“It wasn’t my idea,” I said. “Phoebe and Oliver were going, and they invited me along.”

“Wait, you didn’t just go to the Dropped Acorn without me, but you went with the dick from Power Jam?”

“Oliver’s actually very nice,” I said.

“It’s not Blade’s fault he’s a dick,” Ros said, taking another big bite of their toast. “His character has a very difficult home life.”

“Yeah, I bet Old Fish Eyes is being nice to you, Celia,” Touchstone said, with a waggle of his eyebrows. “He’s just trying to get into your pants.”

“Whoa! That is so not what’s happening,” I said, though my eyes flicked over to Ros to see if they’d reacted at all to the suggestion that someone else might be showing a shred of interest in me. Unfortunately, they were still hoovering toast, unmoved by Touch’s suggestion. “Look, we’ll go to the Dropped Acorn again; I promise. It’s delicious. My point was that guess who I ran into there.”

“You certainly didn’t run into me, because I was waiting to go with you,” Touch said.

“Ros? Any guesses?”

“Um… I don’t know. Mr. Greeb,” said Ros.

“Our history teacher?”

“Do you know another Mr. Greeb?”

“It wasn’t Mr. Greeb. Guess again.”

“I don’t know, Celia. Virginia Woolf.”

“She’s dead.”

“Just tell me who you ran into!”

“Jess! I ran into Jess Orlando.”

It wasn’t how I intended the conversation to go, but I watched Ros receive this news. They didn’t look caught. They didn’t look guilty. They looked relieved, almost excited. Like I’d opened a door to a room they weren’t allowed in and told them, It’s now fair game.

“Oh, good,” Ros said. “Did you say hi?”

“I did say hi,” I said.

“I still would like to meet this person officially,” Touchstone said. “We’ve talked about her so much it doesn’t seem right that I haven’t.”

“Come visit us at the shop,” said Ros.

“She showed me the bouquet you’d built. It was really pretty.” I waited a beat, to see if Ros would bring up the glaringly obvious fact of their chain around Jess’s neck. When they did no such thing, I took matters into my own hands: “She looked like she was wearing your necklace,” I said.

If Ros hadn’t had any reaction to my running into Jess Orlando, I thought at least they would have a reaction to this. But instead they took the last bite of their toast and took time to chew thoroughly. I felt them turn the slightest bit cool, like they didn’t like what I had told them, and when they finally spoke, I was flummoxed by the brevity of their response.

“So?” they said.

So? So?