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I was more than ready for this school week to be over, and I collapsed into the free chair beside Cress. “I swear, some people have zero boundaries in this place,” I complained.

“Mmm.” Cress murmured a sound of agreement though she didn’t look up from her phone, so I wasn’t sure she’d actually heard me. It looked like she was trying to draft a message, but whenever she wrote something, she deleted it right away.

“What’s up?” I asked.

She let out a sigh and placed her phone down on the desk as she looked up at me. “I was supposed to go to a social committee meeting about the Halloween carnival this morning, but it was so damn early, and I arrived late. I swear, no one should ever have to arrive anywhere at 7:00 A.M. It’s so uncivilized.”

I frowned because it didn’t explain why she seemed so bothered. It wasn't exactly unusual for Cress to arrive late to something. “Are you in trouble about it or something?”

“No.” She sighed. “If only.”

“So, why do you look so down?”

“Because they were assigning booths for each club to run at the carnival, and because I was late, all the good ones were taken.”

“Shit.”

“I know.” She nodded. “Not only that, but the cheerleaders got the booth we wanted. The girls on my dance squad are going to be so disappointed.”

“Surely, it’s not that bad. What did you get stuck with?”

“The kissing booth.” She gave such an exaggerated shudder I couldn’t help but laugh.

“That sounds okay.” I tried my best to sound convincing.

“Not when you realize thatanyonecan buy a token for a kiss. It’s the worst booth in the fair...”

“Oh, yeah, that does suck.” I was suddenly grateful I hadn’t joined any clubs at school.

“Tell me about it,” she said. “Quite a few of the girls on the squad have boyfriends too, so I think I’m going to struggle to find volunteers to man the booth.”

“Well, there’s always Anna. I’m sure she’d be more than happy to help you out.”

“Yeah, I’m sure she will.” Cress laughed, but her expression dimmed as she glanced down at her phone once more. “I’m trying to figure out how to break the news to the squad. Everyone is asking in the group chat what happened at the meeting.”

I shrugged. “I’d just be honest. Tell them the cheerleaders stole your booth and that they’re going to need to pucker up.”

“I don’t think that’s going to make them feel any better about it.”

I smiled as an idea came to me. “Or, you could tell them you got stuck with the stand but you’re going to change it to a kissor scarebooth. When people come up for their turn, they don’t know if they’re getting a kiss or a scare from the girls.”

“Oh, I like that,” Cress said. “Definitely more fitting for Halloween. Maybe I’ll create some kind of coin that can be flipped with kiss on one side and scare on the other so it’s a game of chance.”

“That would be so fun,” I agreed. “You could also get some cute guys to volunteer so the girls wouldn’t have to do all the kissing.”

“Like who?”

“Well, a certain twin who loves kissing comes to mind.”

Cress looked thoughtful. “Yeah, I’m sure I can rope Sawyer into it.”

“I think it would be harder trying to keep him away.”

Cress giggled, her familiar bright smile fully restored. “Okay, I think this might go down better with the team. I guess we’ll just have to convince a few other guys to help us out.”

She grew quiet as Veronica entered the room and took her usual seat in front of me. Veronica slowly turned to Cress and flashed her a fake smile. “Sorry the dance team missed out on the photo booth this morning. I know you girls were thinking about doing it, but I’m sure you can understand that I didn’t have a choice. I was just doing what the cheer team wanted. They have all these ideas for different backdrops, and I’d hate to disappoint them.”

Cress returned Veronica’s smile with one that was just as empty. “Oh, I understand,” she said. “But you don’t need to worry, we’re pretty excited to be doing the kissing booth.”