Page 62 of Making It Count

“I was at Costco.”

“Your favorite store,” Shay mocked.

“Anyway… They had a bag of these flameless little tea-light candles, and since we’re not allowed actual candles in here, I figured they would be easier than having to hold up a flashlight if the power went out again, so I bought them. It came with, like, forty of them. I gave you a bunch. I thought you could light them around your room, and we could have dinner.”

“This is really sweet, Layne. Wait. What–” Shay pulled something else out of the bag. “You made this?”

“I know… It’s really silly. But I couldn’t get you real flowers, so I made one.”

“Out of paper?”

“Yeah. Lame?”

“No way. Babe…” Shay held it to her nose and pretended to sniff it. “I love this. Thank you.”

“Do you want to light your candles?”

“Yeah. One second,” Shay replied.

Layne pulled up the playlist she wanted to use on her computer and saw little lights on Shay’s side of the phone. Then, the light in Shay’s room went off, and Layne couldn’t see much at all.

“This might have been a bad idea,” she said more to herself than Shay.

“Hold on,” Shay replied.

A light came on from the corner of the room.

“Oh, that’s better.”

“Desk lamp,” Shay explained as she reappeared. “Okay. The mood is set.” She wiggled her eyebrows.

“Not yet.” Layne pressed play. “Can you hear it?”

“You’re playing music?”

“Yeah. Can you not hear it?”

“No, I can. Layne, we could’ve just talked. You didn’t have to do all of this.”

“Just open the bag back up.” Layne smiled at her.

Shay reached inside the bag and pulled out a bottle of water.

“We’re not allowed alcohol in the dorm, but I also didn’t want to risk picking up wine or something.”

Shay then pulled out some instant ramen and chuckled.

“Dinner?”

“Best I could do on short notice. We can eat whatever they delivered instead. I haven’t opened mine yet. Have you?”

“Veggie lasagna again,” Shay replied. “I wouldn’t mind heating up some ramen with you.” She smiled at Layne. “Oh, and some pretzels.”

“A side dish, obviously.”

“Obviously,” Shay teased back.

“And there’s dessert.”