“You hated it.”
I blink, letting the credits come into focus as Neel frowns beside me on the couch.
“It’s okay. It’s just one of the most famous Hindi movies ever made and I’m only slightly dying inside that you hated it.”
“What? No.”
His chin drops to his chest. “Don’t try and spare my feelings. I’m just going to go walk home in the rain now.”
I laugh when he tries to stand and I tug him back down to the couch. “First, you drove to my house, second there’s not a cloud in the sky, and third, I didn’t hate the movie.”
“So you loved it and by extension me?”
I open my mouth. “I—” and let the single syllable word draw out.
“Take your time,” he says. “Just know that the entirety of my self-worth hangs in the balance.”
“That is not fair. One has nothing to do with the other.”
“Aha! So you did hate it.” He points a finger really close to my face. I swat it away.
“No, no, I absolutely did not hate it—”
Neel’s face brightens to comical levels.
“—but I didn’t love it either.”
His face crumples with equal theatrics. “You realize you just insulted the Asian Godfather.”
I slump a little as he side-eyes me then leaps to the far end of the couch.
“Whoa. Okay whoa. You cannot tell me you don’t like The Godfather.”
I slump farther. “Kind of hard to hate something you’ve never seen.”
Neel pretends to fall dead off the couch. He really commits, face planting and everything. He doesn’t even flinch when I throw a pillow at him.
He snaps back to life and knee walks over to me. “Okay, so I just realized that we can never again talk about this because up until now you’ve been like this perfect girl—”
I cut him off with a pointed look at the pizza sauce I dripped on my shirt earlier.
“—this perfect and occasionally messy girl, and you’re coming dangerously close to ruining that image for me.”
I nod very seriously. “So you want me to hide anything about myself that threatens to shatter the idealistic picture you have of me even if it’s false and/or misleading?”
Neel flops onto the cushion beside me with enough energy to bounce us both together. “That’d be great. Thanks.” I roll my eyes and he offers me the half-empty bowl of popcorn. “Want some?”
“I thought the movie was well done, but it’s not the kind of story I generally love.”
Neel groans. “You ruined it. We could have had beautiful light brown babies together someday but you just spoke ill of Gangs of Wasseypur and that’s it. Perfect illusion destroyed.”
I grab a handful of popcorn. “And I was so looking forward to hiding away parts of myself for the rest of my life.”
He huffs. “Yeah, me too. Well, I mean you, of course. I wouldn’t have to hide anything.”
I throw a piece of popcorn at his face. “Guess you’re through with me now?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“If only my movie taste were better.”
“If only.”
I throw another piece of popcorn, but he moves fast and manages to catch it in his mouth.
“That’s impressive,” I tell him, aware that his quick move has brought him a lot closer to me. A lot.
“You know,” he says, sliding an arm along the back of the couch, “I could be persuaded to overlook that one glaring personality defect.”
“Oh yeah?” I eye his continuously sliding arm. “And how’s that?”
He moves closer and I’m not really sure if we’re still playing our little game. “It’ll be super easy, barely an inconvenience. All you have to do is—” his eyes drop to my lips and he’s so close I can feel his breath. My heart starts racing. Not a game. “—agree to watch Part 2 with me next time.”
I blink at him as a wide grin spreads over his face.
Relief bubbles up inside me that he was just teasing and not actually about to kiss me. “Part 2? That was only Part 1? I don’t think so.”
He moves back, but his arm stays across the back of the couch almost touching my shoulders.
“Here’s the thing,” he says, all confident teasing gone. “I don’t actually care if we love the same movies.” He cocks his head and pinches up his face. “Let me rephrase, I can get past the fact that we might not love all the same movies, but I kind of need to know if you can...get past my stuff.”
“I thought you were perfect.” I grin at him but he doesn’t fully grin back.
“So perfect I barely watched one of the greatest examples of cinema ever put on film because all I could think about was whether this almost perfect girl would let me kiss her when it was over. I know, I know,” he adds when I start to say something. “Longest two and a half hours of my life.”
But then neither one of us is smiling. And he’s a lot closer and it’s a completely involuntary reaction when my gaze slides past him to look at Ethan’s window. The lights are off and before I can start to wonder if that means he’s home or not, I see Neel’s head drop slightly from the corner of my eye.
“Well damn,” he says softly.
“Neel...” My brows lift and draw together and I hesitate when I feel the urge to reach out to him.
His head of gloriously glossy black hair moves from side to side. “It’s Ethan, isn’t it?”
I don’t say anything.
“’Cause he can be a real dick sometimes, you know?”
“It’s not really him. It’s me. I’m not—” I search for the right word “—dateable right now.” I mentally wince at the excuse.
Neel comes as close to looking angry as I’ve ever seen him. “What does that mean?”
“It means I shouldn’t be spending time with someone like that when I don’t even want to spend time with myself.”
He stands. “I’m not going to pretend to understand what that means. And I kind of just wish you’d have said, ‘yeah, it’s because of Ethan.’ Because you never seem to have any trouble spending time with him.”
My face goes hot at how accurate that statement is. “I don’t know about Ethan, okay? I’m still figuring that out. But I do know about you and me.” I reach for his hand. “And we are a million times better as friends. Last time we tried this it didn’t work.”
“For you, it didn’t work.” Neel looks down at my hand holding onto his loose one and slides it free. “And maybe this time...not for me either.”