“Biracial Romani,” he said. “My mom was French. I learned to cook from both her and Dad. I’m not at Dad’s level yet, but one day. I’m going to be a chef, I think. If you stick around, maybe I’ll make you some of my famous honey tarts.” He waggled his eyebrows at me as if the honey tarts weren’t enticement enough.

He’s flirting me up.

I’m letting him.

I’ll drop the baby ball soon! But this is the first fun I’ve had since Jack and that was three months ago now. I can indulge a little bit, right?

I felt my cheeks go hot and looked down at my lunch tray. “I actually love spicy food. There’s a Mexican place in my hometown that makes the best enchiladas. They smother them in a jalapeño sauce that’s to die for. My mom and Mormor—my grandmother—are Swedish and they cook like Swedes—lots of sweet stuff. It’s good! I like it, but I prefer the spicy stuff. Maybe it’s in my blood. Thanks, Dad, wherever you may be.” I gestured vaguely at the sky before cramming potato chips into my mouth.

“God, we have zero good Mexican places. Where are you from?” Erin asked. “Cause I’d be all over that.”

“Auburndale. Just a town over. We moved in with my grandmother in August. I can show you sometime.”

Erin practically glimmered. “Nice. We’ll have to check it out.”

Leaf pulled silverware from his lunch bag and very precisely placed them on the napkin on the table before him. There was some significance to the ritual of the thing, but I wasn’t sure what it was, and it was probably rude to ask so I kept my mouth shut. “Will you miss it? Your friends?” he asked before tucking into his food.

“Not really? It’s so close. Like, my best friend, Devi—she’s super cool—she lives ten minutes away from my grandmother’s house and I see her all the time. I’ll miss her at lunch, but that was about the only time we got to hang out during school, anyway. I don’t think it’ll be that bad. Plus, I got away from a trash ex-boyfriend by moving, so that’s nice.”

Well, I mostly got away from him. I still occasionally got the random check-in text, which I’d ignore, but it was nice to know he was still out there, thinking about how he’d ruined my life. I wasn’t going to blame the fetus sitch on him, but he’d played a part, in his own way. If he hadn’t screwed around on me, I wouldn’t have been boffing strangers in trucks as a way to purge him from my system.

Thanks, Aaron. You dong.