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She beamed. “Go for it. I have gouda.”

I scowled. “Gouda?Do I look like an animal? Ugh, I’ll pass.”

“I didn’t realize you had such strong feelings…”

Still, I followed her upstairs, chattering about how Oliver was going to be at the party too and how that was probably enough said about that, the rumors about him and Connor and to keep an eye out to see if they made out at any point, and atsome point I realized we were in her cute little apartment above the bubble tea place and she’d shut the bedroom door between us for her to get changed. I shrugged and helped myself to her fridge, checking for cheese, but alas, she really did just have the gouda. The woman was uncultured.

“Ready to go?” Kay said, once she’d stepped out of the bedroom, dressed like a poster advert with a plaid pleated skirt and fishnets leggings and sleeves, and I didn’t even know theymadefishnet sleeves. She’d thrown on more accessories than I think I owned, total.

“Jeez, you dress like you give a damn,” I said. “I can’t fathom it. Yeah, I’m ready.”

“You look cute like that. It’s a… signature style.”

Coming from anybody else, that would sound like a veiled insult. I was wearing an oversized sweater and shorts, and my hair looked like it had just gone through a wind tunnel, I knew. Kay didn’t know how to insult people, though.

I wasn’t going to push the topic either way. If I protested too much, she’d start to get the idea I was insecure, and that topic would spread like wildfire. I was supposed to be the queen of gossip. The gossip couldn’t be aboutme.And I guess I just… didn’t want certain people knowing certain things about how I felt about certain things.

“So, just to check,” I said, mostly just to change the subject as we headed downstairs and out into the brisk spring air, “you moved into your own place instead of moving in with Gwen because you’d never in your life agree on décor, right?”

She shrugged, looking up to the sky, her hands in her jacket pockets. “Um… I think it’s more just that I needed this.”

“A shorter commute? Want to be able to just fall down the stairs and end up at work?”

“Nah. Just—you know, my own place, my own thing. I love Gwen to death, but… ugh, I always wanted so badly to havesome kind of self-determination. Living with my parents was just awful, looking back on it. I need to have some time of having a space where I make my own decisions, I do what feels right to me.”

I clapped a hand on her back, and she stumbled. “Ugh, I so get that. Getting away from my family, needing my own space, and then just getting to be the lord of that space? It rules.”

“Didn’t you use that space to, like… breed lizards, or something? Maybe you can’t be trusted with that responsibility.”

“Hey—leave the Ultimate Lizard out of this.”

She grinned at me. “Cute name.”

“He wasn’tcute,he was powerful and fearsome and…”

“And?”

I put a hand to my chest. “And was too great to be contained.”

“He ran away.”

“Well, yeah. I made some mistakes.”

She laughed, and we settled into a silence walking side-by-side, cutting across town in the direction of Amber Lane and the park where Emberlynn would probably already be set up ten minutes early, until I couldn’t bear the silence any longer.

“But you think you’re going to move in with her eventually?”

“Mm. Probably. I’m just going with where the wind leads. Mostly I’m just focusing on doing the best I can, being the best I can…”

I frowned, an anxious sensation in my stomach. I pushed it down, looking the other way at a brick wall painted with street art.

“I kind of admire you, honestly,” she said. “You’re just so naturally cool, unbothered… like you’re not caught up in this race to be better all the time.”

The less I thought about this, the better. I bumped up my voice a decibel. “That’s because I’m already the best! There’s no being better than this.”

She stopped, giving me a look. “Um… sorry. Did I touch on a sore spot?”

“I don’t have sore spots.”