Page 159 of Built to Fall
Lina laughs, tossing a bag of sharp cheddar that I point out into the cart. “You’re going to run that joke into the ground, aren’t you?”
“I’m sure I’ll get over it,” I say lightheartedly, although she already knows I’m fucking with her. “I’m sure if I still lived with my sisters, I’d be making grilled cheese every night, anyway. Abby has already asked me to come over and make them for her at least ten times.”
“And you do it, don’t you?” she says, one eyebrow raised as she tosses a pack of butter into the cart like she’s making a point.
“Yeah. Of course I do. She’s pregnant; what am I supposed to do? Say no?”
“You’re such a softie,” Lina grins, nudging my shoulder with hers as we move toward the bread aisle.
“Sometimes,” I counter. “Only for people using emotional manipulation tactics.”
It’s part of my nature—taking care of others, making sure the people I care about aren’t carrying more weight than they have to. It all comes back to the same mindset of ‘maybe I can prevent something from happening if I’m as good to them as I can possibly be.’
“So, all of us,” she says sweetly, grabbing a loaf of sourdough when I point at it.
I side-eye her playfully. “Exactly. Are you sure you don’t want to write this stuff down? I can make you a list of everything I use.”
She shakes her head. “I’ll remember.”
“Of course you will.”
“Seriously, though, thank you.” Lina rubs the sleeve of her sweatshirt between her fingertips. “There’s been a weird feeling in the apartment recently, and I think having other people come over will cut up the monotony of our lives.”
Yeah, tonight will also be the first time I’m staying the night at Lina’s apartment instead of her coming to mine.
It shouldn’t feel significant—but it does. The shift in routine. The fact that her comfort zone is beginning to stretch just enough to make room for me inside of it. Her bed instead of mine, her toothbrush cup, a cluttered living room, and a fridge full of mismatched Tupperware and Diet Coke cans.
The novelty of it all feels romantic in a way I’ve never experienced—one I never thought I could experience until now.
A couple weeks is all it’s taken for Lina to completely upend my routine, in the best way possible.
I’ve been a little lost in my own head lately. Trying not to show it. Trying to hold everything at arm’s length and pretend like that counts as processing.
Tonight might not fix anything. But it’s grilled cheese, noise, and laughter in a room that doesn’t feel like mine. That’s got to count for something.
It’s the push and pull I’ve been trying to force my brain to accept. The new shape my life is starting to take—the parts of me that are hers now, whether I meant to give them or not.
And I’m scared.
Because I’ve never let someone this close without having an exit strategy tucked somewhere behind my ribs.
But over the past couple weeks, Lina and I have worked out what this is between us. A few nights after I picked her up from a party at Savannah’s sorority house, she stumbled out, saying something about how itispossible to get drunk off champagne.
I was so fond of her at that moment—laughing at how adorably drunk she was—that I wasn’t prepared for what she said once I got her into my car.
From the passenger seat of my Aston Martin, she asked, “So, is this a thing now? Or am I just your favorite late-night habit?”
I looked over at her—barefoot, cheeks flushed from champagne, hair falling out of its clip—and I swear, I felt it in my chest.
“You’re not a habit, Lina,” I said softly. “You’re the part of my day I look forward to most.”
I watched the realization settle in her eyes.
And if she hadn’t been drunk, I would’ve told her, "You’ve been it for me long before either of us admitted it."
This isn’t casual. This isn’t a one- or two- or ten-time thing.
This is it for us.
