“He’s the top ghostwriter for Tell It to My Heart. I thought you knew that? He and I both worked there before Clifford took off and stole the rules of engagement. The handbook Miles wrote.” She chuckles.

The words I need to say are lodged in my throat. “Do you have any idea if he, by any chance, put together a walking tour for a client recently, or anything”—I cough frantically—“of that nature?”

“Yeah, he put a lot of thought into it. I’ve never seen him so invested in a client before. He scripted out a whole intricate thing and had his client record it, which was kind of amazing because the client has a Scottish accent.”

My phone slips out of my hands.

Her voice calls out, “Zoey?”

Instead of squatting and picking up the phone like a functioning human would, I opt to join it where it fell. Boneless, my body drops down and I ooze like a slug toward it, my cheek mushed against the hardwood floor.

“Okay thanks, talk soon, bye,” I mumble in the general direction of the phone.

This can’t be happening.

Miles is Jude. JUDE IS MILES.

Our late-night chats come rushing over me, swirling around my brain as I remember how they made me feel: like a teenager with a crush. How the ding of new messages from him made my heart beat faster. How cared about the walking tour made me feel; STILL makes me feel. Even though it was never meant for me.

This whole time it was Miles’s words in Jude’s voice. Or was it Miles’s voice with Jude’s face? I’m so confused.

Miles can’t be Jude. Because that would mean . . .

Okay, calm down. Let’s go about this rationally. I need to prove it beyond a reasonable doubt. (Prove it where, Zoey, in the Court of Love?) Before I can think through the consequences of what I’m doing, or what kind of domino effect it might create, I log in to the chat service I last used with Jude. Or rather, “Jude.”

“Thinking of you,” I type, fingers tripping over each other. I attach a sound file, and press send.

My first choice was “California Dreamin’ ” by the Mamas & the Papas, followed by Katy Perry’s “California Gurls,” but both of them feel too on the nose. Eventually I settle on the Beatles’ “Drive My Car.” Fuck you, Miles! LA eats NY!

I stand on shaky legs, move to our shared wall, and push my ear against it. A moment later, I hear the telltale burst of music. Beep beep, beep beep yeah.

It’s all too much. In a sense, I kissed Jude! Jude’s brain, anyway. But I also kissed Miles and now they’re one and the same! What does this mean for our friendship, er, enemyship?