“A flower,” she says, dead serious, as if I’m the strange one for being confused about what that malformed blob is supposed to be.

I snicker. “No it’s not.”

“Since when are you an art critic?” she says, rolling her eyes.

My snickering turns into a full-on cackle. “Oh my god, I’ve discovered the one thing you’re bad at! I’m documenting this moment,” I say, pulling out my phone to take a picture.

Her thick eyebrows beetle together. “It’s obviously a flower.” I sense a small magical shift, and a light floral scent wafts off the paper. “See, it even smells like one.”

“It doesn’t look like one, though,” I say, busily snapping photos.

“Okay,” she says, laughing. “My favorite enemy is bullying me, so I’m going to leave.” She closes the notebook and gets up. Before she goes, she pauses for a moment, then leans over me with her arms crossed. My heart stutters for a second.

This isn’t a good moment to notice this, and I wish I could erase the thought once it occurs to me, but Ana is . . . gorgeous. My eyes stick on her lips as they curve into a tiny grin. Of course I always knew she was good-looking. The perfect hair, the adorable dimple, the subtle shine in her brown eyes when she’s amused at something I’ve said—I’ve seen all those things. But it’s one thing to know it factually, and another thing completely to be thinking about it while looking at her distressingly attractive face.

“For the record,” she says, and I have to mentally shake myself to pay attention. “I’m bad at plenty of things.”

With that, she turns on her heel and leaves. I start breathing again. “Want to tell me what they are?” I call after her.

“Nope!” she says, not turning around. Then she goes onstage to stretch before rehearsal starts.

I pointedly don’t watch her, since my brain has betrayed me by forcing this awareness of Ana’s hotness on me. Instead, I text Lex a photo of Ana’s drawing.

SHAY: I’ve found Ana’s weakness

LEX: lol what is that?

SHAY: exactly!!!!

Rehearsal starts soon after that. Brittany—ugh—is reviewing and cleaning the big dance numbers with us today. We start with “The Block Party.” As per usual, I manhandle Kevin through all of our parts together so we don’t get off the beat.

“Stop trying to lead, Shay,” Brittany calls out during our first run-through.