Sawyer wiggles his eyebrows suggestively—I can’t help but laugh. Sawyer is a freshman baseball recruit at UConn. I’ve always been jealous of Molly—not of Sawyer, but of how she found her perfect person. We’re both high-strung, type A Jacobsons. Sawyer balances her out well with his relaxed demeanor and goofy smile.

Reid might be more type A than I am… so I don’t know what she’s thinking.

“We’re working together because we have to,” I explain. “It’s a whole spiel.”

Molly pulls out the chair next to me. Ties her dark ringlets into a ponytail. “I have time.”

She’s going to psychoanalyze me. I know she’s going to psychoanalyze me.

Still, I tell her everything.

First words out of her mouth? “Fuck Toby.”

“Yeah. Pretty much.”

But then Molly smiles and I can see the wheels turning in her head, like her hypothesis is correct. “This is the best development in, like, two years.”

“Yeah. Okay. So, tell me about Amherst,” I say.

“You are not deflecting!” Molly laughs.

“Absolutely not!” Fitz says, returning with a plate full of pastries.

“What aren’t we deflecting?” Henry asks, sitting down in the chair next to Molly.

“The Natareid situation,” Molly says.

“The what situation?” Henry asks.

“It’s their ship name,” Sawyer explains.

“Nat-a-reid,” Fitz says, slowly.

My favorite cousin has been demoted tonight, oh my God. Her boyfriend too. Break up tomorrow, for all I care! I stand up, because if I can’t deflect, I’m going to flee for the bathroom.

“Natalie,” Reid says after I’ve taken maybe three steps. He’s at the table two over from the one I just left, with the rest of my cousins, who are all older and real adults. “Can we talk?”

Why did Fitz and Molly have to make this such a thing tonight? Now can we talk feels so intense. “Yeah, sure. Let’s just—”

Reid stands, takes my hand, and pulls me toward the dance floor. For someone who could barely deal with putting his arm around me for twenty seconds literal hours ago, he grabs my hand with a confidence I cannot comprehend. Out of the corner of my eye, I see the table I left behind, where Henry looks confused, Fitz looks mildly amused, and Molly is pumping her fist in the air.

“You know everyone is watching us, right?”

“Why do you think we’re not going off alone?” Reid answers.

Delia bumps my hip as she dances past me, totally living her best life because she’s dancing with Hannah. I have no idea what happened between the photos this morning and now, but I also have no idea what happened between Reid and me between then and now, so who am I to ask questions? I will get the full story from my sister at a later point in time.