Page 17 of Down My Chimney

“Go where?” I asked as he pulled me into the apartment.

“To the play!” He took my bag and set it on the couch. “I was worried you wouldn’t make it in time, but you did, because you are perfect and wonderful and the best human being on the planet.”

He threw his arms around me and noisily kissed my cheek. I flushed. I couldn’t deny those words were good to hear. I felt like all I did these days was disappoint people. But I was a little embarrassed I’d forgotten about the play—some Shakespeare thing Henry’s friend was putting on. Henry, being a good person, wanted to go and support her.

“Right,” I said, nodding. “Of course. Yeah.”

Henry leaned back and studied my face. “Is everything okay? You look a little grumpy.”

“Just tired,” I said, endeavoring to smile. “It’s been a long week.”

“Do you want to stay in?” he asked. “I can tell Allyson we can’t make it.”

He looked so earnest, his eyes so kind, that I almost said yes. But I couldn’t help remembering what Dev and Taylor had said about him. I didn’t deserve him, but the least I could do was be supportive.

“No,” I said, shaking my head. “No, let’s go. Didn’t you say there would be puppets?”

“Not just puppets.” Henry grinned. “Sock puppets. Might give you nightmares.”

“That sounds like a challenge. Now wehaveto go.”

I leaned in and kissed him hungrily. I breathed in his scent, wrapped my arms around his waist. My worries about my friends, my grades, my scholarship—they all faded away.

When I broke the kiss, Henry was flushed. He looked eminently fuckable. So much so that I almost regretted insisting that we go. But it would be okay. There was time for that later.

Around Henry, everything would be okay.

* * *

“Okay, so when you said sock puppets, I thought you meant, you know,puppets made out of socks. As in, the kind that fit on a person’s hand. Not—not—whatever the fuck that was,” I said three hours later.

Henry, who was sitting next to me at the twenty-four-hour diner we’d gone to after the play, just laughed. “I warned you they might give you nightmares!”

“I think you could have been a bit more specific,” I said. “You didn’t tell me I was going to be watching full-sized humans wrapped in sock-condoms shuffling around the stage like some kind of half-developed caterpillars in their chrysalises.”

I shook my head. The play had been a production ofHamlet, but all of the actors had been sheathed in creepy white fabric, arms tight to their sides, gigantic googly eyes glued to their foreheads and bright red mouths painted on the gauze that stretched across their faces. The fabric had erased all identifying features, turning the people inside into human-sized grubs. I reallywasgoing to have nightmares.

“We got the idea when we were talking about how to stage the play-within-the-play,” Allyson said when she joined us a few minutes later. “Chelle suggested sock puppets, and once we decided to go with that, the idea of turning all the actors into life-sized sock puppets just kind of flowed naturally.”

I turned to Henry and mouthed,Naturally?

He just laughed and put his hand on my thigh under the table. I shivered. His friends knew we were together, and I didn’t think anyone else in the diner could see us. But this was still the most intimate thing he’d ever done in public.

“I thought it was brilliant,” he said. “And the idea to bring Ophelia back as a ghost. I loved that! I always thought Shakespeare did her dirty.”

“Well, it just makes sense, right?” Allyson said. “I mean, the play is so concerned with ghosts, and the way guilt and regret can haunt us. Why would you just throw her away when you could use her to further the story instead?”

Vernon and Chelle, two more of Henry’s friends, showed up ten minutes after that, and the four of them proceeded to rank Shakespeare’s plays from best to worst for potential adaptation into sock-puppet-only productions. Then, when Vernon mentioned how creepy he thought Ophelia’s ghost had been, the discussion turned into ranking which plays would work best as horror movies, andthatturned into discussing their favorite existing horror movies and their potential for stage adaptation.

I didn’t talk much. I was kind of lost with all the theater terminology, and Henry’s friends were all so well-read, referencing books I’d never heard of. I felt ridiculous, a self-declared English major who had no idea what they were talking about.

Henry was in his element, though, which made me happy. I could tell how much he loved his friends, and how much they loved him. He’d had a reputation for being weird in high school, but he’d found his people at college, and he radiated joy.

I was glad his friends appreciated how brilliant he was. How funny and creative and curious and kind. And gorgeous. Every time he turned and smiled at me, he took my breath away. I couldn’t believe someone like him wanted anything to do with me.

But he did, and he wasn’t afraid to show it. As the night wore on, he kept touching me in little ways. A shoulder brush, a poke in the arm, an elbow to the side when he thought I was teasing him. Little things that a casual observer wouldn’t have remarked on, but that I knew were freighted with meaning.

He knew I didn’t want to come right out and announce to the world that we were together, but he made sure I knew that he wanted me. Honestly, if he’d kissed me right then and there in the diner, I didn’t think I would have pulled away. I didn’t want to pull away from Henry, period.

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