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“So what are you even going to do, anyway?” she said, and I buried my face in her collar, still flushed with self-consciousness.

“Um… I dunno. What do you think I should do?”

“I really can’t be the one to tell you, Pais.”

“How can I be hotter?”

She made a sound that could probably pass for a duck call in a hydraulic press, somewhere in the back of her throat. “So… that’s your goal? To be hot?”

I pushed myself back from her, standing up, and I thrust my chest out. “Uh, duh. Look at these good looks. You think I’m going to let them go to waste?”

She didn’t look at me, the bastard. She focused on taking a small, careful bite of her brioche. “I think… you kind of have to decide for yourself what being attractive looks like.”

“That’s not ananswer.Oh my god, I’m going to push you out the window.”

She gave me a look. “Is it not? Have you never seen anyone who other people think is attractive and you can’t see anything in them?”

I wrinkled my nose. “I mean, okay, I guess.”

“Tell you what.” She pulled up her phone, and she tapped at it for a bit before she handed it over open to a Pinterest search filled with stylish models. “Take this—”

“You have the Pinterest app on your phone? What are you, a sixty-year-old homemaking Christian woman?”

“I’m a baker,” she deadpanned. “Cake designs. They’re literally everywhere there. Anyway, take the damn phone and tell me some things you think look good, and we’ll go from there.”

I paused, taking the phone, a nervous sensation in my chest. I looked between it and Harper, pausing, and she narrowed her eyes.

“It’s weird when you have something on your mind and you’re not blurting it out.”

“Um… you don’t think this is weird or anything?”

She sighed, turning away. “Sometimes you want to reinvent yourself. I get it. No shame in that.”

“Have you ever done it?”

She scratched her head. “Yeah, I was a pretty gloomy kid. Decided to start caring about food and baking and kind of turned things around. I think it’s a natural human experience. And—come to think of it—” She paused, giving me a wide-eyed look. “I think Emberlynn said you did the same thing. When you got away from your parents.”

I wrinkled my nose. “Ugh. We don’t talk about those assholes. I did kind of reinvent myself then, but like… that was survival mode, okay?”

“I see…”

I sat down opposite her, scrolling. A whole lot of models. All… tall, fit, beautiful. I felt nervous going through it, and I really wasn’t sure why. Maybe the fear of actually trying to measure up to any of them and the inevitability of embarrassing myself so much I’d shrivel up into a little husk and die.

“You look miserable,” Harper said lightly.

“Um… I dunno, I think they’re all kinda hot. That’s probably their thing.” I slid the phone back to her. She pushed it back towards me.

“Yeah, I know. They’re all photoshopped anyway. Just pick someone.”

“Um…” I scrolled through again, my stomach thick with anxious knots. Harper sighed.

“Paisley,” she said, finally. I jumped, hitting my knees on the table.

“Who? What?”

“You don’t need to be embarrassed,” she said. “You’ve never been one to do things in calm half-measures. Just go with whatever your gut is saying, that you’re ignoring because you’re scared of it.”

“I’m—” I scowled, but I caught myself, looking oddly at her. “Areyouactually trying to encourage me to be over-the-top?”