Lyra didn't think she'd ever been standing so close to a boy in his bedroom, offering some perfect and also situation-specific line he could have used to flirt back with, and had the boy she was with just sit down. If she'd still been eighteen, it might have crushed her, but she was twenty-three now and she'd been through some stuff since then.
It was not even comparable to finding out her date had also dated her mom, after all.
Also, she'd been through other things. Maybe things that equipment in this room could help her prove. And she knew she needed proof, for Rosario. What would happen if she took an EMF reader to the Mystery Hole? What would happen if she pointed the thermometer at the floor, knowing how hot it had been, down there, scores of dancing thrashing bodies raising the heat even though she was the only one sweating? he felt her heart start to speed up, at the memory.
"Hey Avery," she said, getting ready to ask him– have you ever used this stuff to look for anything... else? But she turned to him and– even after all the stories he'd told of the people he'd talked to and believed about their encounters with aliens– lost her nerve. So when he turned to ask her 'yeah?' she kissed him instead.