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"No?" The single word echoed with a gentle sort of prompting. Misha did not want to pressure Brian into exposing any more than he wanted to but she was curious about his answer. She knew what else she was getting from the night with him, after all. He was comfort and warmth and increasingly important to her. While she had not told him everything at all, she had told him more than the others knew. Her parents' worry, hinting at her fear of what happened in the bayou... And then, of all the stupid slips, mentioning the whole stalker thing.

Pressing a kiss of her own to his shoulder through his shirt, she slipped her arms around his waist. She wondered what he thought he gained from it and wished he would tell her. No pressure, though. Never any pressure on her Brian.

"But I do." Pleasure and pride echoed in the three simple words but Brian knew better than to take her comment as something so shallow and superficial. She searched out his hand to tangle their fingers together. She gave a little squeeze. "And I always will," she added. Drawing back a bit, Misha looked into his face, meeting his eyes. "Promise."

Misha wrinkled her nose and giggled. Then she sobered, her expression a bit pretty-solemn like an Old Master's painting of the Madonna. "I know," she murmured. "Thank you."

A random thought flickered across her mind about the earlier jokes, about her mom's suspicions, about following a boy across state lines. The corner of her mouth twitched. Well, there were an awful lot of boys at the Prytaneum that could lure a girl into a new living situation. She half-suspected that being really goddamn attractive was a sub-requirement for their gods and goddesses when choosing. Brian, though? He was an entirely different sort of awesome.

She smiled, gave her head a little shake, and settled back into the cradle of Brian's lap and arms. Misha dropped her head onto his shoulder once more. "And thank you for inviting me here," she added sweetly. "This will be the Best Sleepover Ever."

One of Misha's hands snaked up the side of his neck and trailed fingers over the top of his head, feeling the soft fuzz of his close-cropped hair tickle her skin. She gave a little hum that was halfway to a laugh. "I don't think I can play with your hair, though. Shame."

Misha managed to smother the urge to laugh at his offer. It would not have been mean-spirited at all, more like a mixture of amusement and shock that he would suggest something like that. It was so sweet and terribly charming. All she did in response, though, was to run her hand gently over his head again. Then she brushed a kiss over his temple. "Only if you want to," she answered. "I think you look handsome as it is but I'm pretty sure I'd still think you were handsome if you grew your hair out."

Misha laughed at that, his sudden shift of attention to her hair instead of his. Then she reached up and back to loose it from the casual hairstyle which kept it contained. The dark waves fell over her shoulders and brushed against Brian as well, teasing his cheek and neck. She smiled. "Not curly, really, but I definitely have a lot of body and wave," she admitted. "More if I let it air-dry or if it's shorter."

"And you with two younger sisters!" Misha clicked her tongue in teasing disapproval but her eyes danced with laughter, all the better revealed as he shifted her hair from her face. "I can't believe they didn't teach you anything about hair. No braiding or brushing?" She made another low noise in the back of her throat, somewhere between a laugh and a hum. "If I had a sibling, I would've begged to have my hair brushed all the time. It's so soothing. I love having my hair played with."

For a moment, Misha resisted his nudging, confused. Then he boasted that he could still braid and she laughed as the light bulb went off. "Well, if that isn't an offer, I don't know what is," she declared.

A very good offer and one that pleased her immensely, she had to admit. The thought of Brian playing with her hair suddenly ranked high on her list of things to experience. The only lingering reluctance lay in how she would have to leave his lap.

"I hope it's not too tangled from being wound up like that." She slipped from his lap and turned in her seat on the couch. Now all of her dark, thick hair was on offer to him.