I snicker, starting to pick up the papers and stuff them into my backpack. “Just uncool enough to be your girlfriend, you hot weirdo.”

“I thought you’d never ask,” he says.

I roll my eyes. “You thought I’d never ask … what?” I repeat sarcastically. “You are a walking cliché, that didn’t even make conversational sen—” He cuts me off, stepping forward onto his knee to kiss me like the world’s ending.

Excrement.

I would drag him out of here and back to his apartment if I didn’t know Penn and Shane were waiting to talk to him outside. Lord help me, why am I using the word “excrement” unironically?

99. Angst and Los Angeles

SIRI

September 19, Saturday

California

Grams is waiting for us at LAX when we arrive at midnight Pacific time.

Jamie yells down to her as we’re descending on the escalator. “Grams, Papa sold you out! You paid off my landlord? I literally can’t believe you got me kicked out of my apartment, what the hell?!”

“It was a bit of a shithole.” Grams smiles as we step off onto ground level. She starts toward the exit and we fall into step.

“It was my shithole!” Jamie argues.

“Well, I’m sorry, I thought it was for the greater good.”

Jamie rolls her eyes. “Congratulations, Olenna Tyrell, you did it. We’re here together.”

I laugh.

“That reference is wasted on me, granddaughter.”

“Well, Siri got it.”

“Does this mean I’m forgiven?”

“Probably.”

“You love me.”

“Yeah, whatever, Grams, you wily fox.”

Dad’s not around when we get to the house. We’re exhausted, so we head straight to Jamie’s room and get ready for bed.

Jamie slips under her comforter, and I get cozy in her sleeping bag on the floor next to her. She flips off the light.

“Siri,” Jamie says into the dark.

“Yeah,” I answer quietly.

“I’m going to drop down a piece of paper, but don’t read it right now.”

“Okay…” A folded-up square lands on the floor next to me.

“I’m sorry I pushed you into Plan Parent Confrontation Trap, and that we’re not getting an official sister trip,” Jamie says.

I turn toward the bed. “Thank you. And, well, we’re kind of having our sister trip now. It’s been really cool hanging out with you all week.”

“… I’m also sorry about how I reacted about you and Dawn. She’s wonderful and you’re wonderful. She’d be lucky to have a girlfriend as generous as you are.”

A knot in my chest loosens, and I smile in her direction. “I know how close you two are … I should have talked to you as soon as I started feeling something. Which was immediately because she’s a goddess and you gave me no warning.”

“I didn’t realize you were bi … Are you? Or are you not into labels?”