Fangirl

you were driving home in a blizzard. Jesus. Sit down. It’s okay, okay?”
    He smiled a Levi smile—“Okay”—and sat down on one of the stools.
    “It’s weird to see you here,” she said. “Like, worlds colliding.”
    Levi ran his fingers through his hair, shaking out a bit of snow. “Your dad seems unfazed.”
    “He’s used to guys being around.”
    Levi cocked an eyebrow. “Really?”
    “My sister…,” Cath said, feeling her cheeks warm.
    She opened the refrigerator. Her grandmother had obviously been here. All her dad’s crusty condiment bottles were gone, and there were Tupperware containers labeled with grease pencil. Plus fresh milk and eggs and yogurt. She opened the freezer.… Healthy Choice meals, probably the same Healthy Choice meals as the last time Cath was home.
    She looked over at Levi. “How do you feel about eggs?”
    “Awesome.” He smiled. “I feel awesome about eggs.”
    One of the Tupperware containers had Italian sausage with red peppers. Cath emptied it into a pan and decided to make poached eggs. Just to show off. There was bread for toast. And butter. This wouldn’t be half bad.
    “Can I help you?” Levi asked.
    “No. I’ve got this.” She glanced over her shoulder at him, then smiled back down at the stove. “Let me do something for you for once.”
    “Okay…,” he said. “What’s your dad doing in there?”
    She told him. She told him about Fucking Kelly and Gravioli—and the time they’d gone to the Grand Canyon on a family vacation, and their dad had sat in the rental car with a notebook and a Sharpie.
    Her dad had worked on a lot of agricultural clients over the years, this being Nebraska, and Levi actually recognized a line he’d written for a fertilizer: Bigger yields, brighter fields—trust next year to Spurt.
    “Your dad’s a Mad Man,” he said.
    Cath laughed, and Levi looked sheepish. “That’s not what I meant.”
    They ate at the dining room table, and by the middle of dinner, Cath felt like maybe she didn’t have to be so nervous. Levi had relaxed into a slightly more polite version of his usual everyone-must-love-me self, and her dad just seemed happy that Cath was home.
    Her eggs were perfect.
    The only sour note was when her dad asked about Wren. Cath shrugged and changed the subject. He didn’t seem to notice. He was a little twitchy and tappy tonight, a little distant, but Cath decided he was just lost in work. His color was good, and he told her he’d been jogging every morning. Every once in a while, he seemed to surface enough to give Levi an appraising look.
    After dinner, Levi insisted on clearing the table and doing the dishes. As soon as he was in the kitchen, her dad leaned over. “Is that your boyfriend in there?” Cath rolled her eyes, but she nodded.
    “For how long?”
    “A month,” Cath said. “Sort of. Longer. I don’t know.”
    “How old is he?”
    “Twenty-one.”
    “He looks older.…”
    “It’s the hair.”
    Her dad nodded. “He seems nice.”
    “He’s the nicest,” Cath said as sincerely as she could, wanting him to believe her. “He’s a good guy, I swear.”
    “I didn’t know you’d broken up with Abel.”
    Once the dishes were done—Cath dried—she and Levi were going to watch a movie, but her dad winced when she started moving his papers off the couch.
    “Do you guys mind watching TV upstairs? I promise, Cath, I’m all yours tomorrow. I just—”
    “Sure,” she said. “Not too late, okay?”
    He smiled, but he was already turning back to his notebook.
    Cath looked at Levi and motioned her head toward the stairs. She felt him on the steps behind her, her stomach tightening all the way. When they got to the top, Levi touched the back of her arm, and she stepped away from him into her bedroom.
    It looked like a kid’s room now that she was imagining it through his eyes. It was big, a half story, with a slanted roof, deep-pink carpet, and two matching, cream-colored canopy beds.
    Every inch of the walls and ceiling was covered with posters and pictures; she and Wren never really took things down as they got older. They just put new things up. Shabby Simon Snow chic.
    When Cath looked up at Levi, his eyes were sparkling, and he was biting his bottom lip. She pushed him and he burst into laughter.
    “This is the cutest thing I’ve ever seen,” he said.
    She sighed. “Okay…”
    “No, seriously. I feel like this room should be preserved so that people of the future know what