“Agreed.” Hannah nods. “My vote is for no genital pimples.”

“Same. I am dissolving the summoning circle as we speak.”

“No, wait, no dissolving, I—” I scrub my eyes with the heels of my hands. “Whose side are you guys even on?”

“Yours, Sadie.”

“Unlike you,” Hannah adds.

“I— What does that even mean?”

They exchange a look. I know we’re on a Zoom call and it’s technically impossible for them to exchange a look, but they are exchanging a damn look. I can feel it. “Well,” Hannah says, “here’s the deal. You meet this guy. And you boink him. And it’s really good boinking—yay. The day after, you find out that he’s a dick, which sends you on a three-week downward curlicue of tears and Talenti gelato that’s about twelve times more intense than the time you broke up with a dude you’d been dating for years. But then you find out that it was all a misunderstanding, that things might be fixable, and . . . you leave? You said he wanted to talk more, and it’s obvious that you’re interested in hearing what he’s saying. So why did you leave, Sadie?”

I stare at Hannah’s implacable, matter-of-fact, kind eyes, which go very well with her implacable, matter-of-fact, kind voice, and mutter: “I liked it better when you were in Lapland.”

She grins. “I did, too, which is why I’m trying to get back there—but let us return to discussing your terrible communication skills.”

“They’re not that bad.”

“Eh. They kind of are,” Mara says.

I glare at Mara, too. I’m an equal-opportunity glarer. “You know what? I will accept that my communication skills are poor, but I refuse to be shamed by someone who’s on the verge of going ring shopping with the dude she once nearly called the cops on because he left a CVS receipt in the dryer.”

“Pfft, they’re not going ring shopping.” Hannah waves her hand dismissively. “I bet she’s going to get some kind of family heirloom.”

“Doesn’t he have older brothers?” I ask. “They probably already ran out of heirlooms four weddings ago.”

“Oh yeah. Maybe there will be some shopping. You think he’s going to call us from some D.C. mall’s Claire’s asking us which ring Mara would prefer?”

“Oh my God, you know what? Last week I read somewhere that Costco sells engagement rings— Oh, hi, Liam.”

Mara’s boyfriend enters the screen and comes to stand right behind her. In the past few weeks he’s become a sort of informal fourth in our calls—an occasional guest star, if you will, who mines for embarrassing grad school stories about Mara and kindly offers to murder our asshole male colleagues when we complain. Considering that our first introduction to him was Mara plotting to booby-trap his bathroom, it’s surprisingly fun to have him around.

“Really, guys?” he asks, all frowny and dark and cross-armed. “Claire’s? Costco?”

Hannah and I both gasp. “Costco is amazing.”

“Yeah, Liam. What do you have against Costco?”