“You, too, kiddo. Home by midnight or text me with a good reason why you’re not here.”

Devi started the car and we both watched Mom disappear into the house.

“The two of you are like two peas in a pod,” Devi said.

“Right down to the teen pregnancies! Go Team Larssen!” I pulled out my phone to look at the directions. I’d been standing by my locker after school when Erin stopped by to give me cell phone numbers and an address. Morgan lived about fifteen minutes from my house, off a main road near the local movie theater, so it wasn’t going to be a big deal finding it.

Devi was as cool as a cucumber the whole way there, but she was always laid-back. I was more worried about old friends and new friends intermingling. I also wasn’t too proud to admit that the notion of Leaf trying to take it to the next level with me, beyond the flirts and casual touches, was going to require one hell of an uncomfortable conversation that I didn’t want to have.

It was possible he wouldn’t care, but I did. I cared. I cared what he thought of me, and what all of these other kids thought of me because they were cool and funny. What if their tolerance ended at “being seen with the pregnant girl”?

Devi clued in that I was fretting, because her hand left the shift and slid over to touch mine.

“It’ll be okay,” she said. “Promise.”

“How do you know?”

She shrugged. “I just do. You’re good people. Water finds its own level. Everyone will be cool because you’re cool.”

There were a thousand ways to poke holes in that logic, but instead I let it take the edge off, slumping into my seat and nodding.

“Thanks, wifey.”

“You bet.”

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Eighteen

“Pastry is bomb.”

Morgan swiped another piece of Leaf’s pastry from the tray on the coffee table, cramming it into her mouth and falling back onto the couch to kick her legs up in the air. Her head flopped back into Erin’s lap, so Erin leaned down to kiss her forehead.

Morgan’s outburst was understandable in the face of such culinary greatness. The pastries were buttery and sweet and nutty and tickled both me and the small human inside of me who vacillated wildly between “expel all food” and “I HUNGER.” Fortunately, it was more the latter than the former lately, and I was curled up with a small plate of sweets and enjoying them greatly.

Devi sat on my left.

Leaf on my right.

“These are super good,” Devi said to Leaf.

“Thank you! My grandmother’s recipe.”

Devi dashed crumbs off her bottom lip. “I’d like to shake her hand.”