I shush him. “Imagine what the neighbors will think.” I clutch imaginary pearls.

In the car, Thomas punches my arm in a brotherly way. Oh my god, I have a brother.

“You have weed, yes?”

Thomas removes a blunt from behind his ear. “This one is peach.” I try to grab it, but he pulls it back. “Where are we going?”

His new attitude is a lot.

“Malibu,” I say.

“Okay.” Thomas hands me the blunt. I light it out the window and suck in hard. Then I return to my DM to Stella.

What’s your address? I write back.

“You know,” Thomas says as he turns onto Hollywood Boulevard. “I fucked my cousin once.”

I turn on the radio and crank it up all the way.

Thomas and I ride mostly in silence, listening to KCRW, which is playing the Supremes, and smoking out the window, feeling the polluted air on our faces, watching the neighborhoods change. When we pass the sign for the Museum of Tolerance, I tell Thomas we are going to give Stella Shadid a reading, and he responds with an obviously forced nonchalance. I am proud of him for at least trying to be nonchalant for maybe the first time in his life. Being heartbroken looks good on him.

When we see the ocean, I decide to make a plan.

“You’re my assistant,” I say.

“Assistant?” Thomas whines.

“You know there was a point at which you would have killed to be my assistant?”

“We’re partners,” Thomas says.

“You’re my intern.”

“Cousins?”

“Fuck you.”

“Partners,” Thomas says again.

“You don’t know enough about astrology,” I say. It’s true. I can’t have Thomas tarnishing my credibility before a woman with twenty-seven million Instagram followers.

“I know enough,” he says. “I’ve lived in California for ten years. I’m on Instagram. I follow your account.”

“You do?”

“Of course!” he says.

We are winding up the hills at this point and I am feeling a little motion sick.

“Pull over,” I say.

He pulls up behind a Porsche. The hill is so steep that his car is basically vertical. Thomas puts on the parking brake.

“Okay,” I say. “I’m going to give you a quiz.”

“Hit me,” Thomas says.

“If you pass,” I say, “we will tell Stella Shadid that you are my associate.”

“Deal,” Thomas says.

“Okay,” I say. A breeze rushes through the car and it smells like the ocean. I breathe deep and relish the respite from the exhaust-y scents of Thai Town. “What sign is associated with twins?”

Thomas raises his eyebrows. “Come on,” he says. “Too easy.”

“Answer the question.”

“Gemini.”

“Okay, you got the softball.” I pause and think. “A baby is born on April twenty-ninth. What sign is it?”