When we were kids, all of us used to spend the night at Teej's house. We'd unroll sleeping bags on the floor and tell ghost stories. It didn't matter that Gretchen and I were girls, as it never mattered. As we progressed to young adults, those sleepovers became less frequent. The inches we grew in height became inches we'd grown apart from one another. We'd still hang out, and TJ was still my best friend, but things understandably change.

Sometimes, more as an act of reminiscing than anything else, we'd have sleepovers. It was on such an occasion that I woke up with a weight on my side and something moist on my neck. I'd realized that TJ and I had fallen asleep on the same couch. It wouldn't have been awkward if we weren't facing the same way, but we were, and I needed to fix the situation before the other guys woke up and gave us shit.

"Teej," I said.

"Mmmm," he answered, pulling me closer. Oh, God, this is going to be uncomfortable.

"TJ," I said, a little louder, "wake up."

I heard the deep pulls of his sleeping breath become a little shallower as he woke. He sat up quickly.

"Sorry," he mumbled.

"It's cool. We might've had a waking up like Mikey and Gus are going to." I motioned over to the two enormously tall boys who were essentially spooning on the floor. Teej and I started laughing hysterically.

"Oh Man," he managed to get out, "that is good."

"Let's just let them sleep. They look so peaceful," I said. "What do you want to do today?"

"Uh, I don't know. Do you need to like, get ready?"

"Have I ever needed to, like, get ready?"

"I like what you're wearing now. It's the strangest one yet," he said good-naturedly. I have what Mikey calls "a creative and free-spirited" way of dressing, which means I don't look at what I grab from my closet before I put it on and have no real sense of style. Yesterday I'd wound up in an absurd combination of plaid, stripes, and a floral pattern.

Our conversation was ended abruptly by a deep scream coming from Gus, who'd woken up. Mikey didn't seem to mind the situation and pleasantly smiled as Gus frantically crawled away. The entire scene was too much. Teej and I were laughing so hard we fell off the couch and collapsed into a pile on top of a still-sleeping Vince.

"Race you to the kitchen," I said, trying to mimic how I sounded as a kid.

"You're on," Teej answered, doing the same.