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“It’s not that high,” I mutter, biting back a grin. “You’re being dramatic.”

“Joely,” she hisses, “this sign is fifteen feet in the air! And there are no handrails. I am two misplaced steps from becoming a human pancake.”

I crouch, double-check one of the zip ties, and tug the industrial Saran Wrap taut across the lettering. “The letters are going nowhere. They’ll hold.”

“I, however, am going somewhere,” she snaps.

I glance down. “Where?”

She finally makes it to the bottom and hops off the last rung. “Gisele’s. I broke a nail.”

“You’re kidding.”

She holds up her hand like she’s just lost a limb. “Cat burglar glam is a delicate balance. And this—” she wiggles the cracked acrylic— “has thrown me entirely out of alignment.”

I laugh and start my descent, the metal ladder creaking beneath my boots. My fingers are frozen, my thighs are screaming, and my hoodie has collected more dust than a forgotten attic. But the sign?

Perfect.

When I hit the ground, I pull my ski mask off. “Fine. Let’s go fix your precious talons. I’ll even pay for the repair.”

She narrows her eyes. “Really?”

“Obviously.”

We start walking to the car, steam puffing from our mouths in the icy air. The whole town is still asleep, not a single headlight on the road. Just two girls in black hoodies, matching leggings, and a pair of guilty grins.

Lynsie pauses at the passenger door and looks up at the sign again. “You really think he’ll notice?”

I smile, heart thudding as the letters flutter faintly in the breeze, shimmering under the streetlamp glow.

“He better,” I say. “Or I’m zip-tying one of these to his damn locker.”

If this doesn’t get his attention, nothing will. And if it does? God help me—I’ll actually have to say how I feel out loud.

She grins and climbs in. “Remind me never to get on your bad side.”

I yank open my door. “You already are. After I climbed a death trap in twenty-degree weather, you’re forcing me to go to the salon again.”

“And yet you’re glowing,” she says as I slide in beside her. “Weird.”

I lean back in my seat, fingers still tingling from adrenaline, heart racing with something else entirely.

Hope.

Or possibly frostbite. Hard to tell.

By the time we roll up to Glamboozled, the sky’s gone full cotton candy with sunrise. Lynsie’s chewing her nail—the broken one, like she’s mourning its sacrifice in the war on gravity—while I’m replaying our very illegal early morning ladder mission on a loop in my head.

The parking lot’s empty. Not a soul in sight. No early-rising grandmas rolling in for their biweekly perms. No bridesmaids ready to pregame with mimosas and spray tans. Just us. And a locked glass door.

Lynsie jabs the button on the intercom.

“Gisele’s not here,” I say, peeking through the glass. The neonlashes & sasssign is dim. “Let’s come back later.”

“I can’t wait,” Lynsie moans. “This nail is mocking me. I feel... lopsided.”

I raise an eyebrow. “You’re not exactly a Jenga tower, babe. You’ll live.”