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Zoé was nearly asleep when the sound of a medium-small superhero crash landing on her balcony jolted her firmly back into the waking world. Rubbing her eyes, she lurched out of bed and opened the balcony doors.
“Again?” she asked.
The fall had clearly hurt Ladybug. “I slipped,” she said muzzily, levering herself up into a sitting position. “I’ll walk it off. Ha. Swing it off.”
Zoé took hold of Ladybug’s arm. “You look like you need to sleep it off,” she said firmly. “Come in.”
“I don’t need sleep,” said Ladybug as Zoé helped her to her feet. “I’m a superhero. I have a constantly-lit inner flame.”
“Do you?” asked Zoé dryly. “It seems like you’re burning the candle from both ends. Melting away to nothing.”
Part of her knew that her own sleep deprivation was making her more arcerbic than was perhaps appropriate when speaking to one of the city’s heroes. Part of her was just relieved that something was working.
Zoé led Ladybug into her bedroom, where she met with a new hurdle. “Um,” she said. “Well. There’s only one bed.”
Ladybug looked longingly at the city lights glimmering beyond the balcony doors. “I don’t have to sleep here.”
Zoé moved to block her view. “Yes, you do. You look like you’re about to fall over. Anyway, it’s a big bed. We’ll be fine.” Pulling back the covers, she sat on the edge of her bed and patted the mattress.
Ladybug did not so much lie down on the bed as she collapsed into it. “This is really comfortable,” she murmured, already sounding half asleep.
“Yeah,” said Zoé. “My stepdad only buys the best.”
The loft beds at her boarding school had been rock hard, with paper thin mattresses that creaked when you moved. Zoé still wasn’t used to her gigantic, cloudlike Paris bed. In a weird way, having Ladybug there helped.
In the morning, only the open window and the single dark hair on the pillowcase proved it hadn’t been a particularly vivid dream.
It took Ladybug three nights to return. She landed on Zoé’s balcony with much more grace than before.
“I can’t sleep,” she said when Zoé joined her outside. “I just keep thinking about all the kwamis Monarch kidnapped. They must be so scared, and I failed them.” Ladybug rubbed the bridge of her nose. “Staying up all night, staying on guard… it feels like all I can do for them now.” She looked into Zoé’s eyes. Zoé was momentarily stunned by how blue Ladybug’s eyes were. “But the other night with you…” Ladybug looked at her hands. “I let go of it all for a while. It helped. Can I sleep here again?”
“Of course,” said Zoé, ignoring the way her stomach flip-flopped at the thought of another night in Ladybug’s arms. “Please, come in.”
“I should have brought a sleeping bag or something,” said Ladybug.
Zoé’s bed was enormous, but even so their bodies were inches apart. If she wanted to, if she let her instincts win, Zoé could reach out and touch Ladybug’s cheek. Her skin looked as soft as her lips.
“You’re fine,” said Zoé, hoping that it was too dark for Ladybug to see her blush. “This is fine.”
Ladybug rolled over in the darkness, turning away from Zoé. “Thank you,” she said softly. “My bedroom feels so empty without the kwamis there.”
“I can’t imagine what that’s like,” said Zoé. She thought of how hard it had been to fall asleep in her gigantic new bedroom during her first week in Paris. The loneliness had nearly swallowed her up. “You’re always welcome to visit me, though,” she added quickly. She was too tired to be scared of coming on too strong. “I know what it’s like to need a friend.”
Ladybug came back the next evening, armed with a pizza, a six-pack of soda, and a selection of terrible movies. “I hope I’m not imposing,” she said, hovering in the balcony doorway.
“Not at all,” Zoé assured her. “What kind of pizza did you get?”
To her surprise, Ladybug blushed. “Mushroom and olive.”
Zoé grinned. “That’s my favorite!”
Ladybug’s blush intensified. “Oh? G-good. Lucky guess.”
Zoé selected a schlocky horror movie and inserted it into her laptop’s disc drive. “This is going to take a minute,” she warned Ladybug, dimming the lights. The laptop sputtered and whirred miserably as it read the disc. Zoé hadn’t gotten around to asking her stepdad for a replacement yet.
Ladybug had grown quiet. She sat as far from Zoé as possible, clutching her slice of pizza. Zoé frowned. Was she… nervous?
“I didn’t know you liked horror movies,” said Zoé in an effort to break the awkward silence.
Ladybug nodded. “My mom collects them,” she explained. “I like the ones with really bad special effects.”
“Me too,” said Zoé, remembering a conversation she and her friends had had at lunch a few weeks previously. “Have you ever seen Rise of the Alien Zombies? It’s an insult to cinema, but I saw it at a formative age. It was the first thing that made me want to be an actress.”
Ladybug finished off her slice of pizza and put the crust back into the box. She seemed much more comfortable now. “That’s so cool,” she said, tucking a strand of hair behind one ear. “You seem like you really have things figured out.”
Zoé laughed. “I don’t, I promise. If I did, I’d know how to tell pretty girls that I liked them.”
Her mouth went dry as she realized what she’d just said.
Ladybug scooted in closer. Her cheeks were bright red. “If you ever find out how to confess to pretty girls, let me know. There’s this girl I’m obsessed with, and I don’t know how to show it.”
Oh.
Zoé swallowed. “Have you tried bringing her pizza and a movie?” she asked softly. “Because that’s basically a date.”
Ladybug leaned in even further. “I tried that,” she whispered. “But how do I know if she wants it to be one?”
Zoé reached for Ladybug’s hand. It felt like a minor miracle when the other girl let her take it. “She does,” Zoé whispered.
Just then, in a chorus of screams and squelching noises, their movie began to play.