Page 100 of What I Like About You

“Hi,” Nash says, holding out a small gift bag. “Happy Chanukah.”

“Hey,” I say.

I don’t know what else to say, so I take the bag and hold the door open for Nash to come inside. Less because I want him to, and more because it’s too coldoutsideto join him. Nash follows me into the living room, and we sit in on the couch. Neither one of us knows what to say.

“Are you going to open it?” he asks.

“Oh. Right.”

I remove the tissue paper to uncover a wrapped box sitting at the bottom of the bag.

“You are not that guy,” I say.

“Oh, I am totally that guy.”

Inside the box is, oh wow—an embroidery hoop. I live for this crafty stuff. Grams tried to teach me embroidery when I was younger, but she just ended up finishing all of my hoops for me. In the center of this hoop—it’s a Nash original drawing. There’s no mistaking it. It’s a girl with long hair, her face hidden by the book she is reading. The muslin fabric is tie-dyed purple around the Book Girl, only she is not colored in.

It’s beautiful.

“I saw that you had a few when we were painting your room. I drew it—and sent the sketch to one of my blog friends who has an Etsy. I know things have been weird since, well—”

“I love it,” I say. “Thank you.”

Nash relaxes. “Really? Cool.”

“Really,” I say.

It’s such a small detail in my life, such a Grams detail. I can’t believe he noticed. I can’t believe he drew something for me. It’s another complication, another check in theNash is wonderfulbox and an X in theHalle is trashone.

I have no clue what this means.

“Can we talk?” Nash asks. “I’m really sorry—”

I cut Nash off. “I don’t want to be awkward anymore.”

Kels is on hiatus, while I am processing the reality that IRL, Nash and me are temporary. That’s the truth, isn’t it? I’m frozen in type because there is no way to spin this story where Nash won’t see me as a huge liar. If I can’t talk to him as Kels and things are going to blow up anyway, I think I’d rather enjoy these next few months being not awkward with Nash, asHalle, before we go down in flames.

“Me either,” Nash says, relieved.

“Let’s stop being awkward,” I say.

“Yes. Okay. Good plan,” Nash says.

We shake on it. To not being awkward anymore. I mean, awkward is an inherent part of the Halle genome. I will never be Not Awkward—only incremental amounts of Less Awkward. And before I went off in Book Land, romanticizing sunrises and creating A Thing out of nothing, I was at my Least Awkward around Nash.

Even if it’s temporary, I want to get back to that.

Since we’re now officially Not Awkward, I pop open a bag of Smartfood and we catch up. Scout is curled up in ball on the couch cushion between us.

“Have you sent in your applications yet?” he asks, passing me the bag of popcorn.

Scout has no chill around snack food. As soon as the bag crinkles she’s up and sniffing, trying to convince us to share. Nash passes the bag to me and scoops up Scout, so she’s sitting in his lap. He’s scratching her ears and for a moment, I swear she forgets about the popcorn.

Scout on Nash’s lap might be the cutest thing I’ve ever seen.

I shake my head no. “Still tweaking my supplemental essays. Did you?”

Nash nods. “Yesterday.”

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