For some reason, Heron was standing outside my door. The look on his face startled me, because it was exactly what I had seen of myself just minutes earlier, in the mirror. My temperature spiked, as I wasn’t sure why he was there in the first place.

I had been meaning to talk to him about Pyrope, about what it meant to him. I couldn’t find the right words, mainly because I knew how important it was to him, as opposed to how it had taken place. We had obviously not planned for it, but it was still a very intimate gesture—especially between the two of us. I was clearly into Heron, and maybe him being here was a sign that I should talk to him about it. It had been eating away at me since yesterday.

We stared at each other, quiet and blank, as I tried and failed miserably to formulate a coherent sentence. I had opened the door to go talk to him, and yet here he was, somehow one step ahead of me. Unless he wasn’t here to talk about us. In which case, my internal turmoil was pretty much useless.

“Hey…” he muttered, a glimmer of fear lingering in his jade eyes. “I was wondering… I can’t sleep… Do you think we could just hang out for a little while longer?”

I blinked several times, registering what he had just said. My brain was moving in slow motion. I was supposed to say something, but all I could do was open my mouth—no words came out.

“Sorry to intrude, but I just didn’t feel like being on my own in that room.” He scratched the back of his neck, then followed it up with a shrug, like a little boy who couldn’t think of a better excuse. In many ways, Heron was exactly that. And the funniest thing was that it was definitely one of the reasons I liked him so much.

“It’s okay,” I murmured. “I was just about to come check up on you anyway, for pretty much the same reason… I don’t want to be alone either. Not after everything that has happened…”

I stepped aside, allowing him to come in. Fire poured hotly through my veins. It had become a common symptom whenever he was around—my blood simmering, my head feeling light, and my stomach tightening, all signals from my body letting me know that I was definitely and irrevocably into him.

He walked across the room, then stopped by the window and turned to face me. He shoved his hands in his pockets, his gaze wandering around for about half a minute before it settled on my face.

“Yesterday was crazy, right?” I managed, already mentally slapping myself. There were plenty of better conversation openers than that.

Heron gave me a half-smile as he leaned against the window frame. He had this way of looking so deep into my eyes that it felt as though he were reaching into my very soul.

“You could say that.” He nodded slowly. “But you’ll have to be more specific, because there has been a lot of crazy going on since we got here. We might not be thinking about the same thing…”

“Well, what were you thinking about?” I replied, trying to get my senses in my body under control.

His gaze softened, and he crossed his arms over his chest. Maybe a minute went by before he spoke, but he didn’t give me an answer. Something told me he was just as nervous as me, if not more so. We had gotten off to a rocky start, and we had mutually agreed that friendship was our best move forward. And yet, we were standing in front of each other, fidgeting, as an invisible magnetic force pulled us closer together.

“Is it okay if I spend the night here?” he asked.

I was speechless. What did he mean? Was he being literal? Why the hell am I not asking him that?

“What... Um, what do you mean?” I mumbled.

“Like, sleep. In this room. With you,” he replied, then immediately corrected himself. “I mean, not in the same bed with you. I’m not… I wouldn’t… It’s not what I was implying… I can sleep on the sofa.”

He pointed at the divan positioned at the foot of the bed. It was rather small for Heron, but not impossible for him to actually sleep in. The question was… did I want to sleep in the same room with Heron? Well, I didn’t want him to go…

“Um, yeah, if you want to.” I shrugged, trying not to make a big deal out of it, even though alarm bells were already ringing in my head—not because of him, but because of how happy I was about this sleepover.

He nodded, then lay on the sofa, his long legs stretching well beyond the armrest. Nevertheless, he seemed determined to make it work. I grabbed a blanket from the bottom of the dresser and handed it over to him. Our fingers touched, and thousands of electrical currents buzzed through me. It was both scary and exhilarating at the same time.

I blew out the candles on the wall sconces, then hid beneath the soft and heavy bedcover, letting the silence fall between us once more. I looked at the shuttered window, going over the events of the day in an attempt to stop myself from listening to his heartbeat. It was rapid, restless, and told me so much more than his words. It warmed me on the inside, but it also made it more difficult for me to speak up about how I felt. It was as if I knew he would respond… favorably, but I just didn’t have the courage to take that step.

“What do we do tomorrow?” I asked, in the absence of anything better to say. The air around us was charged with unspoken words.

“We can start by meeting with the rest of the team in the infirmary, first thing in the morning, like we agreed,” Heron replied. I could feel his eyes on me, and if I lifted my head, I was probably going to find him looking at me, but I lacked the courage to even do that.

You coward! You were the one going after him tonight!

“Makes sense,” I murmured, then stared at the ceiling, following the fine cracks in the plaster.

Minutes slipped by as I tried to find the right words to say to him. I needed to talk to him about how I felt. Heron needed to know that I was developing feelings for him—mainly because I wanted to understand what it could mean to him. Was he going to look at me as another conquest? Because if that was the case, I was better off chewing the bark from a tree. Or was he going to reciprocate, and rid me of my growing misery? I hated keeping things to myself, especially feelings. They always cluttered up and made me feel anxious…

“I’ve been meaning to talk to you,” I said slowly, after a while. “About… you know, yesterday, and us. I mean, I don’t really know where to start, or how to say this, but… I’m… Ah, hell, might as well spill it. I’m starting to like you, Heron. Like, really like you. Well beyond the friendzone we discussed. And I just wanted you to know that. Don’t think it’s an excuse for you to try to get into my pants. I’m not one of those swooning succubi you left behind back on Calliope.”

There… Doesn’t that feel better?

I waited for an answer, but all I got was a nearly deafening silence. My breath got stuck in my throat as I braced myself for his response – it could be literally anything and that was what scared me the most.

Then a faint grumble made it out of his chest. He was snoring…

Ugh. Way to miss the mark, Avril!

I’d bared my soul for nothing. Heron had fallen asleep already, clearly more tired than he’d seemed. The poor thing was knocked out, and I was lying here in my bed, just a couple of feet away from him, wondering if I’d be able to say those things to him again tomorrow.

My chest deflated as I sank beneath my bedcover and turned onto one side, closing my eyes. They popped back open. I was in no shape to sleep now.

This is going to be a rough night…