I don’t know. A sticky feeling forms in the middle of my breastbone. We’ve never flirted before. Ever. Ever-ever-ever. We played video games and read books. We painted backdrops for plays at school. When people kissed in movies, we both rolled our eyes.

Maybe I should think about … uh, whatever this is before I say or do anything I regret. It’s Lucky, after all. That’s first. And second, I’m not good at this. And third … the Saint-Martin love curse. And fourth, the utter pit-pattering-panic I’m feeling in my chest—something between excitement and fear.

I quietly clear my throat. “Um, I just remembered that I’m almost positive you’re not single, so I should probably … um, maybe … ,” I say in the most awkward way possible, trying to remember what I’ve heard about Lucky at school. “You have a girlfriend, I think, maybe?”

“I don’t have a girlfriend.”

“Boyfriend?”

“Nope.”

“Huh.” I waver at the edge of my seat. “Okay. Guess I got my gossip mixed up.”

“Come on, Saint-Martin. I’d think you’d know better than most folks that you shouldn’t listen to gossip,” he says. “But if there’s anything I can clear up for you, ask away.”

He’s right, of course. I shouldn’t listen to gossip. But most of what I’ve learned about Lucky 2.0 has been gleaned from hallway whispers at Beauty High, which shockingly isn’t the most reliable source of information. There are rumors he spent time in juvie. And that he once had his stomach pumped after OD’ing on drugs.

That he got Bunny Perera pregnant earlier this year.

Is any of that true? I don’t know. But Beauty is an insanely finger-wagging, gossipy town that has made an art of shunning outcasts since it was a colonial village, and people are publicly judged, facts or no facts. More dirty laundry is aired here before nine a.m. than most towns manage all day.

I do know that more than half the things people whisper about me and my mom aren’t remotely true, so I’d imagine this general percentage of truthiness could apply to Lucky as well. I just don’t know which parts of his gossiped history are made up and which parts might be based in fact.