“I hate you,” I muttered, rubbing my hands over my face, fully aware that I was losing this battle.

“You love me,” she corrected, her grin widening.

“I really don’t.”

“You’re going to make me use the face, aren’t you?”

I tensed. “Don’t.”

God help me, she did the face… Big, pleading eyes, a small, adorable pout, and a slight head tilt for maximum guilt trip efficiency. It was a lethal combination.

With a deep breath, I let out the longest sigh known to man. “Oh, the things I do for you.”

“Exactly,” she said triumphantly. “Now get dressed. We have a piercing to get and stores to raid.”

I gave one last dramatic sigh for good measure, but deep down, I knew the truth—I’d follow her anywhere.

* * *

The piercing studio was in a strip mall on Melrose, tucked between a record store and a tattoo parlor with flames painted on the windows.

The neon sign in the window flickered slightly, buzzing against the glass: PIERCINGS | TATTOOS | CASH ONLY.

The moment we stepped into it, I knew this was a mistake. The walls were plastered with posters of half-naked bodies covered in ink and heavily pierced people, their faces adorned with rings and studs in places I hadn’t even known could be pierced.

A neon sign buzzed over the counter: We Pierce Anything.

That sounded like a threat.

The air smelled like antiseptic and metal, with a faint trace of something floral—maybe incense or whatever cleaner they used to scrub down the chairs. A stereo in the corner played Closing Time by Semisonic, slightly crackly through the speakers.

Behind the counter sat a girl who looked like she had been born bored. She had black hair cut into a choppy bob, a silver hoop through her nostril, and dark lipstick that made her look permanently unimpressed.

“You here for a piercing?” she asked, flipping through a tattoo magazine like she’d rather be anywhere else.

“Yeah,” Beverly said, practically buzzing with excitement. “Belly button.”

The girl sighed like she’d already predicted this. She reached under the counter and pulled out a clipboard. “Fill this out.”

“I can’t believe this is finally happening,” Beverly whispered to me as she grabbed a pen. “I’ve wanted this forever.”

Forever, in this case, meant since last Thursday, when she saw some model in a Vogue magazine “rocking” a belly ring.

Beverly took the form, and I leaned over her shoulder as she started writing. “Do they have a section where you sign away your right to sue when this inevitably gets infected?”

She shot me a look. “It’s not going to get infected.”

I crossed my arms. “You do realize there’s a high chance of that happening? Your belly button is literally the perfect breeding ground for bacteria. It’s warm, it traps moisture⁠—”

She smacked my arm with the clipboard. “Shut up, Blake.”

“I’m just saying, statistically speaking⁠—”