“Well, that’s okay,” she says, shrugging. “There’ll be other auditions. Besides, I got something that’ll cheer you up.”

She lifts her free hand to show me her phone screen. The words lottery and Hamilton jump out at me.

“No way.” I stop suddenly, so that the people who were walking behind us nearly bump into me. I take the phone from her just to make sure the email is real, and sure enough—Hamilton, orchestra seats, eight o’clock tomorrow. “How? I mean… how?”

“We won the lottery!” she yells, making a few people turn to look at us. From the way she’s smiling, they might be thinking we won the actual lottery, but we may as well have. Kimmie, Adam, and I have been trying to get tickets for years. We’ve lost the Hamilton lottery so many times that we agreed to stop talking about it until one of us had good news.

Before she can say anything else, we hear Adam’s voice coming from behind. “Hey!”

We turn around to see him swerving his way toward us. He’s incredibly tall, so that his head sticks out above everyone else. He has dirty blond hair and the biggest smile you have ever seen, and when I meet his eyes, his entire face lights up.

“Did you tell him about the tickets?” he asks Kimmie as soon as he catches up to us. He’s always carried a bright energy everywhere he goes, but today it seems to be shining brighter than ever.

“I just did!”

“Wait a second,” I say, remembering something. Whenever we’ve won lottery tickets for a show, we’ve had to make the same tough decision about who gets to go. Whoever wins obviously keeps one of the tickets, but the second has to go to whichever one of us is most excited to see that particular show, or whoever didn’t get to go the previous time. For Hamilton, though, I know this decision is gonna end up being painful. “How are we gonna figure out who goes?”

“That’s the thing,” Kimmie says, her face falling. “My aunt and uncle are in town for the weekend, so I have this family dinner tomorrow that I can’t miss. The two of you can go.”

“Are you sure? Kimmie, you—”

“I’ll just meet you guys after the show. You two are way bigger Hamilton fans than I am anyway.”

For a moment, I almost argue. I’m about to tell her that there’s something she must be able to do—that she can’t just give up her ticket—but in the end I stop myself, because I want to see Hamilton so freaking bad.

“So?” Adam asks me, lifting his eyebrows. “Are you coming?”