Page 84 of What I Like About You

“Sorry, I just—what the hell, Hal? Is this adate? Are you, like,tryingto mess with him now?”

I stand. I’m already insecure enough about this whole ordeal. I don’t need shit from Ollie.

“Okay, bye.”

I leave Ollie to hisStar Trekmarathon and he slams the door behind me. I fully plan to collapse onto my mattress belly first, wondering what the hell I got myself into. Does Nash want to take me as, like, adate? Or as friends? The way Molly said it, well, itsoundedlike a date. But now I’m wondering if she meant as friends.

Either way, it’s complicated.

I kind of hate how much I want it to be a date.

Across the hall, my bedroom door is shut tight, which is weird because I never leave it closed, mostly because I love coming home to find Scout curled up in a ball on my bed. There’s a piece of paper taped to the door.

SURPRISE!is scrawled in black Sharpie.

I instantly tense because I don’t do surprises. But its Gramps’s handwriting, so I twist the doorknob, and push.

Disbelief smacks me in the face.

Grams’s bookcases line my lavender walls—and they’re filledwith her books. Placed side by side, they take up an entire wall, just as I imagined they would in the floor-plan sketch of my dream room. Five matching mahogany bookcases with six shelves each.

I can barely breathe, but I step closer and see they’re organized in reverse alphabetical order like Grams would have them, because A should know what it feels like to be last sometimes. I take a tour of the shelves, my fingers brushing along the spines. Her library is truly a force—featuring classic and contemporary YA fiction, heart-pounding mysteries, and the most epic collection of foreign editions ofHarry Potter. I haven’t read all these books, not even close.

Now, they’re mine.

I sink to the ground and cover my mouth with my hand to keep my sob inside becausethiswas Gramps’s project. It must’ve taken him all day, and it must’ve been so hard—but he built her shelves for me.

“Whoa.”

I look up and Ollie is there. Even though I know he’s pissed at me, he holds out his hand and I take it, letting him pull me up to my feet.

“This was the super-secret Halle project?”

“You knew?” I ask.

Ollie shrugs. “Sort of. Not really; he wouldn’t say. But I didn’t think he’d be able to dothis.”

I know what he means. Every day, I worry that Okay Gramps will revert back to Super Sad Gramps. But maybe I haven’t been giving him enough credit.

Downstairs, Gramps is watchingJeopardy!on the couch, Scout curled up in his lap.

I sit down next to him. If I look at him, I’ll sob and make it awkward.

So I say, “Thank you.”

Gramps just squeezes my hand, then asks me if I know the question to aHamiltonanswer before someone buzzes in and says, “Who is Lin-Manuel Miranda?”

We spend the rest of the night shouting the questions to Alex Trebek’s answers.

Nash to Kels, at the dance

Nash Stevens

So. I don’t think Halle’s gonna show.

7:15 PM

This is why I don’t go to school-sponsored programs …

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