Liah and I made pancakes after we woke up and unburied ourselves from the destroyed pillow fort. It was after twelve, but breakfast in the afternoon tasted just as good as it did in the morning.

Liah's plate was more syrup than pancake as she settled in next to me at the kitchen table. My mom had left for work, but not before leaving a list of chores for me to find stuck the refrigerator door with a magnet. Thanksgiving was tomorrow, and that meant cleaning every square inch of the house.

"Call Corey," she demanded, spearing one of her pancakes. She tried to make it heart shaped, but it looked more like a blob. "We have to get everything sorted before the weekend."

It was Wednesday, the last day Corey and I had to be together before things got too complicated with family coming over and school starting back. I didn't even know if he still wanted to be with me after last night.

"Have you talked to Vik?" I asked, eating a raspberry from my plate. I was stalling. I heard her on the phone with him while I brushed my teeth that morning.

They were the type to text each other good morning and good night. Corey and I didn't do that. Was that a bad sign? Shouldn't we have wanted to talk to each other the second we woke up?

"I called him earlier and he said it was okay," she told me. "Actually, he almost sounded relieved. Maybe I was wrong about him wanting to have sex."

A weekend with Corey and no prying eyes sounded amazing. But my stomach knotted up. Did he even want to spend it with me?

Liah was enjoying her soggy pancakes when her phone rang, a custom tone that she had for her parents. She glared at the phone on the table, but didn't pick up. "Four adults in that house right now, and I still can't get twenty-four hours to myself."

All I could do was offer a sympathetic smile. "At least they're letting you take the weekend off."

She finished off her food and began clearing her dishes from the table. "Who said anything about letting?"

"They don't know?" I asked, following her into the kitchen with my own dishes.

"Not exactly..." she said, slipping her plate into the dishwasher. "When Vik asked, I just said yes without thinking."

I grinned at that. It was nice to know I wasn't the only one losing all rationale in the presence of a cute guy. "So, you were planning on running away?"

She tugged the end of one of her braids. "I guess. Yeah. We need to come up with a lie. We can't exactly tell our parents were spending the weekend with our boyfriends."

I nodded. "We'll think of something. You need this weekend more than anyone."

As if on cue, her phone rang again. She answered that time, telling her mom that she was on her way home. I put the rest of the dishes in the dishwasher. When the cycle started, I grabbed my own phone from the table.

Liah had grabbed her bag and was halfway out the door when she mouthed "call him," before closing the door behind her.

I pulled up Corey's contact information. Instead of calling, I sent a text. Ten minutes later he was on my porch, wearing of his many matching sweat suits. This one was a burn orange color.

Nerves fluttered in my belly like giant birds as he stepped into the house. I couldn't get a read on him. He was upset about last night, he had to be.

"Corey, I--"

"Gray called me."

My heart leaped to my throat. "He did? Why? Does he know?"

Corey watched me for a beat and I wished his mom was there so she could tell me what his expression meant. "No. I don't think. He wanted to know my parent's shoe sizes."

More gift buying? Gray was going to give us all heart attacks.

My shoulders sagged in relief. "Did he say anything else?"

"Nope. Got the sizes and hung up." The look he had then was all too familiar. I'd seen it on him every time my brother was the topic. He missed his best friend.

"That's a good sign, right?" I said, trying to cheer him up. "He could've texted or guessed their sizes."

He didn't look convinced. "I have an idea." I took his hand, walking backwards as I lead him down the hallway to my bedroom. "We need to use the Liah Method."

"The Liah Method?"

I closed my bedroom door and dug through my desk drawer for a notebook and pens in every color of the rainbow.

"We're gonna come up with the perfect, color-coded solution to your Grayson problem."

I sat on the bed, opening the notebook to a fresh page, a writing "The Grayson Problem" across the top in purple. Then I doodled stars in blue highlighter around the title. Liah always added cute doodles to her notes.

"What's this?"

My attention snapped to Corey. My worn out lyric journal looked small in his hands. The cover was so beat up and creased, the stickers I covered it in did little to hide the damage.

It must've fallen out of my drawer when I grabbed the other notebook. I leapt up to take it from him. "Nothing. Just--"

His brow arched. "A diary."

"No." I didn't keep one of those. I learned that the hard way, when Mom found mine in middle school. We had the world's most awkward talk about masturbation. "It's not a diary. Just...lyrics."

"You write songs?"

"No, they're lyrics from some of my favorite songs."

He glanced at the journal in my arms. "They must be important."

I realized I was holding it against my chest like I was afraid he'd snatch it. If he wasn't questioning his decision to be with me before, he was now.

"They are..." I chewed the inside of my cheek. I'd never told anyone about my journal, but I wanted to tell him. "You're always at my house. I'm sure you've noticed I'm always playing music."

He smirked. "I could be at home and know when you're listening to music."

I narrowed my eyes at him. My music was never that loud. "Anyways, without music, everything gets too loud and I can't focus. Sometimes, when I'm trying to figure out my thoughts, I put on some music and write down the lyrics that hit me the most. The ones that describe how I'm feeling at the moment."

I guessed, in a way, it was my diary. But one only I could decipher.

Letting out the breath I didn't realize I was holding, I glanced up at Corey. I half expected him to laugh, even though I knew he wasn't the type. Still, when you've lived your whole life with people making jokes about your music taste, it was hard to let go of that mindset.

But Corey didn't laugh. "I get it."

I didn't realize how much I needed to hear those words until he said them. "You do?"

Three words and I felt like he could see into a part of me that no one else even knew about.

"It's the same for me when I'm working," he admitted. "Something about putting all your focus into one thing makes it easier to hear the important thoughts."

I felt myself smile as he put into words how I felt. "Exactly!"

"Play something for me." I started to laugh, sure he was joking, when I he grabbed my phone from the desk.

My eyes bounced from the phone to him. "You're serious?"

"Very."

"Okay..." I set my journal aside and took my phone from him. We sat on my bed. Corey waited patiently as I scrolled through my playlists. I'd never been more embarrassed about my music. What did I even play? Would it freak him out if I put on a love song?

Even though I was nervous about it, there was one love song I couldn't pass up. It was kind of perfect...

Before I let myself over think it, I hit play.

The intro of "More Than Friends" by 3LW filled my room. My heart pounded and I couldn't bring myself to look over at him. Especially not during the part about him being mine until the end of time.

As the song played and the group sang about being in love with their friend, I thought back to all the time I spent with Corey over these last two months. How he went from being my annoying brother's annoying friend to being my friend. And now, so much more.

The song was coming to an end when I finally looked up at him. He was already watching me. My stomach flipped and flopped as I waited for his reaction. Did he like the song? Did he think I was weird?

"Harlow!"

Corey and I both jumped up from the bed, our attention glued to my closed bedroom door and the voice that just came from the other side of it.

Grayson wasn't supposed to be here yet. He told mom he was stuck at school until tomorrow. Shit.

His heavy footsteps thumped down the hall. It was too late to send Corey out the window. He could hide, but for how long before Gray found him?

"H, you in there playing sleep?"

Corey and I shared a look. I was prepared to lie my way out.

Corey's just here in my room with the door closed because he wants to be your friend again.

For some reason, I didn't think Corey was on the same page. Even though the truth meant sudden death for him. If my brother wasn't two seconds away from discovering us, I would've found it admirable. But now was not the time!

Gray's footsteps went past my door, and I heard his bedroom door open. I let myself breathe.

"I'll distract him," I whispered, leaving my room before Corey had the chance to object.

I peeked into the hallway and waved Corey out when I saw Gray's door was closed.

Corey pulled me back just as I was about to knock on my brother's door, a determined yet reckless look in his eyes as he leaned in and kissed me. The fact that Gray could catch us at any moment made the kiss that much sweeter. I didn't know what brought it on, but I didn't mind.

Once Corey turned down the hall, I knocked on Gray's door. Before he opened it, I tried to school my face into a more neutral expression. But it was hard not to grin after a kiss like that.

Whenever Gray came home, he had a giant bag of laundry. Sometimes it seemed like that was his only reason to visit. Today was no different. When he opened the door, I saw he dumped a bag of laundry into the middle of his floor.

"Do they not have washing machines in college?"

"Not for free," he said, before pulling me into a hug.

I hugged him back. "I thought you weren't coming until tomorrow?"

His brows bunched together. "Weren't you begging me to come out here last week?"

Yeah, but last week I wasn't secretly dating Corey.

"It was just a question."

Gray left out the room and I followed, hoping Corey made it out. "You coming to the mall with us?"

"Us?" I asked, but I got my answer as soon as we rounded the corner.

"You remember Shamika, right?" Gray said all casual, like I wasn't currently choking on my heart.

Shamika stood there in the living room. The living room Corey just passed through as he snuck out of my house. The chances of her not seeing Corey when he left were slim, but I clung to them.

I felt better about it when she didn't bring it up once during the ride to the mall. But when Gray ditched us to buy some holographic anime art prints from a kiosk and we went into Bath & Bodyworks, Shamika looked at me in a way that let me know she knew.

"Don't say anything to Gray, please."

She pursed her lips like she was debating. "I won't, but you should know something about Corey..."

"If it's about the two of you, he already told me."

She seemed genuinely surprised. "Oh. Of course he did. He's a good guy, if not a little... impulsive."

Thinking back on that kiss earlier, I didn't mind impulsive. I picked up a candle like I had any intention of buying one. With how clumsy I was, I'd probably burn down my house. I just wanted to busy myself. How was I supposed to talk about Corey to a girl I didn't even know?

"It's like he lets all this little stuff pile up," she continued, clearly not having the same problem as me about talking to strangers. "Then one day it blows up and he does something stupid."

I didn't understand what she was getting at. Did she think our relationship resulted from one of Corey's blow ups?

"Like with you?" The words slipped out before I knew it. Insulting the girl who held my secret in her hands probably wasn't the best tactic. But she didn't know what she was talking about. I wasn't going to let her get away with belittling my relationship with Corey. She didn't know the full story.

She had the nerve to look offended, like she wasn't the one that brought it up.

"And since we're giving each other unsolicited advice, I think it was really shitty of you to hook up with Corey, knowing how my brother felt about you."

Her lips parted, eyes wide. But she wasn't looking at me. I turned to find Grayson. His gaze bounced between the two of us, his face stoic.

"I should go," Shamika said, clutching her coat closed.

Gray blinked, snapping out of his daze. "No, I drove you here. I can take you home."

"It's fine, really." She turned, practically running for the back exit. Her voice wobbled, and I'd bet money she didn't make it out the door before tears fell.

All that bravado I had a second ago vanished, leaving nothing but regret. I just made someone cry and all she was trying to do was look out for me.

And Gray... I thought he knew about Corey and Shamika. I thought that was the reason he hadn't talked to Corey, but the reserved look on his face said otherwise.

He swallowed hard. "Is that true?"

My chest tightened as I looked up at my brother. "You didn't know?"

"I guess I was the only one who didn't." His tone was void of emotion. "Are you buying that?"

I looked down at the candle I didn't realize I still had in my hand. I set it back on the shelf with the others and we left the store.

As we walked out to the parking lot, cutting our mall trip short, I pulled out my phone. Corey had to know that I probably just screwed things up completely.

My thumb hovered on the send button, but I could hit it. We'd been together less than a week and so far it's mostly been stress. We should've been in the honeymoon phase, like Liah and Vik.

I deleted the text and wrote a new one, Are you busy this weekend?