“You little fucker! I thought you were dead!” she yelled, then sucked her teeth as I sat there cheesing. Acting like she was so pissed she wanted to snatch me right through the screen was my best friend’s love language.

I wasn’t stupid enough to say it, though. So I teased her instead. “I love you too, Luce.”

That got me an epic eye roll. “Would it have killed you to send a two-word text? ‘I’m fucking alive’ would’ve worked.”

“Uh, that’s three words, genius,” I said, certain that would just set her off on another rant about how I was going to be the death of her.

God, it was good to see her face.

From where she was sitting I could see the back of her leather couch, which she’d saved for like, six months to buy. Behind her were rows and rows of books in white bookshelves. Her curls were an unruly mess, and she was wearing a T-shirt that said Flexin’ in my Complexion. I could see her Kindle and a huge cup of coffee, probably decaf, sitting in front on the table.

Luce and I had met the first day of ninth grade the fall after my dad died. After he passed away my mom decided to move to Ithaca in Upstate New York, where my dad’s parents lived. We’d always been close to them, and back then she needed the support.

Lucía’s family lived just two streets away from us. We were both only children, and hung onto each other for dear life through everything. Her parents were also one of the few Dominican families in Ithaca, which sealed the friendship between us. We both stayed in town for college, but after graduation Luce went to Seattle to get her master’s in nursing and later settled in New York City. In the four years since we’d finished college, I’d used DC as my home base, though I was barely there. After years of living so far apart, these Skype sessions were old hat for us.

Lucía was my best friend and I loved her, but she never, ever sugarcoated the truth. Which made me reluctant to share my instant fixation on Elias. I was kind of embarrassed, because I’d known the man for a day. I had no idea what kind of person he was, and I had basically turned into a cliché.

“Ayo!” I jumped, startled by Lucía’s voice. I must have been doing my “in my feelings face” as she called it, because she tilted her head and stared at me with a frown before asking, “You call me and then just sit there in silence. Did something happen? Are things not working out with the job?”