Georgie took a frustrated gulp of Zima and thought about walking away. “Obviously.”

Then there was a whoop of laughter behind her, and somebody fell against Georgie’s back, pushing her into Neal’s shoulder. She held her cup against her chest, so it wouldn’t spill on him. Neal quickly turned toward her, making more room on the wall and steadying her for a second, his hand on her arm.

“Sorry,” the guy behind her said.

“No worries,” Georgie told him. She and Neal were standing closer now, their shoulders almost touching on the wall.

They really were almost the same height. Georgie was five-five; Neal might be five-six. Maybe. It was nice—having a guy’s eyes right there where she could reach them. If he’d just look at her . . .

“So,” Neal said, “you came with your not-boyfriend, right?”

“He’s not my boyfriend.”

“Right. I think I saw him come in. He’s dressed like The Jerk.”

Georgie closed her eyes for a second. When she started talking, her voice was so quiet, she wasn’t sure Neal would even be able to hear her: “Sometimes I think the only reason you ever talked to me at all was because you knew it pissed off Seth.”

His reply came cold and quick: “Sometimes I think that’s the only reason you ever talked to me.”

She opened her eyes. “What?”

“Everybody knows.” Neal’s chin was practically touching his chest—that’s how not he was looking at her. “Everybody at The Spoon says you’re crazy about him.”

“Not everybody,” Georgie said. “I’ve never said that.”

Neal shrugged harshly and went to take a drink of his beer, but the bottle was empty.

Georgie pushed away from the wall and took a step backwards. She needed to get out of here before she started crying, but first—“You know what? This is why you’re standing alone at a party. Because you’re a jerk. You’re a jerk to people who actually, inexplicably like you.” She took another step backwards. Into some other guy.

“Hey, Georgie!” the guy shouted. “Are you Private Benjamin?”

“Hey,” she said, trying to get past him.

“Georgie, wait,” she heard Neal say. She felt a hand on her wrist. Firm, but not tight—she could still pull away. Neal kept talking, but the music buried it. (God, she hated parties.) He stepped in closer. Close. They were standing in a crowd of people who were all trying to decide whether they wanted to dance. Neal’s head dipped toward hers. “I’m sorry!” he shouted in her ear. And then something else.

“What?” Georgie yelled.

He seemed frustrated. They looked in each other’s eyes for a few seconds—a few overwhelming (to Georgie) seconds—then he started pulling her back toward the wall.

Georgie followed. Neal tightened his grip on her wrist.

He cut through the crowd and led her down a short hallway, stopping in front of the only closed door. There was a piece of caution tape stretched over it and a sign that said:

STAY OUT!!

IF ANYONE GOES IN HERE,

MY ROOMMATE WILL END ME.

HAVE MERCY.

—Whit

Whit worked at The Spoon.

“We can’t go in there,” Georgie said.

“It’s fine.” Neal opened the door and ducked under the tape.

Georgie followed.

He leaned over and turned on a floor lamp without letting go of her wrist. The door swung mostly closed behind them, and the roar of the music receded.

Neal turned back to her and set his jaw. “You’re right,” he said in his normal voice. His hand dropped, and he rubbed his palm on his jeans. “I’m sorry. I’m a jerk.”

“Seth would agree with you there.”

“I don’t want to talk about Seth anymore.”

“You’re the one who brought him up.”

“I know. I’m sorry.” Neal had a way of holding his chin down and looking out the top of his eyes, even when he wasn’t sitting at the drafting table. “Can we go back and start over?”

“How far back?” Georgie tried to fold her arms, but she was still holding that stupid Zima.

“Back to the wall,” he said. “Back to you walking across the living room toward me. To you saying, ‘I’m surprised to see you here.’”

“Are you saying you want to go back to the living room?”

“No. Just go ahead, say it again now.”

Georgie rolled her eyes, but she said it: “I’m surprised to see you here.”

“You shouldn’t be,” Neal said. He lifted his chin and looked directly in her eyes. For the second time in five minutes. For the second time ever. “I’m here because I knew you’d be here. Because I hoped you would be.”

Georgie felt like a snake was unwinding itself in the back of her neck and along her shoulders. She swayed a little, and her mouth clicked open. “Oh.”

Neal looked away, and Georgie took in three gallons of air.

He was shaking his head. “I’m . . . sorry,” he said. “I wanted to see you. But then I got angry. I didn’t know what to—you’ve been ignoring me.”

“I haven’t been ignoring you,” she said.

“You stopped coming back to talk to me.”

“I thought I was bothering you.”

“You weren’t bothering me,” he said, facing her again. “Why would you think that?”

“Because you never come talk to me.”

“I never had to come talk to you.” Neal looked bewildered. “You always came to me.”

“I . . .” Georgie finished her drink so she could put down the cup.

Neal took it from her. He set the cup and his bottle on a desk behind him.

“I thought I was bothering you,” she said. “I thought you were just humoring me.”

“I thought you got tired of me,” he said.

She brought her hands up to her forehead. “Maybe we should stop thinking.”

Neal huffed and nodded, smoothing down the hair at the back of his head. They were both quiet for a dozen awkward heartbeats; then Neal motioned toward the bed. “Do you want to sit down?”

“Oh,” Georgie said, looking at the bed. There was another sign there:

NO, SERIOUSLY. HE WILL END ME.

Get out of here, okay?

—Whit

“I don’t think we should,” she said.

“It’s fine.”

They should leave. They were violating someone’s privacy. But . . . Georgie looked up at Neal, with his black T-shirt and his pale skin. He was smoothing down his hair again—ridiculously, it couldn’t be even a quarter-inch long in back. His elbow was in the air, his triceps flexed.

Georgie slid against the bed, sitting on the floor.

Neal looked down at her and nodded. “Okay . . . ,” he murmured, sitting next to her.

After a few seconds, she nudged her shoulder against his. “So. What have I missed?”

“When?”

“Since I’ve been sitting at my own desk,” she said, “playing hard to get.”

Neal smiled a little and looked down; his eyelashes brushed the top of his cheeks. “Oh, you know. Ink. Talking rabbits. Singing turtles. A chipmunk who wishes he was a squirrel.”

“Your comic last week was one of my favorites.”

“Thanks.”

“I put it in my Save Box,” she said.

“What’s that?”

“It’s actually just a box. I, uh . . . I hate that feeling, you know, when you’re thinking about something you’ve read or heard, and you thought it was so smart at the time, but now you can’t remember it. I save things I don’t want to lose track of.”

“Must be a big box.”

“Not as big as you’d think,” she said. “I started putting your comic strips in there before I knew you were you.”

“Before you knew I was me?”

“You know what I mean.”

“Thanks.” Neal’s legs were bent in front of him, and he was picking at loose threads on his thighs.

He seemed uncomfortable. Georgie had that feeling again, that she was the only one keeping the conversation alive. Maybe she should shut up and see if Neal would say anything. No. No more games. “Would it be easier to talk to me if you were holding a pen?”

Neal lowered his eyebrows, and his head bounced. “Huh. I guess so. Too bad I don’t smoke.”

“What?”

“Oh, you know—something to do with my hands.”

“Oh,” Georgie said. And then, because she wanted to, she reached out and took his hand. Laid her palm on the back of his hand. Curled her fingers behind his thumb. Neal looked down at their hands, then slowly turned his palm up, bending his fingers around hers. Georgie squeezed.

Neal’s magic hand. (This was the left one, so maybe it was slightly less magic.)

Neal’s wide, square palm. Neal’s short, straight fingers—softer than Georgie expected, smoother than her own.

Neal, Neal, Neal.

“Before I knew you were you . . .” He shook his head. “There is no ‘before I knew you were you.’”

Georgie pushed her shoulder into his, and Neal pushed back, still looking at their hands.

“I saw you the first time I came down to The Spoon,” he said. “You were sitting on the couch. And Seth was there, and you kept shoving him away. You were wearing that skirt you have, the blue and green plaid one, you know? And your hair was a mess.”

She jabbed him with her shoulder, and he smiled a one-sided, one-dimpled smile for a second before he shook it away.

“It looked like spun gold—that’s what I remember thinking. That your hair wasn’t a real-person color. You’re not blond, you know? Your hair isn’t yellow. It isn’t yellow mixed with white or brown or orange or gray. It defies four-color CMYK processing. It’s metallic.”

Neal kept shaking his head. “Whit told me your name, and I didn’t believe him—Georgie McCool—but I started reading everything you wrote in The Spoon, and every time I came downstairs, there you were, on the couch or at your desk, always surrounded by half a dozen guys or just . . . him. I thought . . .” He shook his head some more. “When you came back to introduce yourself—Georgie, you didn’t have to introduce yourself. I always knew you were you.”

She pulled Neal’s hand into her lap and turned to face him. And then, because never in her life had Georgie been able to wait for someone to kiss her first, she pressed her mouth into his cheek. Neal clenched his teeth, and she felt the pressure on her lips.

“Georgie,” he whispered. He closed his eyes and tilted his head toward her.

She kissed his cheekbone from nose to temple, then rubbed her lips in his cheek again, wishing he’d smile.

He was holding her hand tight. “Georgie . . . ,” he whispered again.

“Neal . . .” She kissed his jaw from ear to chin.

He started to turn his body toward her, slightly, and she reached for his shoulder to make it happen faster, to make him come closer. He caught her hand by the wrist, but still let her pull him in.

Georgie thought they’d kiss then. She tried to find his mouth.

But Neal kept rubbing his cheek into hers, and it felt so nice—all the soft and hard parts of their faces catching on each other. Cheekbone on brow. Jawbone on chin. Neal’s skin was flushed and warm. His hands were holding firm. He smelled like bar soap and beer and fabric paint. God . . .

This was better than kissing.

This was . . .

Georgie arched her neck and felt Neal’s chin, then nose, then forehead push down to her collarbone. She dropped her face into his short hair—and closed her eyes.

When Georgie was a kid, this was what she’d pictured whenever she’d heard the word “necking”—two people rubbing their faces and necks together, kissing like giraffes. She’d had a crush on her babysitter’s son, and this was what she’d fantasized about doing with him, rubbing her neck into his, burying her face into his Simon Le Bon hair. (She was nine, and he was fifteen, and this fortunately never happened.)

She lifted her chin again, and Neal dragged his face back up to hers, humming almost helplessly in her ear.

Whatever this was—non-kissing, hard-core nuzzling—it felt so good that the next time Neal’s lips were over hers, Georgie ghosted right past them, pulling his mouth open with her cheek instead.

Neal hummed again.

Georgie smiled.

The bedroom door opened.

“Are you f**king kidding me?” somebody said. “Can’t you people read?”

The music from the living room banged back into the bedroom. “You Oughta Know” by Alanis Morissette. Georgie looked up at the doorway—it was Whit from The Spoon. Whit who lived here and wrote beseeching notes. Neal let go of Georgie’s arm, but she caught his hand. She held both his hands now. Fast.

“Oh,” Whit said, looking a little dumbfounded. “Neal . . . and Georgie. Sorry, I thought some as**ole was using your room. Uh, carry on, I guess.”

Whit closed the door—and Georgie started giggling.

“This is your room?”

Neal’s head dropped. “Yeah.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. ‘Why don’t you come back to my room?’—it sounds sleazy.”

“It sounds better than ‘Let’s go make out in this stranger’s room.’” She spread her fingers and pushed them through his, squeezing his hands tight again. Then she leaned toward him, mouth-first. Yes, the non-kissing was good. But there were Neal’s perfectly formed lips right there—a testament to symmetry and cell division—and surely kissing would be even better.