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Valeria goes from confused to neutral in a second flat. “Oh, right. It was five dollars.”

I can’t believe I just let her pay for my food. She must think I’m some ungrateful brat. Not brat. Shit. Romy says that’s a B.D.S.M. term, and for all I know Valeria is into that. And by some miracle, there’s five dollars in my wallet.

I slap it on the table. Valeria gives a brief smile. “Thanks.”

“Yeah, no—”

Valeria snaps up the five, reaches over the table, and puts one hand on the side of my forehead. Heat gushes from the spot through my every nerve, igniting me. My breath is caught in a metal box and I can’t get it out. Her other hand lifts part of my crown, scorching my nerves like a Malibu forest fire.

She slips the five into the space.

As fast as she was there, she’s back to her friendly distance now.

“Please,” she says. “Don’t give me something else to feel guilty about.”

Does she know? Does she have any idea what she’s doing to me? And why did she even do that?

Valeria then pushes my phone…back to me. When did she take my phone? She must’ve been doing that sleight-of-hand thing: distract me with the crown and take my phone to…be cute? Does this woman flirt with up-close magic? I’m in love. I focus on her hand, taking in all the details I’ve noticed before: the short nails, the raised veins, the way her index fingers are double-jointed and flatten as she pushes down.

I take my phone back.

“If you changed the language to non-Latin characters like Romy always does…” I say.

Valeria chuckles as I swipe through.

I go to texts first. It’s a good-enough instinct because now there’s a text conversation I never started being held with VAL(ERIA) SULLIVAN. There’s a single blue text from her:

IF YOU VENMO ME I WILL MURDER YOU.

So Valeria just paid for my meal. Valeria just…Did she just give me her number?

I sit with that fact long after Valeria and I leave each other.

But when my driver merges onto the 10, I open Venmo, select my new contact Valeria, put in five dollars as the amount, and leave it with the caption: Is it wrong to say my favorite Beatle is Yoko?

She replies a minute later in our text chain.

Well shit she’s MY favorite so idk

There’s just no way all this doesn’t mean something. For once in my life, I actually feel like I know how to communicate over text.

Now I just have to not fuck it up.

chapter ten

The moment I applied to U.S.C., I knew my life would be about critique—my classes were focused on critique, every wannabe agent in Slater I showed my work to had something to say about it, and even my unqualified parents had opinions on my work.

Yet sitting across from Romy at Philz Coffee on the border of Manhattan Beach and El Segundo about to get my texts with Valeria critiqued, I feel like I’ve never been evaluated in my life. I absolutely should not be this nervous, especially given Romy’s been in a pretty great mood ever since I surprised her with the slutty brownies. But here we are.

Romy swishes her iced coffee as she reads; I’m focused on the pink of her eyeshadow as she looks down at my phone. The cars passing by on Rosecrans Avenue are a distant whir. There’s a Philz in Downtown L.A., but we’re willing to brave a 110–105–405 journey for the fifteen-degrees-cooler temperatures closer to the beach. My brain suddenly bombards me with the most useless Gen Z information, like how the definitive coolest things that have been filmed in Manhattan Beach are 100percent the Hannah Montana intro/outros (the pier and Miley’s high school are not in Malibu) and the train sequence in Captain Marvel, which was filmed about two blocks from where I’m at. When CinemaSins made a comment about how the metro station was “super conveniently” located right next to a functioning road, all I could think was Yeah, of course it’s well designed, it’s along one of the most affluent stops on the Green Line. So I’m thinking that, and I’m also thinking about how I already feel guilty using Romy as an excuse to make my usual I’m in the area pop-in to see my parents as brief as possible. They’ll want to hear about the P.A. gig, which will inevitably lead to Valeria, which will lead to I’m bi thoughts, which I do not want right now. So, brief.

“You guys are incurring so many Venmo fees,” Romy finally says. “But I have to admit, it’s also fucking hilarious.”

I snort. “You haven’t laughed once.”

“If I’d read these in my room, I’d have laughed.” She slides my phone back to me. A cloud moves, casting a ray of sunlight down onto Romy’s bracelet-covered arm. She retreats like the vampire she is. “So how are you feeling about all this?”

I grimace. “What do you mean? Things are going super well with Valeria, and I got back on camera P.A. on Friday. It’s great.”