Mandy shut the door behind them and went straight upstairs.
Lip followed without saying much, one hand dragging briefly along the wall as he moved through the narrow hall. The house was still loud in the way houses like this always were. Not full chaos, not yet, but never quiet either. The TV in the front room was turned up loud enough that whoever was watching it either couldn't hear well or didn't care about anybody else in the house. In the kitchen, a cabinet slammed, followed by someone muttering in a tone that made it obvious they were pissed off about something small and probably alcohol-related.
Normal Milkovich background noise.
He was starting to understand the difference between noise that meant trouble and noise that was just part of the air in places like this. A slammed cabinet didn't matter. A television blaring didn't matter. Somebody swearing from another room barely counted. If nobody was bleeding and nothing was on fire, it was just another night.
Mandy took the stairs quickly, not bothering to check whether he was still behind her. She knew he was. There was something about that he liked more than he should have. She didn't fuss over him. Didn't hover. Didn't keep glancing back to make sure he was following. She just assumed he would.
At the top of the stairs, she pushed open her bedroom door and walked in.
Lip stepped inside after her and let the door fall shut behind them.
The room looked the way it had the night before, only clearer now that he was arriving in it instead of waking there. Clothes thrown over the chair in the corner. A few loose papers on the desk. The curtains half drawn. The bed unmade, blanket kicked down toward the foot like she never bothered fixing it unless someone made her. There was an old pizza box sitting on the desk and the small TV in the corner was already on, turned low enough to disappear into the room instead of filling it.
Mandy went straight for the desk and flipped the pizza box open.
She looked inside for a second, then nodded to herself. "Still edible."
Lip shrugged out of his jacket. "That's not a very convincing review."
"It's pizza. It doesn't need one."
"How long's it been sitting there?"
"A couple hours."
He walked over and leaned just enough to look into the box. "That's nothing."
"Exactly."
She handed him a slice before taking one for herself and sitting on the bed. Lip stayed standing for a second, then settled against the wall beside it, eating without much hurry. The slice was lukewarm, grease already soaked through most of the cardboard, but it still tasted better than half the things lying around the Gallagher kitchen.
For a while, the room was quiet except for the TV muttering in the corner and the occasional sound from downstairs. A laugh. A cupboard door. Footsteps in the hall. None of it mattered.
Mandy glanced up at him midway through her slice.
"So Kev worked you to death?"
"Wouldn't go that far."
"You look like he made you carry the whole truck yourself."
"He talked enough for two people. That count?"
She smiled into the bite she was chewing. "Yeah, that sounds like him."
Lip slid down the wall a little until he was sitting on the floor beside the bed instead of leaning there. It felt easier that way, less like he was hovering. Mandy rested her elbow on one knee and watched him.
"You know," she said, "if you keep helping him out like this, he's gonna start expecting it."
"He already does."
"That's on you."
"Maybe I like being useful."
She gave him a look. "That's the least believable thing you've said all week."
He laughed under his breath. "I'm serious."
"No, you're not."
"I might be."
"You like having somewhere to be without anybody telling you what it means."
That got his attention.
He looked over at her properly. "You pull that out of nowhere?"
Mandy shrugged and took another bite. "It wasn't hard."
That was another thing about her. She noticed more than she let on. More than Lip had probably ever wanted her to. She paid attention, then acted like she hadn't. And every now and then she said something that reminded him she saw straight through a lot of people's nonsense, his included.
He finished the slice and tossed the crust back into the box. Mandy did the same, then pushed the lid down with one hand and let the box sit half open on the desk.
"You go to school at all today?" she asked.
He let the question hang for a second. "For someone who knows the answer, you ask that a lot."
"Because one day I'm hoping you'll surprise me."
"You should aim lower. Safer that way."
She clicked her tongue and shook her head. "You really like making it sound like none of this matters."
"Maybe I just hate being lectured."
"That wasn't a lecture."
"It had lecture energy."
"Everything sounds like a lecture to you if it involves effort."
He smiled a little despite himself. "You rehearse these?"
"No. You're just easy."
That should have sounded insulting. Instead it came out almost fond, which annoyed him only because he liked it.
She shifted back against the wall, stretching her legs out across the bed. He was close enough that the edge of the mattress pressed lightly against his shoulder. A commercial came on the TV, louder than whatever had been playing before, and Mandy leaned across the bed to grab the remote off the nightstand.
"God, I hate commercials."
"You hate mornings. And your house. And school."
"And people that talk too much. And cheap beer. And when my brothers breathe too loud."
Lip smirked. "Long list."
"It gets longer."
She turned the volume down until the TV was barely more than a glow in the room, then settled back where she'd been. When she did, her foot brushed his thigh for a second. Neither of them moved away.
Outside, a car rolled past slowly, bass rattling the window. Somewhere farther down the block, someone shouted and got shouted back at. It rose, then faded. The house itself seemed quieter now, either because people were settling in for the night or because the worst of the noise had finally burned itself out.
Mandy tilted her head toward him. "You planning on going home?"
He looked up at her from where he sat beside the bed. "You trying to get rid of me?"
"If I was, I'd be better at it."
"That's true."
She reached down and nudged his shoulder lightly with her toes. "Then answer."
Lip looked at her for a second. "You want me to stay?"
Her expression changed just enough for him to notice. Not soft exactly. More like she was irritated he'd chosen to ask it that way.
"You're already here," she said.
"That wasn't the question."
She frowned. "You always this difficult when someone feeds you?"
"Only when the pizza's free."
For a second she just looked at him, then a reluctant smile tugged at the corner of her mouth before she covered it.
"Fine," she said. "Stay."
It was the nearest thing to a direct answer he was likely to get, and somehow that made it feel more real than if she had just tossed it out without thinking.
"Alright," he said.
"Good."
The word came quieter than the rest of it had.
Mandy pushed the pizza box off the desk and onto the floor beside the bed, then leaned over him before he had time to say anything else. She kissed him with the same straightforward certainty she brought to almost everything. No buildup, no awkward pause, no waiting to see whether he'd meet her halfway. She had already decided. That was enough.
He lifted a hand to her waist as she shifted closer, feeling the warmth of her through the thin fabric of her shirt. She smelled like shampoo and cold air and the last trace of smoke that seemed to cling to this whole house no matter what. Her fingers caught lightly in the front of his shirt, not tentative, not shy, just familiar.
The room narrowed around them. The TV became nothing but changing light in the corner. The sounds from downstairs faded until they were just part of the walls again.
Mandy drew back only far enough to look at him.
"You get quiet when you're thinking too much," she murmured.
"You say that like it's rare."
"It should be."
He huffed a laugh, and she kissed him again before it turned into anything more.
After that, things blurred into warmth and close breathing and the easy, practiced way they already seemed to fit around each other. Nothing clumsy about it, but nothing polished either. Real enough to feel lived in. By the time they settled again, they were stretched out across the bed with the blankets tangled around their legs and the TV still playing quietly to itself.
Mandy lay on her side with her head against his shoulder, one arm draped over his stomach. Lip stared up at the ceiling, one hand resting against her back, feeling the slow rise and fall of her breathing. The room had gone softer somehow. Dimmer. The restlessness from earlier was gone, burned off and replaced by that heavy quiet that came when a long day finally ran out of energy.
For a while, they didn't talk.
The silence felt easy.
It kept surprising him, how easy it felt with her. Mandy wasn't soft in the way people usually meant it, and he liked that about her. She didn't flatter him. Didn't tiptoe around his moods. Didn't pretend he was easier to deal with than he was. But when it was just the two of them like this, there was nothing strained in the quiet. No performance in it. No need to fill it with bullshit.
She shifted slightly, cheek brushing his shirt. "You better not disappear tomorrow."
Lip turned his head a little. "You worried about waking up alone?"
"I mean it."
He looked at her properly then. The TV light caught her face in pieces, enough to see that she was trying to sound casual and not quite pulling it off.
"I didn't leave last time," he said.
"Yeah, I know"
Something about the way she said it landed heavier than the words should have.
Not because it was dramatic. It wasn't. Mandy didn't sound hurt. She sounded matter-of-fact, which somehow made it worse. Like staying until morning had become unusual enough to count.
He let his hand move once along her back, slow and absent-minded. "I'm not going anywhere."
She studied him for a second, like she was trying to decide if he meant right now or until morning or something bigger than either of them was willing to drag into the open.
Then she exhaled softly and settled against him again. "Alright."
After a minute she reached for the remote and clicked the TV down even lower, until it was mostly just flickering light and half-heard voices. The room dipped further into quiet.
Lip lay there, listening to the house beneath them.
A door closing downstairs.
Pipes knocking once in the wall.
Someone laughing in another room, then nothing after it.
The neighborhood outside hadn't gone fully still, but it was getting there. Fewer cars. Longer stretches between sounds. The occasional distant shout drifting up through the curtains. Chicago at night, worn out and not asleep yet.
Mandy traced idle lines against his shirt with two fingers, not really aware she was doing it. "You know what your problem is?"
He gave a quiet laugh. "You got a list?"
"Several."
"Shocking."
"You think because you're smart, you can get away with not trying."
He looked down at her. "That what we're doing now?"
"I'm talking. You can decide if it's a conversation."
He shook his head. "You really don't let things go."
"No one else around here is gonna shove you when you need it."
That line stayed with him. Maybe because it sounded so much like Mandy—harsh on the surface, loyal underneath. She didn't know how to make caring sound soft, so she made it sound irritated instead.
Lip looked back up at the ceiling. "You ever think maybe I don't know what I'm doing yet?"
Mandy lifted her head enough to look at him. "That'd be a first."
"I'm serious."
Her expression changed a little. The teasing slipped. "Then figure it out."
Simple. Blunt. Almost unfair in how direct it was.
But that was Mandy too. No dramatic speech. No pretty words. Just the truth as she saw it.
He smiled faintly. "Great advice."
"I know right."
That got a real laugh from him this time, low enough not to break the quiet.
She looked pleased with herself for exactly two seconds before pretending she wasn't.
After that, conversation thinned out for good. Mandy tugged the blanket higher around them and shifted closer, her leg sliding between his under the covers in a way that made the room feel warmer all over again. Lip pressed a kiss against her hair without thinking much about it. She went still for half a heartbeat, then relaxed into him, accepting it without comment.
That was becoming its own kind of language between them. Small things. Unnamed things. The kind that only mattered because neither of them made a show of them.
Eventually Mandy's breathing began to even out.
Lip stayed awake a little longer, not restless, just not fully tired yet. He watched the dim light from the TV move across the ceiling and thought in loose circles that no longer pressed so hard. School. Money. The future. The thousand things he should probably be worrying about. They were all still there, waiting.
But for once they didn't feel urgent enough to ruin the moment.
After a while he reached for the remote, turned the TV off completely, and let the room go dark except for the weak strip of streetlight along the curtains.
Mandy didn't stir.
Lip settled back into the pillow, her weight still warm against him, and closed his eyes.
Not much happened after that.
Eventually, he fell asleep too.
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