“Sorry, having kind of a serious talk here.” I don’t know what to say, but then she changes tack quickly, taking a big breath and blowing out her cheeks. “So!” she says brightly, “Everything good? Other classes at school treating you all right?” She follows me down a few stairs to the front door. What is going on?

“Oh yeah. A-okay.”

“You been hanging out with that Paige and her girl-boss Breanne, too?” Rhonda looks back toward the kitchen distractedly.

“What? Oh, ha. Yeah, a little, I guess.”

“Yeah, they’ve been coming around here to see Lottie. Well, Paige comes, mostly.”

“Oh yeah?” I put on my shoes and feel my face flush with jealousy, but I’m not even sure of whom. My house is so close, but Paige has never come by, and I am surprised that Lottie’s been having Paige over without me. My thoughts are interrupted by Rhonda’s chatter.

“Are they good people? I mean—are they ‘our people,’ Stevie?” She laughs. “I don’t want you or Lottie running with a bad crew.”

Rhonda has always treated me like one of the family, so of course she’s looking out for me. These parents are like better versions of my own, and Lottie has always been like my sister. For good or bad, up and down, we’ve just always been together. Our parents are friendly, if not friends, and for our whole lives they’ve driven or walked us together to sleepovers and dentist appointments, to movies and parks. I have gone stretches of having dinner at Lottie’s house more than my own, and when my dad left two years ago, Rhonda and Lottie doted on me like I’d lost a limb.

A couple of months ago we were all playing a semiregular round of Settlers of Catan—Rhonda, Jacob, Lottie, and me—and Lottie and I teamed up to beat them, using whispered strategies and hard-won tactics. Rhonda threw up her cards in defeat and said, “You beat us again! God, you’re thick as thieves! Jacob, hide the valuables; I think they’re old enough to perform a coup.”

Lottie fist-bumped me and said, “Slinky.”

“Rex,” I said, both of us referring to our nicknames that had originated after our first viewing of Toy Story as kids.

Jacob started to disassemble the board and said, “I have seen our future, Rhonda, and it is bleak and involves us working for these two.”

That feels like a long time ago now.

Are they good people? Rhonda just asked.

I look up and say, “Yeah, they’re cool.”

“Yeah,” she says, almost to herself, “that’s what I’m afraid of.” She looks at me closely and cocks her head. “You okay, short stuff?”

Rhonda and her goddamn sixth sense.