordered-in pizza and argued for at least ten minutes over which TV show to watch (Nate insists on The Twilight Zone, and Stevie tries to make a case for American Vandal), she realizes she hasn’t texted David all day, and Nate tells her to catch up with him while he finds them a show to compromise on.

When Stevie opens her phone, she has four missed texts and a call from David.

Asshole <3 : Good morning , brilliant badass girlfriend. I’m about to hit the road to the rally. Just wanted to say I love you now in case I don’t have time to later. Call me when you can! When’s your first day of classes again? (I know it’s like, a week from now, I just want to know the day so I know not to call you in case you’re in class.) Anyway, sorry for rambling. I guess I’m a little nervous about speaking today. You never really know how a crowd’s going to feel about you. Especially if they all despise your father with a burning passion. Which, relatable.

Asshole <3 : Just got done with my speech. Predictably, they loved me. Call when you can, okay?

Asshole <3 : Hey, I know I’m probably being a little possessive here so feel free to call me on my bullshit if that’s the case, but is everything good with us? You’re probably just busy, sorry.

Asshole <3 : Settling in okay, I presume?

Shit.

She calls him.

“Stevie, hey! I missed you today. Is everything okay? I mean, not that anything has to be wrong for you to be busy, I totally get it—”

“I’m so sorry,” she says in a rush. She really is. “I was just— we needed to get groceries, and it was, like, pouring down rain so it was a little chaotic, and then we had to eat dinner, and… I’m sorry. I should’ve remembered to text you. Or called.”

“Hey, it’s fine,” David says, sounding it. Stevie heaves a mental sigh of relief. “Things come up, I get it. Hey, so when exactly is your start date at Harvard? You’re gonna kill it, Stevie.”

She laughs. “It’s a week from now, so the thirteenth. I have a virtual orientation and then one in person this Thursday and Friday. Reality is slowly setting in. It’s kind of nerve-wracking, honestly.”

David shakes his head— she can hear his hair moving against the phone. “Don’t sweat it, Bell. You’re a force of nature, you’ll be more than okay. How’s Nate?”

Stevie smiles even though David can’t hear it. “He’s—“

Suddenly, a crack of thunder rolls overhead, and all at once, their power goes out. From the living room, Nates yells, “Mother of fucking Christ!”

“—great,” she finishes, laughing a little.

“Doesn’t sound like it.”

“Our power just went out, it’s been storming all day,” she says apologetically. “Listen, my lovely roommate might need some… assistance, so… can I let you go? I promise I’ll call tomorrow—“

David sighs, but it isn’t unkind. “Yeah, that’s fine, Stevie,” he says. “Go make a room light up. It’s one of your many talents.”

She grins, and this time she knows he can hear it in her voice. “I’ll call you once in the morning and once in the evening tomorrow, okay?”

“Okay,” David says. She can hear that he’s smiling, too.

Back in the living room, Nate’s lit three candles: Pumpkin Spice, Cinnamon Twist, Apple Cider. It’s early September, but he’s already on an autumn kick. This is one of the many reasons their friendship works.

“This is one of those times I really wish Janelle were here,” Nate says by way of greeting. He’s camped out with a blanket in front of the lifeless TV, candles encircling him like a one-person ritual, and Stevie smiles when he tosses a quilt at her.

“She wouldn’t be able to do anything, anyway. It’s coming down hard out there,” she replies, settling beside him on the floor. One thing Stevie’s learned about Nate over the years is that he’s a “floor person”— even if there’s a fully vacant couch or chair in the vicinity, he’ll opt for the floor in times of uncertainty. She can’t help but agree that there’s something cozy and gratifying about it, like sitting in a circle for storytime in kindergarten.

Except they’re not in kindergarten, they’re… adults. The word feels foreign to her, but she guesses it’s accurate. God, is she an adult? Is that what she is now?

“Hey,” Nate says, waving a hand in front of Stevie’s face. “Where are you right now?”

“Sorry,” she tells him. “I was getting all introspective and existential.”

“Don’t apologize, that’s basically my constant state.”

They grin at each other for a moment of blessed silence.

And then, the moment is broken; thunder crashes overhead again, louder this time, and there’s a brief and blinding flash of lightning outside that looks much too close for Stevie’s liking.

Nate’s shoulders have tensed up, and when it thunders again, he breathes out hard through his nose.

Stevie moves closer to him. “Hey, you okay?”

He sighs in frustration, drags both hands down his face. “Sorry. Confession time: I fucking hate thunderstorms. I just— it’s like sensory overload, kind of. Rain is fine, but the thunder…`` Here, he stops and shakes his head. “And lightning just adds another layer of stimuli. It’s like an assault on my brain. Every time I hear thunder, it’s like… I can’t help it, I just panic.”

There’s a beat of silence. Stevie doesn’t really know how to help, and it’s making dread pool in her chest.

“I can feel you freaking out,” he tells her. “Really, it’s fine. Just… distract me?”

Stevie nods, takes his hand silently when he flinches at another flash of lightning outside.

“So, I got my class schedule for Harvard,” she says, “and I got into that upper-level criminal science course. Which is great, because it’s a step up from the freshman one, so I’ll already be ahead of the game.”

“When are you not?” Nate interjects, earning a smile from Stevie. He can’t see it— he’s pulled his knees up to his chest and is resting his head on them, breathing slowly and deliberately. If Stevie counts in her head, she can measure the time between his breaths. It’s oddly calming, even though she isn’t afraid of storms.

“A lot of the time, actually,” she says. “I’ve almost gotten us killed on… numerous occasions.”

“Yeah, but all of that was because you were working towards an end goal, and… you were right in practically every situation. I would do it all again just to see the look on your face when you figured all that shit out.”

Here, she pauses, looks at him closely. In the grainy half-light of the candles surrounding them, she can make out the tense set of his shoulders, the taut slope of his back against the couch. He’s squeezing her hand, she realizes with a jolt— the same hand that’s pushed her out of the line of fire of actual bullets. Something’s come over her, something heady and warm and—

“Stevie? You alive?” Nate asks, lifting his head from its resting place to look her in the eye.

She must look seriously disoriented, because he looks at her confusedly and lets go of her hand to wave his in front of her face again. The loss of contact makes something desperate jump in her chest, and she blinks rapidly to shake off the feeling.

“Sorry, I just… you know how much I love you, right?”

He smiles at her, even though his whole body is still rigid with anxiety. “Yeah, I know. Tell me about what other classes you’re taking, it’ll bore me enough that I’ll probably fall asleep before this shitshow gets worse.”

As if on cue, a cacophony of thunder erupts above them, so loud and all-consuming that it feels as though the whole building is shaking.

Nate curses, vaults himself towards Stevie on instinct. Without thinking, all impulse, she wraps him in a hug. Shockingly, he relaxes— Nate is notorious for his hatred of physical contact— and melts into it, still swearing breathlessly, and Stevie giggles kind of deliriously and sighs into his hair.

“Thought you weren’t a hugger, Nate.”

He pulls away to glare at her briefly. It’s kind of adorable.

“Jesus Christ. Shit. Listen, we never speak of this again. Never, okay?”

“You’re shaking,” she tells him, which gets him to shut up. His breathing is still off, shallow and quick. Stevie tugs him closer to her, and he lets his head fall onto her shoulder. “C’mon, breathe. In for four, hold for seven—“

“Out for eight, I know,” he sighs. There’s a slight tremor in his voice, but it’s mostly bite, which Stevie counts as a win.

They stay like that, Nate cocooned in Stevie’s arms, for about an hour. Waiting out the storm. Watching the candles burn and flicker. Breathing, slowly and steadily, even when the apartment shakes and the windows rattle and the living room lights up blinding white.

Eventually, the lightning retreats and the thunder fades, and all Stevie can hear is the soothing press of rain outside. Nate’s gone limp in her arms— he really did fall asleep. She manages to deposit him on the couch, drapes a couple of blankets over him. She’s about to head to her room when he stirs, and his hand shoots out and circles her wrist loosely.

She whirls around to look at him, and he’s half-asleep, eyes still closed, eyebrows knitted together in that trademark grimace. She’s about to shake him off when he squints at her and mumbles, “Love you too. But—” he cuts himself off, huffs a frustrated, delirious sigh, “—the other way.”

And then his hand goes slack and he promptly passes out.

For a second, his words ring in Stevie’s ears like alarm bells.

‘The other way.’ Nate must be really exhausted.

She chalks the moment up to leftover panic and lack of sleep. Blows out all the candles and watches thin plumes of smoke snake around the furniture. Tousles his hair as she leaves the room. Crawls into bed and feels this lightness in her chest, this opening-up. She doesn’t want to think about it, about the way he looked in the half-dark, all hard lines and messy hair and crooked smiles. Or about the way he felt in her arms, impossibly warm, a furnace in human form. She doesn’t want to think about any of it, because he’s Nate, and she’s Stevie, and they’re supposed to be making this living-together thing work.

And there’s David. And he’s Stevie’s boyfriend. And Nate is her friend. Her friend.

Her friend who hates socialization more than most Americans hate paying taxes, but still barged into her room unannounced and forced her to go to a school dance with him.

Her friend who listens to everything she says— every insane theory, every off-the-wall accusation, every loose thread she tries to weave into a cohesive web— and believes her without question.

Her friend who always, always checks up on her, even when it always, always gets them into petrifying, life-threatening situations.

Her friend who broke into a house with her.

Her friend who saved her from whizzing bullets and the cold, murky depths of a freezing-ass river.

Her friend who almost died for her and would do it all again just to see the look on her face when she figured everything out. God, Stevie is so fucked.

 

—

ACT II : WINTER

 

Harvard, as it turns out, is easy enough to acclimate to when you’ve solved a famous crime. Stevie makes friends right away, classmates from her forensics courses who’ve read up on her, who have endless questions and the same fire in their eyes that she sees when she looks in the mirror. They’re school friends, people she can get a coffee with or meet in the library before midterms. She mentions them to Nate in passing— Emi Sato is a willowy, bright-eyed sophomore who wants to be a forensic photographer; Nora Cavanaugh is a short, fiery freshman who lives in the same dorm building as Stevie and has her heart set on crime scene investigation; Wes Thomas is a laid-back art major who fell in with their group when they got paired together for a project in the core English class they all share. Stevie appreciates their company, and connects with them in a very specific, true-crime-junkie way, but they aren’t the kind of friends you go out to dinner with on weekends, or invite to your apartment, or confide in at three in the morning about your crippling imposter syndrome.

In other words, they aren’t Janelle or Nate, the latter of which is currently sitting in front of her, spinning in slow circles in her rolling chair, while Stevie stresses over a calculus assignment on her bed.

“Nate. I seriously think I might drop out.”

This gets his attention. He stops spinning to shoot her A Look, and when he finds no traces of a teasing expression on her face, he shakes his head at her firmly.

“Nuh-uh. Nope. You haven’t come this far to just quit, Stevie.”

She sighs a world-weary, you’re-a-published-author-working-from-home-and-would-never-understand-my-academic-plight kind of sigh. “Easy for you to say, Fisher. You’re not stuck doing trigonometric functions on a Friday night.”

Nate tilts his head at her like he’s considering her predicament, then stands and makes his way over to her bed, plopping down beside her. He’s peering over her shoulder, frighteningly close, and Stevie feels a rush of guilt deep in her gut. She can’t get nervous around Nate, no sir, because getting nervous means there’s something more than platonic feelings roiling under the surface, and Nate is her friend. He’s her best friend, and nothing more.

How long has it been since she’s called David?

“Stevie,” Nate’s saying.

A week? Two? Oh, God, if it’s been two weeks she’s so irrevocably screwed.

She scrambles for her phone without warning, and Nate backs up out of her personal space while she pulls up David’s messages. There’s a string of texts from a week ago, starting out as seemingly endless rambling paragraphs, then dwindling to sentence-long texts. The last one reads, “Call me when you get a chance.” Just that. No emoticons, no stupid GIFs, not even her name tacked on at the end.

God, she’s an idiot.

“Hey, not to interrupt this very evident Moment you’re having, but I really think you need to put the homework away and get some sleep,” Nate says from his perch on the edge of the bed. He’s watching her pensively, like she’s a time bomb and he can defuse her by cutting the right wires, saying the right words. He’s got his bottom lip in between his teeth, and there’s a hint of concern in his tone that makes Stevie deflate.

“I have to call David.”

He blows out a frustrated breath, shakes his head. “Stevie, it’s three in the morning. If you call now, he either won’t answer because he’s asleep, or he will answer and he’ll be pissed that you woke him up. It can wait until tomorrow morning, I really think you need t—”

She holds up a hand to silence him, squeezes her eyes shut. “You don’t get it. It’s been… it’s been way too long. It’s just been way too long since I’ve called him, and I— he—”

Nate reaches for her phone and hesitates, a silent question. Even now, in the midst of her anxiety, Stevie feels a wave of affection for him; he wants her to hand it over, to surrender and get a good night’s rest, to clear her head, because he knows it’s best for her. But he won’t make her.

Because Nate would never try to control her.

Stevie sighs and hands him the phone, and he regards her silently for another minute before grabbing her laptop and draping her throw blanket over her.

“Calculus can wait, and so can David. I’ll find some videos on… trigo-whatever for you. And you can call him in the morning and explain that your workload’s been getting to you. He’ll understand, Stevie. He’s… it took a while for him to grow on me, but he’s a good guy.”

She smiles tiredly at Nate in the lamplight, and he reaches out and tucks a wayward strand of hair behind her ear. “See you in the morning.”

 

Nate, to his word, has a playlist of Calculus videos pulled up on YouTube when Stevie finally trails into the kitchen at ten. He’s picked them up breakfast from the local cafe, two pumpkin muffins and mocha lattes, because he’s a saint, and Stevie grins when he offers it to her.

“I love you so much right now, you don’t even know,” she says, sliding into her designated seat at the kitchen table. He plops down across from her, looking weirdly energized.

“Oh believe me, I know. I went early this morning, so I heated up the coffee for you in the microwave.”

“Thanks, Watson. Hey, get any work done on the Damn Novel?”

It’s not the book’s official title, but it should be by now. Nate started calling it that when he first moved away from the planning process and started “writing it for real.” The term caught on quickly, and it seems to be a good coping mechanism for him— criticizing his work before anyone else can beat him to the punch. It distances him from it, in a way. So far, Stevie is largely in the dark about most of it, but she knows that it’s a thriller and that it’s set in the eighties. And that writing it is the bane of Nate’s existence.

Nate sighs, but it’s less weighted than it usually is. “Actually, yeah. I have no idea if it’s any good, so you might have to skim it for me later today and tell me if it’s garbage, but… yeah, the first half is coming along. Maybe. I don’t know. “

“I’m sure it’s great,” Stevie tells him around a mouthful of pumpkin muffin. Nate makes a face at her, and she laughs.

They talk in short, simple sentences, because Stevie’s brain is still kind of foggy from pulling so many consecutive all-nighters, and Nate is a man of few words. They talk about Janelle, about the fashion line she’s designing at Columbia in New York. She’s pioneering an entirely new approach to outerwear, making pretty-patterned coats for women that have easily concealable pockets on the inside lining for pepper spray, mace, stun guns. They agree that she’s going to make the Forbes under thirty list in two years, at least.

When Stevie’s done with her breakfast, she holds out her hand expectantly, and Nate passes her her phone.

“Just a heads up,” he tells her, “I texted him after you went to bed, explained a little bit about why you’ve been radio silent— I just said you’re really overworked, which… is technically true. He saw it this morning, thanked me for letting him know. Just… don’t freak out. It’s gonna be okay.”

Without warning, something warm and tingly takes root in Stevie’s chest. Here, looking at Nate all rumpled in the mid-morning light, she can’t help but feel... something for him. It’s something she can’t name, something she doesn’t ever feel for David. She feels utterly safe here. There’s no past hostility, no pressure to say the right thing, no chance of an argument at all. The person standing in front of her is always there, without question, unfailingly loyal and grounding and solid. Nate is her person. Not David. It’s like it hits her all at once, so abruptly that she staggers to the side, and Nate darts forward and steadies her, and shit, he looks genuinely worried. Scared.

“Whoa— Jesus, Stevie, are you alright?”

Her head swimming, Stevie nods. There’s something like dread taking hold of her now, something heavy and ugly and guilty. She can’t be this person. She can’t have feelings for Nate, not when she’s dating David.

“Easy,” he’s saying, guiding her back to the kitchen chair. “Here, sit down. How much have you been eating lately? Hang on, I’ll get you some water. You look really pale.”

Shit, shit, shit. He’s filling a glass in the kitchen, so she takes this opportunity to let her face fall forward onto the kitchen table. She is screwed. So screwed. So completely—

Nate sets the glass down in front of her, pulls out his chair again. She can feel his eyes on her while she gulps down the water. Her whole body feels like it’s on fire. Is this how zoo animals feel behind the glass?

Nate waits for her to look at him before he clears his throat and folds his hands on the table in front of him.

“So obviously, you’re losing it,” he says, cracking a smile. He’s joking. Trying to put her at ease, she realizes.

Stevie so doesn’t deserve him.

When she doesn’t grin back, his face scrunches up with worry, and he kicks her lightly under the table. “What’s going on with you? And don’t say it’s just stress,” he says, fixing her with a knowing gaze. “It’s never just stress.”

She’s trapped. Cornered. The problem is her, not Nate, but Stevie still feels an irrational burst of frustration towards him. Why can’t he ever back off? Why does he always have to be so… involved? He used to be quieter, less inclined to ask about things that aren’t his business. She guesses this is his business, though. The thought makes guilt course through her again— he didn’t ask for this.

“It’s nothing.”

“Stevie,” he pleads. “You can tell me anything.”

No. No, she can’t.

She stands suddenly, her chair scraping shrilly across the floor. “I have to call David. Thanks for breakfast, Nate. Really, I appreciate it.”

She appreciates him. Which is why she wants to kick herself right about now.

There’s something like hurt on his face when she leaves the room, but Stevie just keeps walking. She can’t feel this way for him. She has a boyfriend. A boyfriend that makes things difficult sometimes, sure, but is there for her and is someone she’s supposed to be committed to. She’s David’s girlfriend. Not Nate’s.

“Hey,” he says when she calls, oblivious and cheerful. She tries to force a smile into her voice.

“Hey yourself. Sorry it’s been so long. I… really suck at managing my time, as it turns out. Ellingham’s flexibility spoiled me. “

He laughs on the other end of the line, and the guilt makes a home in her gut.

They fall into a long, winding conversation, one that seems never-ending, and Stevie tries her best to laugh in the right places and catch all the inside jokes and pop-culture references, but the entire time she’s talking to David, all she can focus on is the memory of Nate’s hands on her shoulders earlier and the look on his face when she left the kitchen.

 

Later, she finds Nate in his room. He’s got the door half-open as if inviting her in, and he’s sitting at his desk, typing away, when she knocks lightly on the wall to signal her arrival.

“Hey, Watson.”

He spins around in his chair, nods at her. “Holmes.”

Stevie grins hesitantly and walks over to stand in front of him. He’s still typing— now that she looks closer, it’s more backspacing and retyping and backspacing again than typing. Write, erase. Write, erase. Over and over.

“I’m sorry,” she blurts, and his hands go still over his laptop keyboard. He turns his body to face her, and Stevie feels like the wind’s been knocked out of her at the sight of him. His hair’s typical-Nate-messy, and there’s a lightness in his face, something accepting and forgiving thatshe wasn’t expecting.

“Hey, no apologies, alright? I get it, you’re… dealing with something. And you don’t have to tell me everything. I know we usually do, but… you don’t owe me that if you’re not ready. Whatever it is, though, you know it won’t change how I see you.”

Stevie smiles, tries to believe him.

“Unless you killed someone in cold blood, in which case I would judge you long and hard before helping you hide the body.”

“You would freak out. You’re such a wimp, Fisher.”

“I thought I was Watson,” Nate replies, all dry wit and wry grin, and Stevie feels a pull in her chest and shakes her head, huffing a laugh.

She crosses the room to flop down on his bed, and he resumes his type-backspace-retype dance, and they sit in amicable silence as the sky outside fades to a dusky steel blue.

At some point, she meanders into the kitchen to throw together a stir-fry, because it’s been far too long since either of them have had a proper meal. Nate shuffles into the kitchen a few minutes later, collapses onto one of the bar stools facing Stevie. They talk a little while she tosses broccoli and cauliflower and chicken in a pan, shakes teriyaki sauce over the mess, sprinkles in snap peas.

“How was your catch-up call with the boyfriend?”

Stevie forces a smile. “Fine. Good. He’s… doing a study-abroad thing over the summer, I think. In London.”

“Blimey,” Nate says. “You gonna chase him down?”

Stevie shoots him a look. “I don’t know yet. I’m still trying to focus on my own stuff, and… I haven’t thought that far ahead yet. Honestly, I….”

Don’t know if we’ll still be together then. Don’t know if I feel for him what I thought I did. Don’t want to talk about it.

There’s a stretch of silence, broken only by the sizzling of the stir fry. Nate leans forward in his seat, props his elbows up on the counter. “What is it?”

Stevie shakes her head. Retreat, retreat. They’re encroaching on dangerous territory here.

“Uh, nothing. Just… I don’t even know if Harvard offers a study-abroad in London. In the field I’m in. So, it would be kind of… pointless. Not seeing David, but. Studying in London.”

Great save, Bell.

“Ri-ight,” Nate says, dragging the word out like she’s weirding him out a little. “Are you sure you’re alright?”

“I’m fine, Nate.”

“Have you been remembering to take your meds and everything? You just… you seem high-strung today.”

Sighing, Stevie turns off the burner and shakes their dinner onto two separate plates. She sets Nate’s in front of him, grabs them both a fork, and sits down beside him at the bar. This way, she can avoid eye contact and shovel food into her mouth at the same time to stall whatever this weird interrogation is. He’s never shown this much concern for her on the same day before, and it’s putting Stevie on edge. It’s like being under a microscope, and she wants out. She needs to redirect him.

“I take Ativan as needed, Mom. How’s the Damn Novel going? You were working pretty hard earlier.”

Nate takes a bite of his stir-fry.“Holy shit, this is actually good. And nice try, but I know your deflection voice when I hear it. Just… I’ll back off now, just. You can always come to me about anything, okay?”

He looks so earnest, and he’s holding her gaze unwaveringly, and Stevie thinks to herself, when’s the last time David looked at her like that? No. When has David ever looked at her like that?

It’s too much, suddenly. She breaks eye contact and shoves a forkful of chicken in her mouth.

“Thanks, Nate. I know you hate talking about your feelings, but you can always come to me, too,” she chirps. Even to her, it sounds forced, but Nate just nods.

“Noted. You can make up for your weirdness by cooking this for us again this week. If kicking criminal ass and busting serial killers somehow doesn’t work out, I think you could make it as a chef.”

Stevie snorts. “Ah, yes, my chosen field of study: kicking criminal ass.”

“You’ve gotta admit, it has a ring to it.”

“You’re not a published author for nothing.”

They grin at each other, and some of the weight Stevie’s been carrying around for the past two days seems to loosen and lift. Things with Nate are so easy.

She shouldn’t try to complicate it.

 

Not complicating it, as it turns out, looks like this. She and Nate cook their own Thanksgiving meal using YouTube tutorials as a guide; they only half-burn the turkey. Nate makes this amazing corn casserole using a family recipe his mom texts him. They’re both too far from home to visit their respective families, but they FaceTime their parents in hurried, static-y bursts. Janelle calls in the evening, looking radiant as ever; she’s back home with her family for the week, soaking in the fresh air. New York is great, she says, but the tranquility and non-polluted air of her hometown will always be a welcome change. Vi is there in the background, smiling and waving in the corner of the frame. They’re playing with Janelle’s younger cousins, some intense game of hide-and-seek that was outdoors but had to migrate indoors once the rain started up outside.

It’s raining in Boston, too. Not thundering, thankfully, but still. It’s coming down in silvery sheets, monotonous but also calming. There’s a slightly frenetic energy in the apartment, due to the high-pressure situation that is Stevie and Nate both trying to cook in the same contained space.

“Nate, set Janelle down and move, the pumpkin pie’s done,” Stevie directs. Janelle laughs as Nate tosses his phone on the counter and darts to the other side of their tiny kitchen, letting Stevie open the oven and extract the pie. Fortunately, it’s uncharred and seems to have baked all the way through.

“It’s survived,” she informs them gleefully, and both Nate and Janelle break into grins. Stevie sets the pie beside the plate of cranberry sauce they bought a day ago and grabs Nate’s phone to show Janelle the spread.

“Alright, Franklin. Here’s Nate and Stevie’s Thanksgiving meal, for your consideration. I want an honest review.”

“Judge us swiftly and harshly,” Nate adds. Stevie flips the camera and pans over the turkey, corn casserole, macaroni and cheese, yams, and pumpkin pie for Janelle to inspect.

There’s a tense beat of silence. In the background on Janelle’s end, a little kid shrieks with delight as Vi yells, “Found you!”

“So what’s the verdict?” Nate asks, crossing his arms expectantly. Stevie grins at him, and he shakes his head at her, like, ‘this is serious.’

“I think it looks great!” Janelle says, and Nate holds up a hand for Stevie to high-five. She ignores the faint tingling sensation that the moment causes and smiles brightly at her friend.

“I’m glad we have your stamp of approval.”

Janelle giggles. “I have to admit, I was a little worried about you two, but… you really pulled through. Is David there, Stevie?”

“Nah, he couldn’t make it,” Stevie says. “His asshole of a dad wanted him to be with his family. Even though he hasn’t spoken to most of them in months.”

“Shit,” Janelle says, clapping a hand over her mouth when one of her younger cousins races by, Vi hot on their heels. “I mean, shoot. I’m really sorry, Stevie.”

“It’s fine,” Stevie says, meaning it. Things with David are… stable. Good. They have a schedule for calls now: twice a week, Wednesday mornings and Sunday nights. Their conversations rarely breach the surface-level, but there’s a lightness there now that comes easily to her. And she likes talking to David; really, she does.

She just doesn’t know if she loves him.

But it doesn’t matter, because one day, she will. She just has to keep at it, keep calling and texting and sending stupid photos. She has to believe that one day she’ll feel for him exactly what he feels for her, that they’ll be on the same page eventually. She just has to tune out all the noise. (The noise being the feeling that erupts in her every time Nate looks at her a certain way, or calls her Holmes or Sherlock, or surprises her with Thai takeout or pancakes for breakfast or that new mystery novel she’s had her eye on since its release date. It’s just a weird hormonal phase. She’ll get over it eventually.)

Janelle smiles and says she loves them one last time, then makes Nate promise to call more often (he swears he’ll find time to every Friday), and just like that, the Franklin home in all its chaotic glory is gone from Nate’s screen.

Stevie passes him his phone and lets him cue up a podcast. This has become their nightly ritual, and Thanksgiving will be no different: they take turns every week finding a podcast that both of them will enjoy. Usually this involves storytelling and true crime mixed together. It can’t just be a grisly recounting of an untimely death, it has to be an eloquently-worded grisly recounting. This arrangement simultaneously gives Nate inspiration for the Damn Novel and allows Stevie to get her true crime fix in for the week. It’s the perfect compromise.

Tonight they’re listening to the newest episode of “Unsolved Murders”; it’s kind of kitschy and predictable, but it’s light, and the background music is a jazzy number that both Nate and Stevie admittedly enjoy.

While the podcast drones on about Mary Pinchot Meyer, Nate and Stevie dig into their dinner. The turkey is surprisingly good, and they spend more time eating than talking.

Halfway through their meal, though, Nate reaches out and pauses their podcast. Stevie looks up from her corn casserole indignantly.

“It was just getting good!”

He laughs a little, takes another bite of cranberry sauce. “Sorry, weirdo. Sinec it’s Thanksgiving—”

“Yay, genocide,” Stevie interjects. Nate cracks a smile and kicks her in the shin under the table.

“Let me finish talking for once. Since it’s Thanksgiving, I figured I should at least say something about how grateful I am for you.”

Stevie presses a hand to her chest in mock-surprise. “Aww, you do have a heart.”

“Stevie, I’m trying to be serious,” he gripes, but there’s a hint of a grin on his face. Suddenly, Stevie has a strong urge to smooth down the line in between his eyebrows; it appears there whenever he’s anxious aboit something.

“Okay, sorry,” she tells him, holding both hands up in surrender. “Proceed.”

He levels her with a meaningful look, and she feels her heart stutter traitorously in her chest. Stevie forces herself to think of David, of the sound of his laugh over the phone, of the warm brown of his eyes, of—

“You really are my favorite person, you know,” Nate’s saying. “I mean, I love Janelle, you know that. But… I feel like you and I have always been on the same exact wavelength. And it feels really great to have someone that understands me. Especially someone like you.”

Stevie tries to catch her breath. It’s like all the air has been vacuumed out of the room, and Nate is just gazing at her, his eyes gleaming in the dim light, and she can’t ignore the feeling that’s stirring in her now.

“You’re my favorite person, too,” she manages, and Nate breaks into a grin, and she realizes that’s all he needed to hear. He doesn’t expect anything from Stevie, not even after all that he’s done for her. “But I’m afraid I don’t really deserve you.”

He actually laughs. It stings, for a second, and it must show on Stevie’s face, because Nate rushes to explain. “Are you kidding? Stevie— of course you do. If anything, I’m lucky you stuck around with me for this long. I wasn’t exactly warm and fuzzy when we first met. But you kept making an effort.”

“And you kept coming back for me,” she says. There’s a reverence in her voice that isn’t supposed to be there. Nate clears his throat.

“Well, how could I not?” he says. “You need a voice of reason, Sherlock.”

Stevie smiles at him, and he smiles at her, and it’s easy and light again. He presses play on the podcast, and the room fills with plinky jazz music and sinister voiceovers regaling the story of a woman’s murder as the rain outside grows ever more persistent. Nate compliments the pie, and Stevie reminds him it’s a store-bought mix, and he says, “Best store-bought pumpkin pie I’ve ever had. You have a true gift.”

And things aren’t perfect in her internal world, but somehow Thanksgiving is a reprieve.

December is not so forgiving.

 

It starts with the phone call.

Stevie doesn’t consider herself a pacifist, but she’s definitely not an asshole, either. Actually, she’s in a great mood when David calls. She’s spent the day early-Christmas shopping in the city, picking out the perfect gifts for all her friends before the hustle and bustle of the winter holidays truly begins. It’s very Janelle of her, and she can’t help but be proud of herself.

She picks out various patterned fabrics for Janelle at this fancy arts store on the corner, plus some unique buttons, spools of multicolored yarn, and a heavy-duty bedazzler that she knows her friend will go nuts over. She’s especially excited by a roll of lemon-printed fabric that she’s never seen Janelle use before; she knows she’ll be able to turn it into something amazing, and have a blast doing it.

For Vi, Stevie carefully selects statement pieces from the gaggle of thrift stores that are closest: an elegant, shiny gold blazer; a pair of black platform combat boots; a crimson plaid overcoat that would look amazing with their silvery hair. Stevie knows enough about Vi’s style from their Instagram to be able to pick out the pieces that look the most like them, and she’s satisfied with the end result. She also knows Vi will be thrilled to know they were sustainably purchased; they hate fast fashion with a burning passion.

Shopping for Nate is a little more difficult. Stevie knows he only really gets excited about books, so she putters around multiple bookstores, looking for something that reminds her of him. No luck. When she walks into the final store, though, there’s a Lord of the Rings section that catches Stevie’s eye. She browses until she finds it: a limited-edition boxed set with covers that Tolkien designed but never used. The spines of the books are beautiful and ornate. A collector’s item. It’s so Nate that Stevie has to have it.

Now, she’s loading the last shopping bags in the back of Nate’s car. Conveniently, he’s bed-ridden today— she needs to remind him to wear a heavier coat when he walks to work. He got a job after Thanksgiving at the local cafe he spends so much time not-writing at, and it pays well enough, but the commute there has probably been hell for his immune system lately. Boston in winter can be frigid, they’re both learning.

When David calls, Stevie’s finally on her way home; she answers through bluetooth.

“Hey,” she says. “How’s it going?”

“You didn’t call yesterday, I was just checking in,” David says. “You enjoying winter break so far, princess?”

“Oh, definitely,” Stevie replies. Midterms were her own personal hell, and Nate had had to talk her through multiple late-night panic attacks the last week before winter break, but they’re over now. They’re over and she has two blessed months to spend recuperating from the stress.

“I’m glad. Listen, I’m gonna be in town soon, I think. Would you be up for a date, say… tomorrow night?”

There’s a smile in his voice, and Stevie feels her face light up. Things are getting easier with him now. The longer she tunes out the thoughts about Nate, the more she’s warming back up to David. She feels lighter lately, not as guilty. She’s doing what’s best for all of them. Keeping Nate in the dark about her stupid phase and keeping David in her orbit.

And this is the perfect opportunity to cement her emotional state for good. She’ll see David in person, rekindle all her old feelings for him. Nate will become someone she can only see as a friend again, someone who doesn’t make her feel the way David does. Everything will be back to normal, just in time for Christmas.

And then Stevie remembers she still needs to buy David a present. She adds it to her mental to-do list: 1) Go on a date with boyfriend, reigniting previous feelings of passion and uncontrollable lust. 2) Buy saud boyfriend the perfect Christmas gift. Easy. She can do that.

“Stevie. Did you hear me?” David’s asking.

“Yeah, sorry,” she rushes out. “Sorry, I zoned out there for a minute. But, yeah! A date sounds… amazing. I’ve missed you… so much. You have no idea.”

There’s a long and penetrating silence on the other end of the line, and for a moment Stevie worries that she’s accidentally hung up, but then David’s voice spills through again. There’s a serious undercurrent to it that she hadn’t picked up on before.

“Yeah. Yeah, I’ve missed you, too.”

They decide to work out the when and where over text, and end the call at the same time.

There’s a soft, jazzy Christmas song playing from the radio, and Stevie cranks up the volume as she drives home. Snow is dusting the ground, coming down in sparkling flurries outside her window, and she feels a warmth bloom in her chest as her apartment building comes into view. Nate is probably asleep, and when she gets home she’ll have most of the apartment to herself. She loves being around him, of course, and she hates to see him sick, but her inner introvert just needs some alone time some days.

That night, Stevie stirs the tomato soup on the stove one last time before switching the burner off. She ladles it into a bowl for Nate and pads silently down the hall, knocking gently on his bedroom door. He was dead asleep when she got home, curled up in a nest of blankets he’d dragged into his room from the living room couch.

Now, he’s sitting up in bed, working away on his laptop. Probably the Damn Novel, but possibly a strongly-worded response to a bigoted YouTube comment. He’s wearing Janelle’s ‘Leftist Agenda’ sweatshirt again. Stevie thinks it might be the warmest article of clothing he owns. Most of his shirts are too baggy to provide any real insulation.

“You can come in,” he tells her, not looking up from his work. Stevie pulls a face at the state of his room; there are loose-leaf stacks of paper scattered haphazardly over his desk, some littering the floor, and the only source of light is the dim orange glow of his desk lamp. He’s got a box of Kleenex on his nightstand, and balled-up tissues cover most of the surface.

“You doing okay?” Stevie asks him. “I brought you dinner.”

Nate pauses in his furious typing-and-deleting. He is writing, then. At least that’s something. “Thanks, Stevie. Here, I’ll—”

He closes his laptop and pushes it to the side, and Stevie hands the bowl of soup to him. He accepts it somewhat reluctantly. “Is this tomato?’

Stevie resists rolling her eyes. “Would it be a problem if it was?”

“If it were,” he corrects. Even sick,he’s a grammar stickler. “And no. Sorry for being a dick just then. Thanks for bringing it to me, you could’ve just called me in there.”

He motions for Stevie to sit down, and she perches gingerly on the edge of the bed, a safe distance away. Nate huffs a laugh.

“I’m not contagious, Stevie.”

She sighs. “Sorry. I guess I’m just being a little overly-cautious. David called earlier; he’s going to be in town tomorrow, so we’re going on a date.”

Suddenly, Nate chokes on a spoonful of soup, and Stevie takes the bowl from him and places it safely on his desk in a panic. The choking evolves into a coughing fit, because that’s apparently one of the other lovely symptoms of whatever head cold he has. Stevie hovers over him, unsure of what to do. She decides to get him a glass of water, and when she comes back into the room, he’s mostly recovered.

“Here,” she says. “Drink.”

He nods at her gratefully, then downs the cup in one go. “Sorry. Sorry about that. God, this is mortifying.”

“Nate,” Stevie says. “Everyone gets sick. It’s fine, you’re not being a bother.” She takes the empty glass from him and sets it beside the box of tissues on his nightstand.

He sighs, unconvinced. “Thanks for being here, regardless. And hey, that’s great. The David thing, I mean. That’s great.”

She nods, smiling, and he pats the spot beside him on the bed for her to sit down again.

“Yeah, it was really unexpected, so I’m pretty excited. You sure you’ll be okay here tomorrow by yourself?”

Nate laughs again. “Oh, I’ll be fine tomorrow. I’ll have to be, I’m going to work.”

Stevie’s eyebrows tick up. “Um, no you’re not.”

“I have to, Stevie. I… I just have to. It’s the only time out of my week where I don’t feel guilty for not writing. It’s like… an excuse, I guess. I just need that time, okay? I’ll go crazy if I have to spend another day cooped up here.”

Wordlessly, unthinkingly, Stevie reaches out and presses the back of her hand to his forehead. He’s started shivering, and his eyes flutter shut at the contact. He leans into the touch involuntarily, and Stevie heaves a sigh.

“You’re sick, Nate. That’s your excuse. You don’t have to write when you feel like shit, okay?”

He sighs back at her, a huff of exasperation. “Would you have stopped working on the Ellingham case if you were sick? With a cold?”

Stevie pauses briefly to consider it. It’s definitely a good point; he’s right. She wouldn’t have.

“Exactly,” he says when she doesn’t reply. “I’ll be fine, just… I’ll get a ton of sleep and drink a shitload of coffee tomorrow morning and take a couple of advil, and I’ll be fine. I know you’re worried about me, but it’s just a cold. I get over stuff like this really fast.”

Stevie blows out a breath, ruffles his hair. “Fine. But only because I don’t want you to be in your I-hate-everyone mood when I get home. And you have to wear a heavy coat, okay? You can borrow one of mine, they’re all fairly androgynous.”

Nate snorts out a laugh, and Stevie grins. “What?”

“‘Fairly androgynous,’” he says, shaking his head. He’s slumped back against his nest of pillows now, but his hand is on her shoulder, a warm line of contact. When did his hand get on her shoulder? “Stevie, you’re a marvel. Now leave me to hibernate in peace.”

“Of course,” she says, standing and brushing herself off. “You want this soup?”

“No,” he replies, shaking his head petulantly. She’s beginning to learn that Nate adopts a childish persona when he’s sick. It’s half-annoying and half-adorable. In a platonic way, of course. “I freaking hate tomato.”

Stevie rolls her eyes, but carries the bowl of soup out anyway. She’ll stick it in the fridge and force him to eat it one of these days.

 

The next morning, Nate is a new man. He’s up before Stevie is, nursing his third mug of coffee in the kitchen while Fleetwood Mac’s ‘I Don’t Want To Know’ blares from his speaker. He’s already made them breakfast— scrambled eggs and pancakes— and he’s bobbing his head to the music and dancing around the kitchen when Stevie walks in.

“Someone’s significantly more alive today,” she remarks. Nate laughs.

“Stevie, I feel great. I took, like, three ibuprofen earlier and I feel like I’ve been resurrected from the dead. I’m gonna fuck up so many people’s orders today, and I’m not going to write at. All. Here, have some pancakes,” he says, handing her a pre-made plate.

Stevie grins at him, a little floored. She really thought he was exaggerating last night, but he actually does seem to have recovered quickly. “I’m glad you’re feeling better, weirdo. Thanks for making breakfast.”

“Don’t mention it, freak. Hey, text me when you leave for your big date tonight, okay? I need a time frame of when you’ll be gone in mind so I’ll know something’s up if you’re out too late.”

“Got it, Mom,” she says, making her way into the living room to turn on the TV and flick aimlessly through the channels. She settles on a Hallmark Christmas movie that she’s probably seen before— the casts of these movies always look exactly the same. Janelle has a theory that the directors are secretly creating genetically-modified clones of each cast member so that all of them look identical every time. Stevie’s not totally sure if she can debunk that.

“Hey, I’m trying to be a good friend here,” Nate says, plopping down on the couch beside her. “Plus, I want to overcompensate and be extra adult-y today to repay you for taking care of me last night. Just let me have this.”

“Fine,” Stevie relents. “Now be quiet, I’m trying to watch this cinematic masterpiece.”

“Ah, yes,” Nate says. “Who could pass up ‘A Christmas Train’? You think they do murder on that thing?”

Stevie shakes her head no. “The enduring spirit of Christmas protects all the passengers.”

“Of course.”

When they’re done with breakfast, Nate takes Stevie’s plate and says, “Alright. I’m off to the races. Show me to your most fairly androgynous coats, please.”

Stevie laughs and leads him to the linen closet. The baggiest one she owns fits perfectly on him: a bright red woolen coat that’s nearly identical to her trademark red raincoat, just in winter coat form. Nate looks delighted when she shows it to him.

“It’s like I’m cosplaying as you!”

“Oh God,” Stevie says, shaking her head as Nates dissolves into laughter and pulls the coat tighter around his shoulders. “Never say that again.”

“Sorry, I can’t hear you over my sudden investigative spidey-senses. I think… Oh, God. Someone’s being murdered downstairs!”

“Nate. I am begging you to stop.”

He grins at her, and seemingly impulsively wraps her in a hug. Her own coat is itchy against her skin, and what the fuck, Nate is hugging her. Nate never hugs anyone. His arms are warm around her, and she burrows deeper into the embrace. It’s been forever since someone’s held her like this, and she tries to push the fact that it’s Nate out of her mind and just soak in the moment.

After what feels like a lifetime, he pulls away and half-smiles at her. There’s something faintly sad in his expression that she can’t quite pin down.

“I’ll see you later tonight,” he tells her, heading for the door and buttoning her coat up to his chin. “Have fun on your date, okay?”

Stevie just nods at him wordlessly, and when the door swings shut behind him, she sinks to her knees.

She needs to get a hold of herself, and fast.

Later that night, Stevie FaceTimes Janelle while she puts on makeup. She would call it her makeup, but it’s borrowed last-minute from Emi, who has an excess supply of eyeshadow palettes and brow pencils and lip stains and glosses and exfoliators. She got super excited when Stevie called earlier in the day and insisted on bringing it over herself.

“So, where are you guys going tonight?” Janelle asks brightly. She’s doing her own makeup, getting ready for a night out with Vi. She looks amazing as usual in a stunning, satin-y yellow dress that she’s customized with gold glitter on the sheer puffed sleeves. The eyeliner she’s applying is the same sunshine-yellow as her dress, and it stands out beautifully against her dark skin.

“Uh, I think it’s called Asta? Nate and I have never been, it’s probably really fancy.”

“Good thing David’s paying, then,” Janelle says, and Stevie laughs, nodding.

“Are you excited, though? I mean, this is the first time you’ll be seeing him in months.”

“Yeah,” Stevie breathes, and finds that it isn’t a lie. She is excited to see David, more so than she anticipated. It’s almost a nervousness, buzzing deep in her stomach. She tries to picture what he’ll wear in her mind and finds that she can’t. She’s anxious to reunite with him. The sooner the sparks start to fly again, the sooner her feelings for Nate will become a distant memory and everything will fall back into its proper place. And more than that. Stevie misses David. Misses talking to him in person, laughing at his jokes uninterrupted by poor signal. She can’t wait to see him. “Yeah, I’m… really excited. Kind of nervous, though.”

“It’ll be fine,” Janelle assures her. “You’ll fall right back into your old rhythm. Don’t sweat it, Stevie. You’re a catch, and David’s lucky to have you.”

Stevie smiles at Janelle, feels her eyes start to tear up. “You’re going to make my mascara run,” she laughs, and Janelle giggles. “Vi’s really lucky to have you, Janelle,” Stevie adds. “I miss you like crazy.”

“I miss you, too,” Janelle says, her eyes soft and bright even in the grainy half-light of her bathroom. “You and Nate both. I promise we’ll see each other soon, okay?”

“Of course,” Stevie agrees, nodding.

Soon enough, Janelle has to hang up to meet Vi, and Stevie spends the next couple of minutes touching up her eyeliner. She never wears makeup, but something made her want to tonight. She just really wants everything to go well with David.

When he texts her that he’s there, she walks as briskly as she can in her heels— also a generous loan from Emi— and he meets her outside his car. He’s dressed in a crisp black button-down and black pants, with a grey wool overcoat that accentuates the sharp set of his shoulders. He brightens considerably when he sees her, and he pulls her into a hug.

She tries to brush off the fact that he doesn’t move in to kiss her when he pulls away, but it stays in the back of her mind stubbornly as he opens the passenger’s side door for her.

On the drive to Asta, they talk in casual circles, moving from topic to topic seamlessly. Stevie tells him about the Christmas gifts she bought for Janelle and Vi and Nate, and this reminds him of this personality test about love languages, which gets them on the topic of psychology— they’re both taking Psych 1101, and they exchange anecdotes about their professors and the different tests they aced or bombed. It’s easy, and fun, and when they pull into the reserved parking space at the restaurant, Stevie feels lighter than she has in weeks.

Asta, as it turns out, isn’t as “fancy” as Stevie thought. Which is even better, because it means they can order more for less. David gets the Duck Confit, and Stevie orders the Turnip Soup and Corn Custard, which reminds her of the corn casserole Nate made on Thanksgiving. It’s not as good though.

They eat in what Stevie thinks is a comfortable silence, but mid-way through the meal, David sets his fork down with a deliberate clink.She thinks it’s meant to be dramatic, but the delicate noise is more humorous than arresting.

It’s because of this that she thinks, at first, that he’s messing around with her.

When he doesn’t resume eating, Stevie looks up from her soup. “You good?”

He forces a smile, and she feels her stomach sink. Something isn’t right. Was she supposed to be talking to him this whole time? Oh, God, what if she was? Suddenly, Stevie is acutely aware of how thick the quiet around them is. Sure, there are other couples and families being served, and waiters asking to take orders, and the soft plinking of silverware against ceramic bowls and plates, but David and Stevie seem to be enveloped in their own isolated pocket of silence.

Something is definitely wrong.

“David, are you okay? Did I— Did I do something?”

He laughs humorlessly. “That’s just it,” he says. “I… Stevie, I asked you here tonight to see if you… actually felt anything for me. And all we’ve talked about so far are your friends, and psychology quizzes. I guess I just thought… maybe when we got inside, you’d open up a little more. Tell me about your plans for the future, ask me about mine. But you just… don’t seem to care.”

Stevie blinks rapidly, absorbing the blow. She’s screwed up, again. She feels like she can never do anything right around David.

“I’m sorry, I—“

“But you’re not,” he says. “It’s been like this for months. Surface-level topics, every conversation we have just dancing around the important shit. Stevie, do you honestly want to date me? Please just tell me, because I don’t even think I know anymore.”

She can feel the sting of tears in her eyes, and that just makes it worse. He’s right. Of course he’s right, and here she is crying like he’s the bad guy.

“David, I’m sorry, I— I really am. I just don’t know if I… I don’t know if I love you the same way you love me.”

She’s just trying to be honest.

He reels back in his seat like she’s slapped him, and Stevie feels dread grip her. This isn’t how she wanted tonight to go. She hates herself for hurting him, for ruining it, but—

“Wait,” she says as he stands. He doesn’t, so she follows him in quick strides out of the restaurant. It’s getting dark out, dark and cold, and a shiver rolls through her when she grabs David’s wrist.

“Wait,” she says again, her voice hard. He turns to look at her, his jaw jutting out stubbornly, his eyes cold.

Stevie clears her throat; it feels dry, and a lump has risen up in it. “So, what, this whole ‘date’ was just… just a way for you to corner me and question me and—“

“Don’t twist this back on me,” he snaps. His tone is like a hot poker, dramatic, goading. Just like he’s always been. “You’re the reason I had to do this in the first place. You can’t guilt-trip me for wanting answers, Stevie.”

“I wanted to have a nice night,” she says, feeling like a child. There’s a miserable, small quality to her voice, and she realizes with a harsh jolt that this is how David has always made her feel. Small.

He scoffs at her. Scoffs, like she’s nothing, like he didn’t rip the rug out from under her just a few moments ago. Stevie wanted to fix this, wanted things to be better—

“I’m not doing this anymore,” he tells her, shaking his head. “I can’t believe you, Stevie. Get an Uber home, I’m not driving you.”

What the fuck.

“What the fuck?” Stevie says. “I wanted this date to repair things. I wanted us to have a nice time. You can’t be angry at me for being confused about my feelings, I care about you a lot, I just— just because I don’t know if I love you now doesn’t mean I never will!”

“Save it,” David says. He’s already turning away. Stevie feels sick, suddenly, feels like the world is tilting. Everything is wrong. “Just go cry to someone who cares, Stevie.”

And then he walks to his car and drives away. He fucking drives away.

Numbly, Stevie fumbles for her phone. It isn’t in her coat pocket, and for a panicked moment she thinks she’s left it at the apartment, but it’s already in her left hand.

She gets a female Uber and waits for the car to pull up outside Asta. Snow is coming down now, blanketing everything in a ghostly haze. The tears in Stevie’s eyes glue a film over everything, but she manages to make it to the car without falling on her face.

Her driver has the good sense not to ask her about anything, and Stevie allows herself to defrost as the city blurs by outside. There’s a faint classical Christmas station floating from the radio, and it calms her down enough to stop the tears from flowing in the company of a perfect stranger.

God, how did she manage to fuck tonight up this badly?

When she gets back to the apartment, Stevie turns the knob with a still-trembling hand, half from the cold and half from whatever weird emotional adrenaline is still coursing through her. She can feel fresh tears on her face and knows she must look like hell, but the dominant part of her brain can’t bring itself to care right now. All she wants is to crawl into bed and sleep until Nate gets home.

She isn’t halfway through the foyer before she hears it.

“Hey, you’re home early! Listen, I made a major breakthrough with the Damn Novel today and wrote, like, a thousand-something pages on my break, and then I looked up at the time and figured I could come home and make us dinner before you got here. I’m getting really good at this cooking thing, Stevie. You’re gonna love it— also, before I forget, there’s a Stephen King marathon that’s on tonight and I thought you might wanna watch Silence of the Lambs, so I recorded it for us.”

He’s in the kitchen, puttering away. There’s a heavenly smell wafting through the whole apartment, and he’s got Fiona Apple crooning from the speaker. He can’t see her. He can’t see her, so Stevie wipes her eyes and prays her voice won’t betray her.

“Th-that sounds great.”

Damn. It.

Fuck this entire day.

There’s a faint clanging sound in the kitchen, like he’s set a pan down, and Nate appears in the doorway in front of her with a dishrag slung over one shoulder and his sleeves rolled up to his elbows. Stevie tries to smile, and, predictably, fails.

Her face is crumpling in on itself at the sight of him, she can’t help it; he’d sounded so happy and excited just five seconds ago and here she is crying in the entryway of their place like a little kid.

“Stevie?”

“Hi,” she manages. Her voice is impossibly small, and she hates herself for it.

And then she starts sobbing.

His eyebrows knit together, and he rushes towards her and gathers her up in his arms, and for a moment she feels like she’s floating outside of her body because Nate never hugs anyone. Ever.

“Hey,” he’s saying, practically cooing it, impossibly gentle and so unlike himself, and it makes her laugh but the sound comes out twisted and unhinged and she sinks into him and shudders and suddenly one of his hands is on the back of her neck like an anchor, warm and heavy, a silent promise.

“Stevie, hey, look at me. Shit, you’re freezing. C’mere.”

He pulls her in closer, and the lump in her throat rises again, because she doesn’t deserve him and he’s asking her, is this okay? Is it okay that I’m hugging you? Stevie, I need a yes or no, okay? And she’s nodding mutely, saying yes, it’s okay, feeling detached from everything, like she’s watching them from outside of herself.

For some stupid reason, she can’t get her breathing under control, and he seems to understand because he grabs one of her hands and places it over his heart and has her breathe in time with him. It’s a small gesture, but it makes her fill up with warmth; she’s reminded of the time she coached Nate through his panic after Hayes’ death, the way she held his hand, the gratitude in his face. And here he is now, returning the favor years later.

When she can breathe somewhat normally again, Stevie melts back into the embrace, and Nate doesn’t question it, just hums like it’s totally normal and wraps his arms around her, rubs little circles into her back, tells her she’s okay, just breathe, she’s okay.

After what feels like an eternity. she pulls away, far enough to meet his eyes, and he looks so sincerely worried that she almost laughs again. Instead, she says, “David ended things. For good.”

He shakes his head, huffs a sigh of disbelief. “That dickhead. What an asshole.”

Stevie laughs again, lets her head fall back onto his shoulder, and he tightens his hold on her. “I’m so sorry, Stevie.”

“It was bound to happen sooner or later.”

Nate sighs into her hair, makes a noise of disapproval. “Still. He could’ve just told you like a normal person instead of dumping it on you during what was supposed to be a date. Seriously, that’s screwed up.”

She nods, feels him sigh again. He’s gotten taller since she first met him, and now she hits him at about shoulder-level. It’s comfortable, hugging Nate, and familiar somehow even though they don’t do it often, if ever. She knows him so thoroughly that it feels like coming home.

She starts crying again a minute later, and they migrate to the couch, and Nate drapes quilts over her and only gets up to bring her a plate of perogies once they’re done. They’re amazing, real authentic Polish comfort food, and she tells him he’s a culinary genius.

Nate smiles, and it looks pained, but he says he’s fine and turns on Silence of the Lambs, and they watch in a gentle, comfortable silence that’s only broken when Nate complains about the lead actress’ accent. Stevie tells him it adds to her character, and he scoffs and says all it adds is a layer of annoyance. That gets her to smile a little, and he looks satisfied.

By the time the movie’s over, the snow is coming down hard outside. The lamplight is casting the whole room in an orange-tinged, cozy haze, and if Stevie weren’t heartbroken right now she’d want a photograph of it. Of her and Nate on their couch in their apartment while it snows outside, half-buried in blankets and throwing popcorn at each other.

At some point, sleep laps at the edges of her brain, soupy and welcoming, and she sinks into it, sinks down into the pull of exhaustion, trying to forget David and the way his face had gone expressionless earlier, devoid of any emotion. Trying to forget the feeling of hot tears on her face, of the bitter cold, of Nate’s eyes on her and his arms around her and his hand on the back of her neck. God, no. She can’t think about him like this. She just needs to sleep. That’s the problem.

Memory is a funny thing. When Stevie wakes the next morning, she’s able to recall snippets of how she ended up in her own bed: flashes, mostly tactile. The feeling of arms lifting her off the couch, of being lowered gently onto her bed. The whisper of a hand smoothing her hair away from her eyes. A quiet “Good night,” and the creak of her door pulling shut. But she can’t help but second-guess herself; maybe the hand was her own, pushing her hair back in that state between sleep and wakefulness where she’s half-aware of her surroundings. It doesn’t matter, she tells herself, in the end. It’s not an inherently romantic gesture. And even if it was, Nate is her friend. Her friend.

Stevie shakes her head at herself and heads for the bathroom to splash cold water on her face. She needs to get a damn grip.

When she moves into the kitchen in the early-morning quiet, there’s a note on the bar beside a styrofoam cup of coffee and a donut from the cafe downtown. Stevie smiles even though it feels foreign.

The notes reads:

‘Sherlock—

Decided to go to the cafe early this morning to get some writing done. Brought you back breakfast if you want it. I’m probably at work by now, but call if you need me. I’ll be home early today; I’m gonna tell Rosa I’m coming down with something. We can order in Chinese and watch Mindhunter tonight? I’ll see you in a bit. Remember to drink water and eat something other than dry FrootLoops.

Watson (Obviously)’

Stevie grins and shakes her head. He could have just texted this to her. She folds the note and pockets it, then devours the donut in a record five bites. It’s maple, and she feels a swell of gratitude for Nate that’s so strong it almost knocks her over.

She FaceTimes Janelle while drinking her coffee— an almond milk mocha latte, her signature drink— and regales the grim plot twist that befell her yesterday. Janelle is the perfect audience: she glowers every time Stevie says David’s name, gasps indignantly in all the right places.

When it’s over, she folds her arms and says, “You were too good for him. anyway.”

Stevie smiles sadly. “I know. It still hurts, though.”

Janelle nods like she understands. “I know, bub. You’ll get through it, though. And Nate’s with you, right? I know he’s prickly on the surface, but he cares about you deep down. We all do.”

Suddenly, Stevie’s eyes well up. She smiles genuinely for what feels like the first time in the last two days. “You’re the best, Janelle. Thank you for being my virtual shoulder to cry on.”

“Anytime,” Janelle replies. There’s a warmth in her eyes that makes Stevie miss her even more. “And, speaking of the whole virtual thing… Vi and I were thinking maybe we could visit you and Nate in person sometime soon? Like, for Christmas?”

“Oh my God, really?” Stevie shouts. Janelle laughs at her rapid shift in mood and nods emphatically. “Janelle, we’d love that. We miss you guys so much.”

“And we miss you,” Janelle says. “Listen, we can all work out the details in the group chat in a couple of days. I think Vi’s going to be home soon, and we’re going out for dinner, so… I’d better get ready. Is it alright if I let you go for now?”

Stevie smiles again, nods. “Yeah, go have fun on your date. I’ll force Nate to call you tomorrow.”

Janelle laughs brightly, and something heavy that’s settled between Stevie’s shoulders drains out of her. “You better. Trying to get ahold of him over the phone is like contacting a spirit with a Oujia board sometimes.”

Stevie snickers. “He’s an elusive one. Love you, Franklin. Tell Vi I said hi.”

“I will. Bye, Stevie.”

They hang up at the same time. Stevie feels lighter now.

When she checks the time, it’s almost noon, so she scours the fridge for lunch: they’ve got various deli meats, mixed greens, and a bunch of cups of yogurt. She settles for a strawberry one and shakes some granola over it, grabbing a banana from the fruit bowl on her way into the living room.

Stevie flicks aimlessly through the channels for a while, then passes the time waiting for Nate by watching another horrendous Hallmark movie. She feels drained even though she’s done nothing all day— she guesses her emotions are still running high. By the time the front door swings open, Stevie’s lost track of the plot completely and is scrolling through Tumblr with no real interest.

“Stevie,” Nate says by way of greeting, depositing a slew of takeout bags on their kitchen counter, “I think your coat really has leveled up my crime-solving abilities.”

She peers up at him from her cocoon on the couch, interest piqued. “How so?”

“I figured out what the end of my book is going to be today,” he tells her, grabbing two of the bags of food and sitting on the floor in front of the couch. He passes a bag to her, and suddenly Stevie has an appetite.

Thai food is her greatest weakness, and Nate knows this, the conniving bastard.

“And that was because you were wearing my coat?” she asks him, pausing the movie mid break-up scene. The couple on screen looks eerily similar to the couple they saw in the movie that played yesterday morning, even though they’re two different films. Maybe Janelle really was right.

“Oh, definitely,” Nate says, shoveling a massive bite of noodles into his mouth. “I could feel the
inner detective in me waking up. It was kind of a spiritual experience, actually.”

“I’m glad you’ve been enlightened,” Stevie tells him. “Speaking of religion, I think I’ve found one in this movie. Shush so I can watch it.”

Nate rolls his eyes. “You weren’t even watching it when I got here,” he says. “You just don’t want to hear about my deep emotional connection to your coat. Stevie, I may be in love.”

“Nate. Less talking, more watching this terrible movie with me.”

He laughs, and makes stupid sarcastic side commentary throughout the last half of the film, and for a moment Stevie forgets about David and the enormous well of guilt that’s take up residence in her, because somehow, even when he’s the reason for half of her emotional turmoil, Nate makes everything okay.

 

The next few weeks are a whirlwind of endless preparation for Janelle and Vi’s visit. Stevie and Nate both decide on a real Christmas tree, which means they have to drive all the way to a farm and pick one out, which entails a lot of bickering about which one will be the perfect size for their tiny apartment. Eventually, they decide on one that’s on the smaller side, and rope it to the roof of Nate’s car. They listen to Michael Buble’s Christmas album the whole drive home, singing over each other and skipping songs until ‘All I Want For Christmas Is You’ comes on, and Stevie feels at peace.

 

They decorate the apartment in sections, because they’re efficient as hell.

First is the living room: the main attraction. Tree? In the corner, covered in twinkling fairy lights and mismatched ornaments and store-bought candy canes. Stockings? On the mantel— which they’ve covered in holly— hung by weights shaped like reindeer. Nate’s winter candle collection? On the coffee table, flickering at all hours of the day. Also most likely a fire hazard. Presents, wrapped in Snoopy wrapping paper? Under the tree. One room is down.

The kitchen comes next: tiny and boxed-in, it’s a challenge, but they manage to make it work. They string lights around, multi-colored this time, and set up gingerbread houses on the bar. Stevie produces a Santa-shaped glass cookie jar from one of the moving boxes labelled “CHRISTMAS SHIT” in their linen closet, and they fill it with peppermints and gumdrops. They place a vase of poinsettias on the kitchen table, and Nate lays out dark green placemats that, in his own words, look festive as hell.

Those are really the only two places they decorate, actually. But they still look pretty great.

With a measly three days until Janelle and Vi arrive, Stevie and Nate spend the majority of their time at his place of work. Mae’s Cafe is a cozy little place a block from their apartment building, and while Nate takes orders and does periodic refills of Stevie’s latte, she proofreads the first official half of the Damn Novel.

It features a heroine this time, not a hero like his first two books had, and Stevie feels a swell of pride towards Nate. Maybe she really should ask him about his leftist feminist agenda.

The main character is fiery and relentless, a detective in her twenties with a sleek bob and eyes that see everything a minute before it happens. Stevie’s immersed in minutes, and when Nate stops by her table again to refill her cup, she grabs his arm before he goes.

“Nate,” she says, eyes wide and sincere. “This is really amazing.”

Something in his face lights up, and he tries to contain it, but she sees. He breaks into a grin, and goes, “Really? Are you sure, because I kind of thought the beginning needed some work—“

“Shut up,” she says, waving her hands dismissively. “Stop being humble. You’re such an idiot. This is incredible, Nate.”

He bites down hard on his bottom lip to try to fight back his smile, but Stevie catches it anyway.

“You really like it?”

Stevie nods emphatically. “Yes! Really, it’s… it just draws you in, right off the bat. The main girl, the detective… Tatum? God, she’s such a badass. I love her.”

Nate averts his eyes, examines the coffeepot he’s holding like it’s the first time he’s seeing it clearly. “Yeah, well, I had a lot of real-world inspiration. Hey, you don’t have to stay here my whole shift, alright? I know it gets boring. You can head home whenever you want Anyway. Yeah, thank you for… thanks for proofreading it.”

And then he pivots on his heel and rushes back to the counter, even though there are no new customers.

Stevie bookmarks the page she’s on and slides Nate’s laptop into her messenger bag, smiling to herself as she gets up to leave. She has a sneaking suspicion he’s writing his book about some distant, eighties-era version of her.

And honestly? It’s a really great early Christmas present.

 

When Janelle and Vi arrive a day later, Stevie and Nate are in the middle of a Hallmark Movie Viewing. It’s become a tradition of sorts, their very own cynical advent calendar: every day they choose one of the endless cringeworthy titles, and compete in a head-to-head challenge to see who can get the most scathing side commentary in over the course of the movie. So far, Nate is winning, because Nate is the most sarcastic person on the planet. But Stevie is going to beat him one of these days.

They’re shouting over each other when the door of their apartment bursts open— Stevie made Janelle a copy of their key when she and Nate first moved in— and their guests arrive in all their snow-covered glory.

“What did we walk into?” Janelle asks through her laughter. Nate and Stevie are both sprawled out on the living room floor despite the fact that the couch is vacant, and they’re both shouting at the TV like suburban dads during a football game.

Stevie is the first to recover.

She vaults herself up off the floor, and Janelle rushes towards her, wrapping her in a hug. Nate fist-bumps Vi and takes the suitcases they’ve pulled inside, and then Janelle is ooh-ing and ahh-ing at all the sparkly decor, and Vi is asking why they have three very distinct, very different Christmas candles burning.

“Peppermint Twist and Apple Cider at the same time?” they ask, laughing when Nate glares in mock-offense. “Is this supposed to be calming or migraine-inducing?”

“Since moving in with Nate, I’ve learned two essential rules,” Stevie cuts in, grinning when Nate shakes his head at her, betrayed. “One: never ask him to kill a spider for you. Two: don’t ask questions about his candles.”

“Those are Nate’s?!” Janelle asks, delighted. Nate glares daggers at Stevie, and she nudges him playfully on her way to the kitchen.

“They help me write,” he grumbles as they all trail after Stevie. She’s making them hot cocoa, they just don’t know it yet.

“You mean they help you think about writing, type a couple of words, then delete the whole draft,” Janelle says. Nate stops in front of the entryway to the kitchen to bang his head on the wall.

“Hey,” Stevie says. “No bickering, children. Janelle, what flavor of hot chocolate do you want?”

“There’s more than one flavor?”

Stevie’s grin widens. “Oh, my sweet summer child,” she says, “we have five different options.”

At this, Nate joins Stevie in the kitchen to help explain— he’s the one that introduced her to the magic of specialty hot chocolate.

“This brand makes hot cocoa in, like, a million different flavors,” he says, showing the various packets to Vi and Janelle. “There’s regular hot chocolate, dark chocolate, white chocolate, caramel sea salt, and peppermint. Choose wisely.”

“Peppermint,” Janelle and Vi say at the same time. They turn and smile warmly at each other, and Nate rolls his eyes affectionately, and Stevie looks at all her friends in her tiny, gingerbread-scented kitchen, and feels unmistakably at home.

 

Christmas is a blur of warm, giddy excitement: Stevie wakes up to the sound of Janelle and Vi and Nate all arguing over each other in the living room. She grins to herself and tiptoes to her door to listen.

“It’s Christmas, she should be up by now,” Janelle is saying, excitement clear in her voice. “I need her to open the gift I got her first!”

“Dear God,” Nate sighs. He pauses to take a sip of what Stevie guesses is coffee. “Just let her sleep in. This is what she does.”

“Have you no Christmas spirit?” Janelle asks, mock-offended, and Stevie chooses this moment to reveal herself.

“I’m awake, idiots,” she says. “And if anyone’s opening anything first, it’s Janelle.”

 

After they exchange gifts, Vi and Janelle have to get back on the road. They promised they’d be back home later today to be with their families, and Stevie and Nate can’t blame them. Stevie called her parents this morning, told them she’d visit over New Years’, and this seemed to satisfy them. They never really took much interest in her education, but they knew Harvard was demanding.

Nate, on the other hand, still hasn’t called home today. Stevie hasn’t pressed him about it. Something tells her she’ll know when he wants her to, and she’s okay with that.

After their friends leave, Stevie and Nate sit on the wrapping-paper covered living room floor as the candles flicker and Home Alone plays on mute on the TV. Stevie is splayed out with her head on a pillow Janelle crocheted her, Nate’s laptop in front of her, reading the last chapter of the first half of his book. He’s reading one of the books she bought him for Christmas, but she notices that his gaze wanders over to her every couple of pages.

Finally, she finishes the chapter she’s on. It’s left her buzzing, needing to know more, and she shuts his laptop so abruptly that he jumps.

“Nate. Finish this book immediately.”

He laughs a surprised sort of laugh, like he really can’t believe she likes it, and Stevie nudges his laptop towards him. “I’m serious! You can’t just write a last line like that and expect me to go, ‘huh, okay, that was mediocre, time to move on now’. I mean— what happens to Tatum? Does she get caught breaking into the Olivers’ mansion? What does she find?”

“Stevie,” Nate says, struggling to keep the laughter out of his voice. He’s leaning into her space, and she can feel warmth radiating off of him. “Shut. Up. Please. You’re overselling it, just. Thank you, okay? I really appreciate you reading it.”

“I’m being serious,” she stresses, and for some insane reason she inches forward, too, and they’re face-to-face now and she’s practically in his lap, and Nate very carefully marks his place in his book and sets it down on the floor beside him.

“Stevie,” he says, and his voice is low and has a strange quality to it, something heavy and serious she’s only heard from him when they’re about to get involved in a life-threatening situation. “You… God, I’m sorry.”

And he stands so suddenly that she doesn’t have time to react, and then he’s walking in quick strides towards their front door, and Stevie scrambles to her feet and the room spins and she says, “Wait.”

Nate stops immediately.

She rushes over to him, and he blinks rapidly like he’s bracing for something, like he’s done something unspeakably wrong, and Stevie is so confused and so— dammit, she’s in love, and she just wants answers and she’s done dancing around the truth.

So she steps a little closer and looks Nate in the eye and says, “I think I might like you. In, like, a non-platonic way. Um. That sounded really stupid, let me start over.”

And Nate is staring at her with wide eyes, like he can’t believe what he’s hearing, and Stevie kind of wants to punch herself now. And shit, she actually said that. She told him that out loud. And she used filler words.

Oh, God.

“I’m really sorry,” she says, and her words are running together because he’s her best friend and she needs things to be okay between them, “I’m so sorry, Nate, I just can’t keep it from you any longer. It’s why things didn’t work between me and David. I just— I’m so much more myself around you, and you understand me, like really understand me, and I’m so sorry because I know you don’t feel the same—“

“I do,” he says, deadly serious, and she stops mid-sentence and stares. Nate exhales long and hard like he’s been holding his breath for a year. “Jesus, Stevie, you’re… you’re supposed to be good at knowing what’s going on inside of other people’s heads.”

He huffs a laugh, and Stevie is starting to understand, and warmth is blooming in her chest, and she laughs with him.

“I mean, I’ve had a crush on you since our second year at Ellingham,” Nate says, and Stevie really loses it, then, and they’re hysterical with relief and falling forward into each other, and Stevie’s head nestles into the crook of Nate’s neck, and his arms circle her waist, and they sink down onto the floor with their front door to their backs and stare at the living room in front of them.

For a moment, the apartment is blessedly quiet. If Stevie listens extremely closely, she can hear the crackling of the candles on the coffee table and the staccato ticking of the clock on the wall of their kitchen. The quiet is comfortable, warm. Stevie leans her head on Nate’s shoulder. They’re sitting side-by-side.

“When did you realize you… saw me as more than a friend?” he asks.

Stevie consults her memory. Memory is a funny thing; it can twist events out of order, magnify emotions. Sometimes she looks back and thinks she must have known it on some level since the day he barged into her room in a tie and dress pants and ordered her to accompany him to the dance, because he was worried about her. Other times, she swears it was when he barged into her cabin when she was spiralling about David and ordered her to go get coffee with him. A lot of her most formative memories of Nate involve him barging into her room and ordering her to go places with him, she’s realizing.

But now,sitting beside him in their shared home, Stevie can’t pin down one specific moment. She shrugs, and Nate laughs.

“I’m not really sure,” she says finally, and he turns to look at her. “I think it might have been when you agreed to help me look in the tunnels. Or when you agreed to help me search Allison’s house. Or when I woke you up at five in the morning and saw you wearing Janelle’s feminist agenda sweatshirt.”

“She told me you’d like it,” Nate says. “God, I owe her one.”

Stevie gapes at him. “Wait,” she says slowly. “Did Janelle know?”

Nate’s eyes move to the left, and he smiles sheepishly. “I mean…”

“Nate!” Stevie shrieks, hitting him on the shoulder, and he straight-up cackles. “Janelle KNEW?!”

He nods through his laughter, and Stevie buries her face in her hands. “My whole life is a lie,” she says. “How long? Nate, how long did she know?”

“Since our second year,” he says, still laughing, and Stevie lunges to her feet and says, “I’m calling her.”

Nate stands and puts a hand on her shoulder, says, “Stevie, she’s driving right now.”

“She has bluetooth, Nate!”

He huffs a little laugh again, shakes his head. “We’ll call her later, okay? Just. C’mon, let’s finish that horrible movie. I was totally winning with the commentary this time, but I might let you beat me for once.”

Stevie grabs both his wrists before he can lead her into the living room, and he turns to face her, his eyes bright and warm and so distinctly Nate she could cry.

“Nate. We just— we basically just bared our souls to each other,” she says, and he breaks into a grin. “And you’re not even going to kiss me?”

He looks at her like she’s just suggested they break into another house.

“You’re okay with that?” He asks her, so sincere it almost hurts. “I mean, it’s not that I don’t want to— God, Stevie, I do— I just. It's kind of soon, y’know, it hasn’t been that long since David— I don’t want to take advantage of—“

“Nate,” she says, running a hand through his hair. She can’t remember when they started getting so tactile, but it’s intoxicating. “I really want to kiss you. Is that okay?”

He sighs shakily, nodding. “Yeah. Yeah, that’s… really okay,”

“A true wordsmith,” Stevie says, smiling when he grins at her. And then she leans towards him, and his hand finds the back of her neck again, pulling her to him, and it’s everything she thought it would be and more.

 

They call Janelle from Stevie’s phone the next morning. Nate’s in Janelle’s feminist agenda sweatshirt, and Stevie’s in one of his many oversized green sweaters, and this does not go unnoticed by their friend.

When she picks up, snuggled up in a colorful pajama set in her childhood bedroom, she says, “Nate, Stevie! Are you guys on the sharing-clothes level of friendship now?”

Nate shoots Stevie A Look, and she grins at him and nods, and he clears his throat and says, “Actually, it’s not really a friendship thing.”

He waits the appropriate number of seconds for Janelle to connect the dots, and then she shrieks so loud that her mom comes running into the room.

“Sorry, Mom!” she says as Stevie and Nate dissolve into laughter. “Thought I saw a spider!”

When Janelle is alone in her room again, she whisper-screams, “You guys finally told each other?!”

And Nate says, “Yep!”

And Stevie gapes at Janelle and goes, “You knew I liked him?!”

Janelle just smiles her all-knowing smile, and Stevie feels a rush of affection for her friend. “I think I knew before you did,” she admits. “You guys always just… got each other. Like, on a cellular level. I was just waifing for you to get your head out of the clouds— or in Stevie’s case, the murder cases— and figure it out.”

Stevie smiles at Janelle, at this otherworldly, marvelous creature who somehow knows her better than herself, and Janelle smiles back and says, “I’m really happy you figured it out.”

And Stevie looks at Nate in his stupid sweatshirt and his rumpled hair and his warm, gleaming eyes, and says, “Me, too.”