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We consider letting them live. We really do. It’s just—

They brought in Natalie’s guitar. Left it right outside her door. Biggest tactical mistake since the eighth-grade overnight

shul-in, when Lucas Wolfram tried sneaking a vape into the sanctuary.

My hand’s on the bathroom doorknob before Nat’s done unzipping the case.

“I need to tune it,” she murmurs.

“Nope. No time. You’ve got to rawdog it.”

I sneak a glance at her profile. Level-ten dimple situation. I follow her into the bathroom.

“He’s really in there with Walter?” she whispers.

“The redhead himself.”

“Incredible. You know he’s been watching those ukulele videos since freshman year, right?”

“I’m sorry, what —”

“Shh!” She presses a finger to my lips and grins. “Yeah, how do you think he discovered ‘Cecilia’? I literally walked in on

him watching the part where he’s, like, drumming on the edge of it.”

I stare at her. “He wasn’t—”

“Eww! No. God— Walter was drumming. On the edge of the ukulele, not—” She stops short, wrinkling her nose at me. “You’re messing with me.”

“Yup.” I kiss her.

She kisses me back. “He was just listening. With headphones, though,” she whispers. “I didn’t even know what song it was until

a week later, when you made me watch it fifty times.”

“More like thirty-five.” I tap the edge of the frets, catching her gaze in the mirror. “Okay, maestro. Marky needs his makeout

song.”

“You,” she informs me, “are a demon.”

“It’s called being a wingwoman.”

When she leans in to kiss me, it’s not a wish come true.

It’s every wish, croissantified. Layer upon feather-soft layer. When you’ve been in love for so long, it’s like breathing.

When you’re in love, present tense.