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She looks out at the street again for a second. “I don’t know what else would be open now besides bars and restaurants, and it doesn’t seem like we’d get much done there.”

An image of Kenzie and I huddled around a candlelit table in a dark, crowded bar pops into my head. I push it away before I can go into too much detail imagining how close we’d have to be to hear each other over all the voices and music.

She’s right; not much productivity would come out of that at all.

“There’s a little light left,” I say. “Maybe we could go to a park?”

“Major’s Hill Park?” Her eyes get a little brighter as she suggests it, and she sits up straight like she’s raring to go.

“That works,” I say as I watch her. “Are you...a fan of the place?”

Like she’s been caught with her hand in a cookie jar, she slides her poker face right back on and pretends to be busy slinging her purse strap over her shoulder.

“I study there sometimes,” she answers as she tugs on a buckle that’s already done up. “There’s lots of space. We can probably grab a picnic table or something. It would be good to get as much of this out of the way as we can tonight.”

As we toss out our cups and leave the cafe, I try hard to remind myself I feel the same way: this whole thing is an inconvenience we’d be better off getting through as fast as possible.

It doesn’t stop my skin from continuing to spark with that familiar fire as we head off down the street together.

CHAPTER 6

KENZIE

“Come on! That’s one of my favourite questions.” Moira slaps her palms down on the picnic table between us and groans.

She’s gotten more and more dramatic as we’ve progressed through our respective lists of interview questions, weeding out which ones we want to use, and as much as I hate to admit it, watching her wave her hands around and pretend to collapse onto the table in exasperation is pretty adorable.

“Nuh-uh,” I answer, mostly because I don’t want to do the question but also because part of me is really enjoying the results of pissing her off. “I call veto.”

“You can’t call veto on everything.”

“You called veto on all my questions.”

She balks at that. “I did not. I liked some of yours. We circled them.”

She taps on the creased sheet of paper with my handwriting scrawled across the lines, a few questions singled out with swooping circles of black ink.

The park is dark enough now that we need to lean in over the papers to read them. The sky is a deep purple with a single streak of pink left where the sun dipped out of sight ten minutes ago, and the park is clearing out fast. The usual Frisbee players have headed home for the night, and the picnic blankets that dotted the lawn in front of us when we arrived have all been packed up now.

We should think about calling it a night too, but neither of us mentions leaving.

“Okay, new plan,” Moira says after snatching her notebook away from me. “From now on, we have to answer any of the questions we ask each other, and then we can decide if we want to veto them or not. That way you can’t just automatically say no to everything.”

“I wouldn’t have to say no if your questions weren’t overly personal.”

She makes a show of rolling her eyes. “It’s an interview. The point is for it to be personal. It’s about you, a person.”

I’m still working on my comeback when I realize she’s pulled her phone and a few textbooks out of her bag to start constructing a makeshift camera stand.

“What are you doing?” I demand.

“Setting up my camera,” she answers in the same cheery tone you’d use to explain basic dance concepts to a five-year-old.

“Yes, but why?”

“Because we need to remember what our answers to the questions are if we decide to use them in the real interview.”

“I don’t want my practice round filmed,” I argue, loud enough that she stops working on her book tower. “Besides, it’s dark. You’ll barely catch anything on the camera.”