“Okay, I’m going to vomit. This cuteness will not stand in my car,” Rae says.

“She wants a kiss, too.” I pucker my lips, and she kisses me then turns to Jack, who shrugs and kisses her, too.

“Do anything for you?” she asks.

“Meh.” Jack smirks.

“You have a boyfriend!” I snap.

Rae sucks her teeth. “Meh.” She kicks open her car door before I can ask a follow-up.

As I make a mental note to pull her aside later, Taylor emerges from the hotel’s entrance and books it toward the car, flinging her arms around Rae. How is it possible that in two months, my sister’s shot up a few inches? Her hair is longer, and Mom must’ve let her dye it because it’s a brilliant shade of strawberry pink with white-blond highlights. She’s not even wearing her glasses anymore.

The second I get out, Taylor screams, eyes wet, and hugs me so tight, I have trouble breathing.

“Are you crying?” I ask.

Taylor holds me tighter. “Shut up, am not. You are!”

“Solid burn,” I retort.

Then she whispers, “Is that really Jack?”

“Yep.” I pull away, and my brows dance. “I know, right?”

“He’s too hot for you,” she says, loud enough for Jack to hear.

“Ouch.”

Jack holds out his hand, but Taylor pulls him into a hug.

“Come on, I have to show you off to Mom and Dad before all my friends get here,” she says, pulling Jack by the hand toward the hotel.

I exhale hard.

Rae locks her arms with mine. “You ready to see your dad?”

“Nope,” I say. “And even less ready to introduce him to Jack.”

“Why? Your dad is cool like that.” She squeezes my arm.

“Yeah, but Jack has these perfect parents.”

“I thought you said his parents are kinda homophobic?”

“Well, that’s the impression Jack gives me. But that’s a whole other thing. I don’t know much, except that his dad is like one of his best friends and that relationship is the most important thing to him. He kind of acts weird when I tell him about me and my dad and how things are tense between us. I don’t know. I don’t want that to work against me.” Suddenly the world seems a whole lot bigger and harder to navigate than it does at CIA, where Jack and I can easily visit the stars and splash in puddles and explore each other in the in-between.

“Booboo, stop waiting for Jack to disappoint you,” she says. “I spent the last three and a half hours talking to that boy, and I know two things. The first is that he really likes you. No, loves you. He would not shut up about you to the point where it kind of made me super jealous because it’s like there’s this whole side of you that I’ll never know in that way.”