“How are you complaining right now?” Cora says, throwing her hands up. “Ace is the hottest guy in our grade.”

“I hate enabling Cora, but she’s right,” Nandini says, shrugging when I give her an incredulous look. “Have you seen him? Karina, he’s literally gorgeous.”

My friends are ridiculous. I love them, but they really are.

“Yeah, well, I’m tutoring him. Not dating him. I’m more concerned that this dude never pays attention in class. How am I supposed to teach him anything?”

“Karina, you’re the worst,” Cora says, pouting. “How can you think about studying at a time like this? We’re talking about Alistair Clyde! Oh my God, you have to get him to fall in love with you so we can live vicariously through you. Karina, this is what your entire life has been leading up to.”

“Stop clowning around,” I say, shaking my head. “The last thing I have room for in my life right now is a guy, much less Ace. It’ll be a miracle if I can even talk to the dude without making a fool of myself.”

“Karina and Alistair sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G,” Cora sings, swaying side to side. I give up, knowing it’s a lost cause when she gets like this.

I turn to Nandini for support, but she’s staring at me in contemplation. The look in her eyes makes my skin crawl, because she looks like that only when she’s scheming.

“I’m tired of you both,” I say, flipping them off before returning to my pizza. “I need new friends.”

Cora laughs but Nandini taps her chin thoughtfully. “I wonder what we’ll wear to the wedding. He’s white, which is a tragedy, but maybe you can convince him to have a brown wedding.”

“Putting aside how senseless all of that is, you think my parents would let me marry a white boy?” I ask incredulously. “Have you met them?”

Nandini considers that for a moment. “Maybe we just won’t invite them. Samir could walk you down the aisle instead.”

I sigh, shaking my head. “Say less. Say so much less.”

“I’m just pointing out that there’s a lot of potential here,” Nandini says, holding her hands out in defense.

“What potential? You think that all the people in our school who throw themselves at Ace, he would decide to date the random brown girl tutoring him in English? You’ve lost the plot,” I say, before pointing a finger at her. “Earlier you said something wild happened during gym. Let’s talk about that instead.”

“You’re no fun.” Cora wrinkles her nose, but she also turns her gaze toward Nandini, which means the conversation is effectively over. Alhamdulillah.

As Nandini talks about some dude from her gym period who flashed the whole class, my mind drifts.