“What the fuck.” Jake stumbles backward, hands flying to his soaked shirt.

“So sorry. I didn’t see you,” Henry says at once, making a good show of looking guilty. A few drops of coffee splattered onto him too, and as I watch, he slowly wipes his cheek clean with a faint grimace. “I could get you a new shirt if—”

Jake shakes his head, though he still looks pretty pissed. “Nah, whatever, man. I just need to go wash this shit off.”

With that, he disappears back into his room, snaps something that sounds like, “Peter, my man, could you please stop rapping for one goddamn second?” and reemerges with a towel draped over his shoulder and an expression that screams murder.

As he storms off to the bathroom, Chanel makes her move.

When I’d asked Chanel on our way here how, exactly, she planned to get Peter out of his room, she’d simply winked and replied in a matter-of-fact tone, “My feminine charms, of course.”

I’d thought she was joking.

But as I follow her into Jake and Peter’s room, she makes a straight beeline for him, hips swaying to the beat of the bass, and calls, her voice almost a coo, “Peter! I’ve been looking for you.”

The bass stops. Peter jerks his head up from what looks like a miniature recording studio in his corner of the room, complete with a keyboard and microphone and everything. “Uh...Chanel?” He blinks at her. Puts a self-conscious hand over his Star Wars pajamas, as if he can somehow block them from view.

“Sorry, I’m not interrupting anything, am I?” Chanel asks, her eyes wide. She steps closer to Peter, until there are only a few inches of space left between them. “I just really needed to find you.”

Peter lets out a nervous laugh. “Okay... Uh, why though?”

“Oh my god. Why do you think?” Chanel says with a coy smile, like they’re sharing an inside joke. She swats his shoulder, but leaves her hand there, her fingers curling slightly over the fabric.

“You...want to borrow something?” Peter attempts, his eyes darting back and forth between Chanel’s hand and her face.

And even though he’s barely said anything of substance, Chanel breaks into giggles as if he’s just told the funniest joke in the world. “No, you idiot,” she says affectionately. “My dad’s thinking of hiring some new DJs for his nightclub, and he wants me to help him pick. But then it just hit me that like, we have a freaking expert right in our year level.”

“Oh,” Peter says. Then Chanel’s words seem to actually register; his face flushes. “Oh. I mean—I wouldn’t call myself an expert, but—”

“Come on, you don’t have to be modest with me.” Chanel leans in closer, long lashes lowered, and I don’t know whether to laugh or cringe or applaud her commitment. “You’re talented as hell, and you know it. Everyone knows it.”

Peter just turns redder.

Suddenly, Chanel pulls away. Places a hand on her hip and studies him. “So you’ll do it with me?”